On the hunt for farmland in the northeast

A new project is aiming to create a database of available agricultural property in the Cochrane District in an effort to get more land back into production.

Dubbed the Private Agricultural Land Assembly Project, the two-year initiative is being spearheaded by the Northeast Community Network (NeCN), a regional, non-profit group focused on economic development, including agriculture.

NeCN includes representatives from Opasatika, Val Rita, Kapuskasing, Smooth Rock Falls, Cochrane, Iroquois Falls, Matheson, and Timmins.

After receiving $100,000 in funding from the Rural Economic Development (RED) program last fall, the project is just getting underway, said network chair Antoine Vézina, who also serves as the community development consultant for the Timmins Economic Development Corp.

Through the project, NeCN will contact private landowners who own prime agricultural land that’s not currently being farmed and encourage them to make it available for agricultural purposes, either through selling or renting to another producer.

The goal, Vézina said, is to open up more farmland in the area for use.

“We're excited for that, because, as economic developers, for the last four or five years, all that we've been hearing is a lot of people from southern Ontario, and even Western Canada, are very, very interested in coming here and making the move and starting agricultural operations,” Vézina said.

“But their main question is where's the land?”

Though NeCN has a general idea of what land is available, some owners are located outside the North, and it’s not known how open they are to divestiture.

Having a handy list for potential buyers or renters makes it easier for NeCN to know what’s available.