Most expensive farmland in Western & Southwestern Ontario is in Peel, York and Perth Counties

Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum

A recent survey of 1,206 Ontario farmers suggests they saw mostly flat or static farmland prices in 2024. Reported land price increases in individual counties were largely offset by decreases in other counties, according to the annual farmland value and rental value survey conducted by the University of Guelph’s Dr. Brady Deaton.

Farmland rental rates similarly experienced little change, according to the surveyed farmers, with barely any progress toward a more ideal rent-to-price ratio for landowners.

Median farmland prices in 2024 either declined or stayed the same in 15 of 25 counties surveyed, compared with 2023. (Deaton surveyed farmers in 25 counties in 2023 but the survey included 36 counties for the 2024 edition.)

The annual online survey is based on farmer responses, not actual farm sales or rental contracts. The survey presents median (not average) prices, meaning the middle price as half of prices are above the median and half are below.

The Greater Toronto Area’s Peel Region repeated its 2023 record with by far the highest median per-acre farmland price in 2024, listed at “$75,000 plus,” reflecting developer influence. $75,000 was the highest price option that could be selected on the survey.

Overall, counties and regions in Western and Southwestern Ontario had the top 15 most expensive median farmland prices, as reported in Deaton’s survey.

Here they are:

1. Peel: $75,000-plus (10 farmers responded)

2. York: $55,000 (14 responses)

3. Perth: $35,000 (39 response)

4. Waterloo: $34,000 (21 responses)

5. Oxford: $33,800 (38 responses)

6. Halton: $30,000 (5 responses)

7. Middlesex: $27,100 (42 responses)

8. Brant: $25,000 (17 responses); Wellington: $25,000 (35 responses)

9. Elgin: $22,700 (36 responses)

10. Chatham-Kent: $22,000 (37 responses); Lambton: $22,000 (41 responses)

11. Hamilton: $20,000 (11 responses)

12. Niagara: $19,200 (24 responses)

13. Grey: $19,000 (29 responses)

14. Essex: $18,000 (46 responses)

15. Bruce: $16,000 (44 responses)

Ontario farmland rental below U.S. prices

Farmers Forum staff

GUELPH — Farmland rental prices are also collected during Professor Brady Deaton’s annual farmland price survey, and those numbers show that agricultural landlords in Ontario continue to accept a lower rate of return on their capital land value compared to recent historical figures in neighbouring U.S. states.

Indiana farmland owners, for instance, commanded a rental rate of close to 3 % of their land value in 2015, according to an economic analysis by Agricultural Economic Insights. But Brady’s latest Ontario survey again found Ontario’s farmland owners collecting annual rents of no more than 2 % of their land value, with most counties closer to 1 %.

In the case of Peel Region, the rent/price ratio was a mere 0.1 % — lowest in the province — a result of Peel having by far the most expensive farmland, at $75,000-plus per acre, but the second lowest annual rent of $100 per acre.

According to the survey, annual per acre farmland rents in Ontario range as high as $350 (in six Southwestern Ontario regions) and as low as $50 (in four central Eastern Ontario regions).

Here’s the overall ranking of Ontario regions and counties by per-acre farmland rental prices in 2024. (In brackets is the rent/price percentage return for landlords, and the number of survey respondents):

$350 — Chatham-Kent (1.6 % – 25 responses), Elgin (1.5 % – 37 responses), Huron (1.2 % – 56 responses), Lambton (1.6 % – 35 responses), Oxford (1.0 % – 35 responses), Perth (1.0 % – 37 responses)

$325 — Middlesex (1.2 % – 34 responses), Norfolk (1.6 % – 20 responses)

$300 — Essex (1.7 % – 37 responses)

$250 — Brant (1.0 % – 12 responses), Bruce (1.6 % – 47 responses), Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry (1.9 % – 27 responses), Wellington (1.0 % – 35 responses)

$200 — Dufferin (1.0 % – 13 responses), Grey (1.1 % – 30 responses), Prescott& Russell (1.3 % – 22 responses),

$175 — Leeds & Grenville (1.5 % – 10 responses)

$150 — Durham (1.4 % – 15 responses), Haldimand (1.3 % – 14 responses), Hamilton (0.8 % – 9 responses), Kawartha Lakes (1.5 % – 13 responses), Simcoe (1.2 % – 27 responses)

$125 — Ottawa (1.0 % – 14 responses), Timiskaming (1.8 % – 10 responses)

$100 — Halton (0.3 % – 5 responses), Lanark (2.0 % – 13 responses), Niagara (0.5 % – 22 responses), Peel (0.1 % – 9 responses), Renfrew (1.2 % – 11 responses), York (0.2 % – 12 responses)

$75 — Northumberland (0.8 % – 10 responses)

$50 — Frontenac (1.0 % – 9 responses), Hastings (0.7 % – 7 responses), Lennox & Addingon (1.5 % – 5 responses), Peterborough (0.6 % – 6 responses)