Recently DevDosh Ltd discovered in a place far, far away in the remote region of Canada called the Yukon, they are looking to attract farmers for small holdings, and they are pulling out all the stops to entice people and offering free land.
Good or bad you decide, but due to the effects of global warming in Canada’s northern regions the land is thawing making it the ideal time for agricultural development and to turn the land into farms.
The Yukon in the northwestern regions of Canada is neighbors with Alaska, so far they have handed out over 8000 acres of farmland in the past 10 years, a senior government official told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. A dozen new applications are under consideration.
Now is a good time to start farming in the Yukon, say government officials.
“Our territory is expected to get wetter and warmer,” said Rod Jacob, a government official with the Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources in the capital Whitehorse.
“We may see an opportunity with an increased growing season,” Jacob told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an email.
“A number of programs help farmers to become more resilient to climate change, including funding to increase access to water for irrigation or to have better water efficiency,” Jacob said.
If DevDosh Ltd could give some perspective on the size of Yukon it has more land mass than Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands combined, with only 40,000 patrons settled there according to official government data.
Please do not pack your bags just yet as the free land is only given to Canadians with permanent residence and have made roots in the Yukon for at least one year.
There are certain provisos that any potential Farmer Joe must meet before they are handed a 160-acre farmstead, first they will have to pay for the survey, agree to make investments into the property and a whole host of other conditions.
Anyone who is interested must be in for the long haul as they have to commit to farming the land for a minimum of 7 years, this is to make sure people have thought this through and are serious.
If you do not fancy committing to the seven years least that is fine you can just purchase the farm the normal investment channels.
The government usually gives away 10 free farms per year predominantly centered around Whitehorse.
The region’s agriculture industry is relatively small, the official said, with farmers producing mostly vegetables, hay, meat and other products.
This is not a new incentive as the Yukon has been passing out free farms since the early eighties, but the is speculation from analysts that as the region heats there will be more demand for farms.
Canada’s far north is considered the “canary in the coal mine” by environmentalists, as global warming is felt there first and often with more intensity than other areas.
According to 2016 Canadian study:
Average temp has risen by 2 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years more than twice as fast as the planet as a whole.
Winter temperatures in the territory have increased an average of 4 degrees Celsius over the past half-century.
So anyone for farming life, you can count DevDosh Ltd well and truly out.