What's it Worth?

​Pullover, grab the camera and sit for a minute contemplating whether to shut the truck off or not...  This seems to be a regular practice now, when I visit PEI.  Rather than stopping at tourist attractions I stop on random back roads and take pictures of farmland.  I think I need a bumper sticker for those instant stops when I see an old tractor in a field.  Sometimes I even drive in my running clothes, park and run along different roads far from where the cottage is, just for new scenery.   
Often, I wonder who owns the land, take a close look at what they are farming and wonder what that land is worth to them.  Is it owned from someone out of country?  Is it leased?  Where else does this farmer farm land on the province?  Is it a family farm?  Sometimes I can answer my own wonderings, but other times they just simply linger unanswered.    

As I take in the beauty, I think how odd it is that land prices in PEI are so much lower than land prices in Ontario or British Columbia.  The variance in prices astounds me.  I understand location, type of land, and what the land is best suited for is key, but it really does seem unfair.    

While visiting a couple weeks ago, I walked along the beach for hours with a new friend that I have made in PEI.  We mostly talked about farming, investments and teaching, but at one moment she said to me “Our land isn’t worth what it should be, which isn’t encouraging when we want to sell a portion of it.”  Her husband farms full-time cash crop and refuses to go lower than what he feels it is worth.  I felt a bit sad for her in that moment.  Although she wasn’t making me feel that way or complaining in any manner, but I understood her and considered the many reasons why the value is so different country-wide. 

While some friends from Junior Farmers were spending a week there, one evening we looked up different farms for sale (because that is what farmers do for fun – enjoy some beers and talk about farm land!).  We had driven by many For Sale signs throughout the days and curiosity can take over.  We casually perused PEI real estate and looked at farms of various commodities.  The majority of farm land lots and full-fledged farms with house and outbuildings were more than half the price less than a comparable farm in Ontario.  Give or take a bit, prices vary from $1000 to $60, 000 per acre for farm land, across the country.  Wow!  All provincial farmland prices increased on average in 2015, but some much more than others.  Farm Credit Canada reports regularly on the regional variations and country wide.  Farmland increased on average last year from 2.5% to 12.5%, with New Brunswick being the lowest and Alberta being the highest. The gains are still, however, lower than 2013 and 2014. 

I’m biased as I think PEI is the most beautiful part of our country, so it’s already worth so much more than dollars to me.  It’s hard to put a dollar value on land that becomes personal to someone, especially a farm with history behind their farm operation.  When farmers have put so much blood, sweat and tears into their operations country-wide and then go to sell (for whatever their reasons may be) it is disappointing to see the significant difference in sale prices.  I get it, but still, disappointing.   

I have to remind myself that when I pullover to enjoy the view, lurk on the gravel shoulders, and hopefully not get arrested for being a creeper, I am not wasting time.  Or, if I am then it is time well wasted.  I thoroughly enjoy my long walks, runs and drive-bys looking at the land that so many farmers have built their lives around.  It has tremendous worth to them.  Bonus, most people are taking photos of the sea side, so when I am taking pictures of farmer’s fields there is no human traffic in sight...just passerby’s wondering why a girl in a sundress is standing on the side of the road staring and smiling. My favourite pastime when in PEI.  I don’t look so odd when I am holding wildflowers or wearing running clothes because it would seem I have a purpose then, but most days the same vehicles pass me regularly and I have no purpose other than to enjoy the land that serves us so well.