Saskatchewan's Rural Municipalities are calling on the province to make sure farm ownership stays in Saskatchewan hands.
RM of Swift Current Reeve Ramona Dyck learned at a recent SARM convention that there have been some problems with the process.
"The provincial auditor had identified 9 out of 18 suspect land transactions where the farm security board had failed to request statutory ownership declarations," Dyck said. "Because of that the farm security board was unable to take further action on those transactions to ascertain whether there were ownership issues. That's concerning to us."
SARM voted on a resolution to address the issue with the province.
"We want to see our land owned by Saskatchewan people," Dyck said. "That was a strong message sent by the rural municipalities. We voted 95% in favour of lobbying the provincial government to make sure those declarations are in place on any land transaction before any transaction is approved."
Dyck is concerned for the viability of family farms.
"Large investment farm operations are already threatening the viability of the family farm by driving both land prices and rent prices up, with the result of stymieing the ability of young farmers to expand their operations," she added. "The same rules of economics don’t seem to apply to some of these large operations."