En este nuevo informe de la Unión Nacional de Agricultores (NFU) se concluye dice que sin leyes/medidas que apoyan los medios para una vida digna de los agricultores, Canadá podrían perder su próxima generación de agricultores.
Una situación similar se puede producir en España:
"La NFU lanzado una actualización 2015 de su informe de 2010 sobre las tierras agrícolas. visión corporativa, la deuda agrícola y la financiación....
El nuevo informe, llamado "Losing Grip Nuestro - 2015 Update," reseña a un creciente control corporativo de las tierras agrícolas y la aceleración de la deuda agrícola, ahora cerca de los $ 80 mil millones".
NFU dice a los jóvenes agricultores no sólo tienen que competir con los fondos de pensiones y otros grandes inversores institucionales en el mercado de la tierra, también se enfrentan a cargas enormes de deuda de por vida para pagar por la tierra y el equipo.
"Sabemos que la tierra es la base de nuestra cultura y la estructura social, y aquí en la Isla Prince Edward, hemos sido capaces de limitar la cantidad de tierras de propiedad de grandes empresas canadienses y off-shore cazadores de gangas", dice.
"Hemos tenido que hacer retroceder contra las corporaciones para proteger nuestra tierra, pero el hecho de que tenemos una buena ley de protección de tierras ahora demuestra que se puede hacer.
"Presidente NFU Jan Slomp dice que los canadienses quieren los agricultores familiares para producir sus alimentos y tienen autonomía para hacerlo de una manera que apoye sus comunidades y se encarga de la tierra para las generaciones futuras.
"Sin una mejor política agrícola y sin las leyes prácticas, los terratenientes absentistas que solo buscan tener la máxima rentabilidad posible, y los accionistas de fondo de inversión tendrán la última palabra", dice Slomp.
"El trabajo de la agricultura se llevará a cabo por los empleados o los agricultores se verán obligados a arrendar tierras por una baja remuneración, por lo que será difícil para ellos para hacer inversiones a largo plazo para el cuidado de la tierra."
Accesos al Informe Losing Our Grip 2015
Attachment Size Farm Debt Graph.jpg 115.91 KB Losing Our Grip - 2015 Update_med.pdf 1.49 MB Losing Our Grip - 2015 Update_cover.jpg 140.6 KB Losing Our Grip - 2015 input financing.jpg 27.79 KB Executive Summary - Final.pdf 670.32 KB
Losing Our Grip - 2015 Update (Resumen)
Erosion of farmer autonomy and land ownership in Canada
In 2010 the National Farmers Union published a major report called “Losing
Our Grip: How Corporate Farmland Buy-up, Rising Farm Debt, and
Agribusiness Financing of Inputs Threaten Family Farms and Food
Sovereignty”. With our 2015 update, we are revisiting that report to see how the situation has changed.
Read the full Losing Our Grip - 2015 Update report
Download a PDF of the Executive Summary
|
Executive Summary:
A recent Agriculture and Agrifood Canada survey
confirmed that Canadians want and expect farmland to be owned and
worked by the local farm families, individual farmers, producer co-ops
and intentional communities who farm the land. But this system is under
serious threat by corporations and investors –including some of our own pension funds – that are seeking greater control over Canada’s agriculture and a bigger share of the wealth that farmers produce.
As in 2010, the issue today is not only a matter of who owns the
farmland, but of farmer autonomy and control. The men and women who
produce our food need to have a stable, resilient economic base that
will allow them to make good long-term decisions for their farms, our
food system and our environment. When farmers are in a position to make
long-term decisions they can put sustainability of ecosystems ahead of
immediate revenues. Long-term thinking is also concerned with
community-building, which enriches Canada’s diverse land-based cultures.
It provides both the ability and the motivation to retain the knowledge
and skills of farming in the next generation. Long-term thinking also
deals with protecting the land, water and atmosphere for future
generations by acting now to slow down and reverse climate change.
Land grabbing - the International Context
The food and financial crises of 2008 gave rise to international
land-grabbing, with governments buying up farmland abroad to ensure
future food supplies for their own populations and private investors
buying farmland as a stable investment in the face of financial crises
and food insecurity. Since 2010, pension funds have started to invest in
farmland and now US pension fund manager, TIAA-CREF, is one of the world’s largest institutional owners of farmland.
Canadian farmland targeted by investors
Canadian farmland is attractive to investors looking to protect
their wealth in the context of low interest rates worldwide, reduced
rates of economic growth, increasing political unrest and apparent
instability of the global financial system. As the world population
grows and climate instability increases, these investors expect Canadian
land and commodity prices to rise due to shortages.
Canadian farmland values
have risen dramatically since 2008. Average values of land and
buildings range from $881 per acre in Saskatchewan to $8,417 per acre in
Ontario, up from $453 per acre in Saskatchewan and $4,593 per acre in
Ontario. The weighted-average price of Canadian farmland and buildings
was $2,227 in 2013 compared to $1,394 in 2008.
Between 2006 and 2011, Canada farmland has decreased by 7 million
acres, or about 4%, to about 160 million acres. More than 300,000 acres
of Class 1, 2 and 3 land disappeared from the prime growing areas
bordered by Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario in the south and along the St.
Lawrence River to Québec City. The loss of this farmland, which is
capable of growing a wide variety of crops, undermines Canada’s capacity
for food sovereignty. Farmland destruction due to industrial and urban
development heightens concerns regarding the shift in ownership of
Canada’s remaining farmland away from farm families and towards
investment companies.
Increasing consolidation of land holdings via farmland investment funds and corporate ownership
This report updates the profiles of several companies that have
been involved in farmland investment since 2010, including Bonnefield
Financial, Assiniboia Capital, Agcapita, Walton International and
AGInvest Canada. All raise money for land acquisition by using Limited
Partnership (LP) structures to sell higher risk, time-limited shares
which can onlybe sold only to “accredited investors” – such as wealthy
individuals and managers of financial institutions, pension funds,
government agencies and mutual funds. Land assembled into large parcels
by investment companies becomes unaffordable to all but the very wealthy
and institutional investors such as pension funds. Farmland investment
companies are shifting Canadian farmland ownership from actual farmers
to a new class of absentee landlords.
This report also revisits a number of corporate investors such as
Nilsson Bros. Inc, One Earth Farms and Broadacre, which in 2010 were
acquiring large tracts of land for investment purposes and/or as part of
their corporate growth strategy seeking economies of scale, market
domination and vertical integration. Most have failed to meet their
original expectations, apparently because they could not manage the
risks and complexities involved in their business models.
Provincial farmland ownership laws
In 2010, the NFU recommended Canada and its provinces enact
farmland ownership restrictions to ensure that land is owned by
residents of the province. Since then, we have seen some improvements in
Quebec and PEI, and a major setback in BC, while laws remain the same
in the other provinces. Saskatchewan is considering a review of its law
in light of public concern about investment company purchases.
Farm Debt
Farmer’s
control over the land they farm is also being eroded by the rapid
increase in farm debt. Total farm debt rose from $64 billion in 2010 to
$78 billion by mid-2013. Low interest rates, a short period of better
crop prices and higher land values creates an environment conducive to
increased borrowing by/lending to farmers, particularly when land can be
used for security. Yet, as the market value of a farmer’s land assets
increase, each acre does not automatically produce more income. Lenders
benefit both from rising land prices that allow them to write bigger
loans and from the cost-price squeeze that induces farmers to borrow to
increase production in hope that higher volume will compensate for
narrower margins.The extended farm income crisis means the demand for
credit continues to grow at such a rate that, even with record low
interest rates, the total dollars lent out to farmers and the average
annual amount of interest farmers are paying continue to rise. If
interest rates rise significantly, many farmers will be unable to meet
their debt obligations.
The federal government supports farmer borrowing via Farm Credit
Corporation (FCC) and via the Advance Payments Program.In 2001 FCC’s
mandate was changed, allowing it to lend to farm-related businesses that
are not majority farmer-owned. Changes to the Advance Payments Program
enacted via the Agriculture Growth Act omnibus bill will promote even
more farm debt. While cash-strapped farmers may welcome easier access
to operating loans, the new rules allow farmland investment companies to
use the program. By making it a multi-year program, the door is opened
to requiring other forms of collateral (to be defined in
as-yet-unwritten regulations) instead of marketable inventory on hand.
It is likely that security requirements will expand to include land,
buildings and equipment not susceptible to unpredictable production
risks. If, or when, interest rates increase and/or crop failure occurs,
these productive assets could be vulnerable to repossession.
Input Financing
Farm
debt owed to private individuals and supply companies increased from
approximately $7.5 billion in 2010 to $8.3 billion in 2013. Farmers lose
autonomy when the size of loan payments and the conditions placed on
loans constrain choices regarding how the farm is run. The integration
of farm input suppliers with grain companies further diminishes
farmers' independence. Debt pressure is also creating an environment for
new types of lenders, such as largely unregulated “input streaming”
that offers up-front money in return for several years of future crops
at a fixed low price. This type of business is both an investment
vehicle selling to investors what amounts to a financial derivative
based on canola prices and a virtually unregulated type of private
high-risk financing that is marketed to farmers as a source of money for
inputs and other operational purchases.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Escalation of farm debt, the necessity for off-farm employment to
supplement or replace inadequate farm income for most farm families, and
an erosion of the farm population as potential young farmers look
elsewhere to earn their livelihood, are some of the outcomes of
agriculture policy focused on increasing commodity exports.
International trade agreements make it easier for corporations to source
food ingredients globally from the cheapest sources, while forcing
farmers into a downward spiral of ever lower prices. The destruction of
orderly marketing institutions such as the single desk Canadian Wheat
Board and the provincial hog marketing boards put farmers at a
disadvantage when selling their products.The Agricultural Growth Act’s
amendments to Plant Breeders’ Rights legislation will increase
production costs as new exclusive rights granted to seed companies
enable them to charge higher prices for seed and increase their ability
to collect royalties. The net result of these policy decisions is that
an ever-increasing portion of the wealth created by farmers is captured
by others, while farmers shoulder ever higher debt loads just to stay in
business.
Canadian farmers risk losing the very land needed to produce our
food. Younger farmers cannot afford to buy land and many are reluctant
to take on the risks of high debt loads. Many older farmers cannot
afford to retire unless they can pay off debts by selling their land.
Globally, state-owned sovereign wealth funds seek productive farmland
outside of their borders to produce food for their own populations,
while private investors seek to buy farmland as a safe way to store
their wealth and obtain rent income as they wait for food price
increases they expect to result from the twin pressures of climate
instability and population growth.
The current policy environment systematically pushes farmers out of
business by promoting unaffordable land prices, ever-higher farm debt
loads, and the concentration of land ownership in fewer hands. With an
agricultural model that requires fewer farmers, there is less space for
new farmers to occupy. Handing land, skills and knowledge from one
generation to the next – an age-old cultural process – is being replaced
with a system of financial transactions – a commercial process -- that
shifts control over land to absentee landlords, investors and lenders
and shifts the work of farming to tenants and/or transient, seasonal
workers.
The NFU strongly recommends that Canada and its provinces and
territories develop policies, programs, laws and regulations concerning
land ownership, protection of farmland for agricultural use, farm
financing and farm debt that will promote farmer autonomy and land
ownership in the hands of producers. We see these measures as necessary
steps to move this country towards food sovereignty.
The Declaration of Nyéléni, proclaimed by the world-wide organization of small farmers, La Via Campesina, defines food sovereignty as follows:
- Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.
- Food sovereignty defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation.
- Food sovereignty offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers.
- Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal - fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability.
- Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition.
- Food sovereignty ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food.
- Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations.
Recommendations:
1. Canada and its provinces must enact a unified set of land ownership restrictions
wherein farmland can be owned only by individuals who reside in the
province in which the land is located, or by incorporated farming
operations (including co-operatives) owned by individuals who reside in
the province in which the land is located.
2. Provincial governments should monitor foreign and domestic ownership and control of farmland
within its boundaries and publicly report changes annually. Provinces
should also consider legislating appropriate maximum size of land
holdings per individual, per incorporated family or cooperative farm and
per corporation as has been enacted in Prince Edward Island.
3. Differential taxation rates should encourage ownership by farm families
and other local citizens and discourage investors and large
corporations from buying and owning farmland. Farmers and other local
residents should be charged lower tax rates than investors, foreign
interests, non-farm corporations, and large farming corporations with
numerous shareholders, should be taxed at higher rates. Investments in
farmland investment companies should not be RRSP eligible.
4. Governments should provide incentives and support for land stewardship practices
that maintain the land’s productivity for the long term along, and
corresponding penalties for using farming practices designed to extract
maximum rents in the short term at the expense of soil health,
biodiversity, water quality and other environmental benefits.
5. The Government of Canada and the provinces must set up mechanisms for farm family intergenerational land transfers that do not rely on loans and interest payments.
Governments must find ways for young and new farmers to gain secure
access to farmland that does not require massive indebtedness. Such
mechanisms could include:
a. Community-owned land trusts and land banks to ensure food production by local farmers
b. Community-based financing options (that retain interest-payment dollars within local communities).
c. Government agencies that
support seller-finance options. (Sellers and buyers could self-finance,
and the role of the government agency would be to step in to address
rare instances when transactions go bad and there is a need to return
the land to the seller.)
d. An income-assurance plan for
beginning farmers to assist them in becoming established and support
their long-term success.
e. A retirement savings program or
pension plan specifically designed for farmers that would reduce their
need to rely on selling land to fund their retirement.
6. Transferring farmland to non-agricultural uses must be restricted and curtailed.
Industrial or residential development on Class 1, 2 or 3 farmland
should be prohibited. All provinces should enact legislation to protect
their farmland using the laws of BC, PEI and Quebec as a starting point
to improve and expand farmland protection across Canada.
7. Farm input suppliers must be banned from tying input financing to delivery contracts.
8. Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial governments must acknowledge governments’ role in creating the debt crisis
through policies and legislation that allow corporations to externalize
costs to farmers. They must deal with the debt bomb that has been
planted under the base of our farming system by:
a. Preparing an honest and factual analysis of farm debt and net farm income
b. Designing effective and targeted
farm support programs that allow farmers to gain short-term stability
and allow them to manage an increasingly unmanageable debt load; and by
ensuring that only active farmers – not farmland investment companies –
have access to such farm support programs.
c. Reducing the cap on farm
support programs so that public funding will encourage small and
medium-sized farms that provide multiple social, environmental and
economic benefits to rural communities.
d. Responding honestly and
effectively to the farm income crisis and the imbalance of market power
that is at the root of that crisis so that farm families can emerge from
chronic financial hardship and earn farm-sustaining incomes from the
marketplace; and
e. Direct Farm Credit Corporation
lending to provide more support to small and medium sized farms that
produce food for domestic consumption. FCC should be prohibited from
lending to farmland investment companies or to large export-oriented
food processing companies.
.jpg)
