Kazakhstan’s president says farmland won’t be sold to foreigners

Almaty | Reuters — Kazakhstan will permanently ban sales of agricultural land to foreigners, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Friday, ending a long-running discussion about controversial land reform plans. Provisions that would have allowed foreign ownership of farmland prompted public protests throughout Kazakhstan in 2016. The government decided at the time to put off the […] Read more

Tighter regulations take effect for B.C. farmland reserve

Tighter regulations take effect for B.C. farmland reserve

Local governments' expanded role to take effect this fall

New regulations governing how — or if — changes can be made to land’s status within British Columbia’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) are now in force, but local governments get more prep time for their expanded role. The province on Thursday announced amendments to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) Act — having received royal assent […] Read more


File photo of a tobacco crop in Zimbabwe. (Munya Chawora/iStock/Getty Images)

Zimbabwe offers land as compensation for 800 seized farms

Harare | Reuters — Zimbabwe’s government will offer land as compensation for nearly 800 farms it seized under its land acquisition policy since 2000, according to regulations published on Thursday. Under former President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe took over some 5,000 farms, mostly from white farmers, saying the policy was meant to address colonial imbalances. But […] Read more






File photo of a combine harvesting a wheat crop in Ukraine. (SergBob/iStock/Getty Images)

Ukraine president plans farmland reform, large privatizations

Kiev | Reuters — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ordered his new government to submit a draft law for land market reform by the start of October and to prepare large-scale privatizations of state companies starting in April next year. Zelenskiy has pledged to lift a longstanding ban on the sale of farmland, a move that […] Read more



United States Senator and current democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made a stop to the Downtown Farmers’ Market in Des Moines on Saturday, May 4, 2019, to greet Iowans. (Photo: Bryon Houlgrave, The Register (Des Moines) via Reuters Marketplace)

Bernie Sanders promises help for family farms

Reuters — U.S. presidential contender Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan on Sunday to help family farmers and rural residents, promising to break up corporate agricultural monopolies and invest heavily in social and economic programs in struggling rural communities. Sanders, an independent U.S. senator and fierce corporate critic, said on a campaign trip to Iowa that […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

Report shows slower pace for rising farmland values

While lower-valued farmland more often showed a higher rate of increase, and price hikes varied from region to region, Canada’s farmland values on average have booked their slowest year-over-year rate of increase in almost a decade. That’s according to the annual Farmland Values Report from Farm Credit Canada (FCC), in which the federal ag lending […] Read more