Alberta matchmaking program could help young farmers find land, not love

A networking organization for young farmers is trying to connect them with people who have land to spare in Alberta.

Young Agrarians, an organization that helps new farmers share knowledge, plans to replicate its successful B.C. land-sharing program in Alberta, matching veteran farmers with upstarts who cannot afford land of their own.

Partnering with local counties near Edmonton, the group has been holding workshops on land-linking and it published a land access guide earlier this year.

The most recent workshops drew dozens of aspiring farmers who live in cities, veteran farmers and new Canadians with farming experience in their home countries.

The organization is trying to close the gap between land-seekers and landholders, making it easier for both groups to find each other and make mutually beneficial land agreements, whether they are leasing arrangements, cooperatives or community farms.

"It's kind of like dating," said Melisa Zapisocky, who was hired as Young Agrarians' Alberta land access coordinator this fall. 

Though Young Agrarians is keen to play matchmaker, they will leave arranging agreements and contracts to lawyers and other professionals.

Zapisocky said recent statistics illustrate a "great land shift" is underway in Canada.

According to the 2016 Statistics Canada Census of Agriculture, the average age of Canadian farmers was 55 and most did not have a succession plan.

Some young or aspiring farmers are eager to enter the industry, but cannot afford land, which has become more expensive. Statistics Canada's census showed the value of land in Alberta increased 27 per cent from 2011 to 2016.

"So we have these three pieces of aging farmers, fewer people farming because farms have gotten bigger and the new generation of people that are really excited and interested in farming," Zapisocky said.

Land-sharing agreements could benefit Violet Bretin, who has a 75-acre farm in Leduc County.

She and her late-husband, Vern, started running Bio-Way Gardens in 1983, growing vegetables, fruit and flowers, which they sold at local farmers' markets.

Bretin, a spry 91-year-old woman, is not finished with farming — she plans to plant strawberries, peas, carrots, cabbage, beets, beans, corn and cucumbers next year, as well as tend to her gardens —  but she wants to share two-acre parcels of land with young people.