Paul Martin Commentary
One of the best investments around last year was farmland. It didn’t quite match the stock market which saw the Toronto Exchange go up by nearly 30-percent last year but farmland still delivered a pretty strong performance in 2025.
Farm Credit Canada has just released its year-end assessment of farm land values with Saskatchewan showing a gain of 9.4-percent last year. That was roughly equal to gains nationally but lagged behind both Alberta and Manitoba which saw gains of 11 or 12 percent. There was one exception though: irrigated land where the gains were highest in Saskatchewan was almost 20-percent.
The strong cattle market also had some influence on the value of pasture land last year.
Saskatchewan led the way on this one with a jump of 7.5-percent. FCC says drought in some regions influenced pricing models with the Peace Country seeing the biggest gains.
Historically, land prices have been linked to farm incomes but this linkage appears to have been broken as cattle revenues have risen 75-percent in the last three years while crop prices have declined 10-percent.
