Sask Farmland Listings Hit Five-Year High as Prices Climb

Saskatchewan had 317 farm properties listed for sale in Remax Canada's Fall 2026 Commercial Real Estate Report, up from 286 in 2025 and 208 in 2022, a five-year high.

Values are still rising but slower, with FCC reporting Saskatchewan cultivated farmland up 2.6% over six months and 6.7% year over year.

Brokers tie the listings to aging owners without successors, with established neighbouring farmers doing most of the buying and the Monette Farms sale adding inventory.

Source: REM (Real Estate Magazine), Nov. 9, 2026

🌾 Farm listings hit a five-year high and prices shrug

🏛️ Ottawa makes rural immigration permanent, Gary Doer wants farmers on the Hill, and organic demand gets outsourced

🚜 Somebody is checking the Grain Commission's math

🐮 Canadian Charolais breeders go shopping in Kansas, plus three missing fillies

Saskatchewan had 317 farm properties listed for sale, a five-year high, according to Remax Canada's Fall 2026 Commercial Real Estate Report. That's up from 286 last year and 208 in 2022.

Prices did not get the memo. FCC's mid-year review has Saskatchewan cultivated land up 2.6% in six months and 6.7% year over year. Nationally it rose 3.8% in the first half, down from 6% a year earlier, so the truck is still climbing the hill, just in a lower gear.

The median selling price for farms of 80 acres or more is up more than 58% since 2022. Supply went up, price went up, and Economics 101 quietly left the room.

Nobody at the supper table wants the keys. Esterhazy broker Jeff Chapple pins the listings on an aging farm population and thin succession planning, with plenty of kids gone for school or work and not coming back to run the drill.

The buyer is your neighbour, and he's liquid. Chapple and Regina broker Julie Davidson both say established producers are doing most of the buying, after a few strong years let many pay down debt and stack cash. Chapple even calls Saskatchewan land undervalued next to the rest of Canada, which is the kind of thing a realtor says, but he's not alone in saying it.

Monette is adding to the pile. Davidson says the court-supervised sale of Monette Farms assets has fattened inventory. The roughly 274,000 acres in Canada and the U.S. have been on the block since June, after $829.5 million in loans came due in April.

Expanding? Your competition isn't some faceless fund. It's the guy across the road with a paid-off combine and a grudge about your fence line.

Starting out? Davidson flags land prices, borrowing costs and startup expenses as the wall in front of younger farmers. More listings don't help much when the entry fee keeps going up.

2027 call: Chapple doesn't expect a substantial decline and names access to financing as the swing factor, with bigger land packages coming over the next five years and investors and farmers possibly bidding against each other. Davidson expects prices to slip modestly or hold flat. Two brokers, two forecasts, zero refunds.

The financing read, from south of the line: a survey of 600+ U.S. ag lenders by the American Bankers Association and Farmer Mac found rising demand for farmland-secured loans, an 82% approval rate on new applications, and creeping delinquencies, with liquidity the top borrower worry for a fourth straight year. That's U.S. data, not Canadian, but if financing decides where land goes, it's worth watching which way lenders lean. (Farms.com)

Rural immigration goes permanent. Ottawa announced Nov. 9 that the Rural Community Immigration Pilot becomes a permanent program, starting with the pilot's 14 communities and a target of 5,500 admission spaces. More communities are coming, with eligibility rules not yet released, because of course they aren't. From January 2025 to August 2026, the pilot designated 1,950+ employers who issued 4,700+ job offers. So what: farms, processors and ag service shops all fish in the same small rural labour pond, and this stocks it a little. It's meant as a backup to local hiring, not a replacement. (Farms.com)

Gary Doer's Ottawa advice: bring a farmer. Speaking at EMILI's Agriculture Enlightened conference in Winnipeg on Nov. 5, the former Manitoba premier and ambassador to Washington said Democratic midterm gains could give Canada a slightly better trade opening, though Trump still holds the tariff pen. His tips: let Trump take credit for CUSMA, and if anyone offers to remove a tariff, take it. Bold stuff. Next he'll suggest closing the gate behind the cows. His best line on why ag gets ignored in Ottawa: "It's better to take a farmer to Ottawa than a mathematician." Hold that thought. (Seed World)

Organic demand is booming, somewhere else. At Organic Summit 2026 in Ottawa (Nov. 2 and 3), the sector pointed out Canadian organic sales hit $11.88 billion, up 24% since 2024, while certified organic acreage fell 16.1% to 2.20 million acres. Imports, including plenty of U.S. product, are filling the gap. The industry says the U.S. spends about eight times more per acre on organic support, and the EU about 200 times more. The organic aisle is growing nicely, mostly on other people's farms. (Farms.com)

Stat Publishing's Brian Clancey thinks the Canadian Grain Commission's Harvest Sample Program is missing the ugly end of the crop. His theory: farmers with obviously rough grain don't bother mailing in samples, so the results skew pretty. "Many growers do not participate in the program," he wrote.

The CGC's answer: spokesperson Christianne Hacault says its data can't tell how a year's quality affects who sends samples, and that HSP results track grain delivered to primary elevators year over year.

The lentil scoreboard: Saskatchewan Agriculture's final crop report puts 16% of lentils at No. 3 or lower. Last year the province pegged 19% at Extra 3 or lower.

GrainFox analyst Neil Townsend says stats agencies everywhere are under the microscope after the USDA's October corn data error, but he doesn't buy that farmers are hiding samples, since the elevator tests it anyway. He also says the 2026 crop came in better than many pundits expected earlier this year.

So what: early grade data shapes how buyers read the whole crop. If the bottom of the bin never gets sampled, the picture looks cleaner than your grain does. Gary Doer wants fewer mathematicians in Ottawa; Clancey just wants the ones in Winnipeg to get a bigger sample.

📍 AgWest update: the Winnipeg Free Press reports AgWest is eyeing a public sale as its route out of creditor protection. Background: the eight-store AGCO and CLAAS dealer has been under CCAA since Oct. 13, its protection runs to Jan. 29, 2027, and the monitor, Alvarez & Marsal Canada, was authorized in October to market the business. (Winnipeg Free Press)

Seven Canadian Charolais breeders toured Kansas and Missouri seedstock operations Oct. 19 to 24 on an inbound trade mission hosted by both state ag departments and the American-International Charolais Association. Six Kansas stops later, the Kansas Department of Agriculture says participants started follow-up talks on buying live cattle and semen. The tab was covered in part by the USDA's Market Access Program. Nothing says "trade war" like Washington picking up the bill to court Canadian buyers.

So what: semen, embryos and breeding stock move on their own track, separate from beef and live-animal trade fights. For Prairie Charolais herds, that's a genetics pipeline that doesn't wait for a tariff truce.

New face at the Saskatchewan Angus Association: Cody Allin, who runs commercial and purebred Red Angus with his wife north of Pennant, is a new director. He wants the association showing up more at cattle events and building ties with commercial producers, pitching Angus longevity and production. (SwiftCurrentOnline)

Three registered quarter horse fillies are missing from summer pasture in the RM of Hazelwood No. 94, last seen around early September. Two are two-year-olds (a palomino and a sorrel), one is a dark brown, almost black, three-year-old. They're quiet, halter broke and branded with a flying wings pointed down over J on the left hip. Seen them? Call your local RCMP or Livestock Services Saskatchewan at 306-546-5086. Worth a lap of your own fall pasture while you're at it. (SaskToday)