GRAND FALLS-WINDSOR, N.L. — Making it easier to find suitable farmland is the goal of a new initiative in the province.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Young Farmers' Forum recently launched its land-matching program and its corresponding directory for available land for rent or lease.
The program’s goal is to give new farmers access to land faster, and currently there are several listings on the website.
“We’re trying to link more people to land,” said Matthew Carlson, with the Newfoundland and Labrador Young Farmers' Forum.
Our land matching map and directory is now live! Check out the listings we have ready, add your own, or let landowners...
Posted by NL Young Farmers' Forum on Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Funding for the project came from the Young Farmers’ Initiative project, something that is supported by the Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
The project will function a lot like an online classifieds site, except for available farmland instead of someone’s old truck.
People can sign up to make a listing, which will include acreage, where the land is located and what crops have been grown there, along with any other information about the land.
Someone looking for land can post what they’re looking for as well.
“I think it’s great,” Lucas Drover of Bay Roberts said of the newly announced program.
Drover, 22, operates Rocky River Ranch Company near Markland and has been doing so since he was 19.
Posted by Rocky River Ranch Cattle Co. on Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Farming is something he’s had an interest in since he helped his grandfather when he kept sheep when Drover was young.
“I fell in love with it,” he said. “It really is a lifestyle.”
When Drover got started, he found he got a lot of help from the provincial government when he was looking for land.
While that happened, he recognizes access to land can make things easier for young people wanting to get started in agriculture.
“You know you’re getting a good piece of land,” said Drover.
Jason Bull, owner of Eastport Organics, a fourth-generation organic farm in central Newfoundland, said he would like to see the land-matching program go even further and incorporate a training aspect.
Bull said land stewardship ownership needs to be a part of the planning. That could mean promoting small-scale production systems, which would allow young farmers to learn before going on to larger-scale operations.
“The most valuable thing we need in agriculture in Newfoundland right now is young people in communities growing food on a small scale,” said Bull. “That's what will feed people in Newfoundland.”
Not only does the Newfoundland and Labrador Young Farmers' Forum want to get more new people involved in agriculture in the province, it wants to help those who have been trying to get in but have stalled.
Sometimes, the effort to get land can be a roadblock for people.
“We thought this would be a good approach to try and get some land into people’s hands,” said Carlson.
Nicholas Mercer is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter covering central Newfoundland for SaltWire Network.
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Twitter: @nickmercer
