The 2017 Farmland Values Report by Farm Credit Canada shows that values across the country increased over the year by 8.4 per cent on average. While every province showed an increase in farmland value (other than Newfoundland, where too few publicly reported transactions occurred for an assessment), several provinces fell well short of that average, including British Columbia, Manitoba, PEI, and New Brunswick. FCC Appraiser Patrick Doohan says that NB’s 5.8 per cent rate of increase is due to issues in the province’s blueberry industry.
“The area of what we call Northern New Brunswick, which is mostly wild blueberry growing area, the Acadian Peninsula in particular, saw a 15.6 per cent decrease in their farmland value in 2017,” says Doohan. “So that impacted the whole average for the province.”
New Brunswick’s blueberry industry has struggled for some time. In 2016, as NB was on track to become the world’s largest producer of wild blueberries, prices crashed to as low as 20 cents per pound (compared to around a dollar per pound a few years previous). Then, in 2017, blueberry yields were roughly 30 million pounds less than the previous year as a result of the driest season in 20 years.
“They’ve had five consecutive years of lowering prices,” says Doohan. “It’s at the point where cost of production is getting to be an issue versus the prices that are being paid for wild blueberries.”
Western New Brunswick, generally potato-focused, saw an increase of 4.1 per cent and Southern New Brunswick, primarily dairy, saw a 13.9 per cent increase.
The number of small farms in the province is on the upswing, however, with farms less than 10 acres increasing by seven per cent from 2011 to 2016. Doohan says these farms often possess an agility that larger more specialized farms don’t and are better able to diversify their offerings based on market conditions. They are also often located closer to urban markets and will have better access to farmer’s markets and direct sales to consumers.
Rébeka Frazer-Chiasson, president of the National Farmers Union in New Brunswick, says that she is happy with that lower rate of increase in value — it means fewer barriers for potential new farmers in the province.
“There’s definitely an opportunity as it stands now in New Brunswick to attract people from elsewhere in Canada, not just New Brunswickers who want to farm, but people who don’t have access to affordable land in their home province,” says Frazer-Chiasson. “That’s a huge benefit in terms of our own food security and food sovereignty in New Brunswick, and creating better access for communities to local food.”