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近期报上连议关于关闭移民大门的话题。昨天有关于对中国移民投资土地的“担心”。但所担心这种”CONNECTION”却完全是子虚乌有。
Quebec farmers union wary of Chinese connection
Interested in large tracts of land; speculative buying would drive up prices, says Union des producteurs agricoles
By DAVID JOHNSTON, The Gazette March 27, 2010
Harvest in Ste. Clotilde de Horton: Quebec farmers have a problem in that many are approaching retirement and succession interest among their children is not strong.
Photograph by: Tyrel Featherstone, The Gazette
MONTREAL – Quebec's powerful Union des producteurs agricoles says it is concerned by reports of investors of Chinese origin inquiring about buying large tracts of agricultural land in the province.
The UPA says Quebec needs to make sure this does not grow into something that threatens the province's food security or is connected to new international property speculation in agricultural land.
Speculative buying would drive up farm prices and make it very hard for young Quebecers to get into farming and compete with multinational agricultural giants, says the president of the UPA.
"It's clear that this is something that we will want to follow very closely," Christian Lacasse, president of the UPA, told The Gazette Friday.
Quebec's leading agricultural newspaper, La Terre de Chez Nous, reported in its March 18 edition that a Brossard firm purporting to represent Chinese buyers has been making purchase offers on agricultural land in recent weeks.
The firm, Monaxxion, says it is looking to buy 40,000 hectares of land in Canada. Monaxxion agent Pierre Bergeron told The Gazette this week that western Canadian farmers have been unreceptive to selling to buyers of Chinese origin and that his clients are now looking at the Quebec market.
He said he is representing people of Chinese origin who are legal immigrants to Canada and have their own sources of financing in China.
Quebec has rules against foreign ownership of farmland, but there is nothing to prevent immigrants from buying it. Farmers, however, are leery of Monaxxion.
Sherbrooke's La Tribune newspaper reported Friday that a farmer in Ste. Clotilde de Horton recently backed out of a tentative
$30-million deal with Monaxxion after concluding the firm and its clients weren't as solid as he had been led to believe.
While Lacasse says it remains to be seen who Monaxxion's clients really are, he says fears over their motives are justified in light of how China has been investing heavily in agricultural land in Africa and other Third World nations.
With 20 per cent of the world's population and an increasingly wealthy middle class, China has been actively seeking new supplies of food, hydrocarbons and other commodities on international markets.
The country has been trying to buy into Canada's oil-sands developments. It has reconfigured its foreign-aid programs to concentrate on helping such countries as Zambia that have rich copper deposits. And it has worked hard to develop closer relationships with oil-rich countries like Iran.
Quebec farmers, meanwhile, have a succession problem on their hands. Many farmers in the province are the eldest sons of large families who inherited their farms from their parents. Today, they are approaching retirement and succession interest among their two or three children is not strong. To retire comfortably, they need to be able to sell their farms at a good price.
As for people of Chinese origin, there has been speculation that investor-class immigrants might be looking at farms as new stepping stones into Canada, with family and extended-family members available as new sources of farm labour. At the moment, Quebec farmers are importing farm labour from Mexico and Central America.
More needs to be learned about Monaxxion's clients before a clearer picture can emerge about what these expressions of buyer interest potentially mean for Quebec farming, says Daniel Mercier Gouin, a professor of agricultural economics at Université Laval.
But Gouin says there is no longer any doubt that the world is seeing the beginning of a speculative boom in agricultural land. In English Canada, Donald Coxe, a strategic adviser to BMO Capital Markets, has been saying the same thing.
To date, there have been plenty of inquiries and even purchase offers by Monaxxion, but nothing really solid in terms of sales. However, Bergeron of Monaxxion says there are some important transactions being negotiated right now. And he said he plans to make his investors more open for public scrutiny.
Claire Bolduc, president of Solidarité rurale du Québec, an organization based in Nicolet dedicated to the promotion and preservation of rural life, says stories about Chinese would-be buyers were first published last fall by the magazine affiliated with La Coop fédérée du Québec.
The Coop was hired last fall by the government of China to develop pilot projects in China along the Coop's hybrid capitalist/socialist principles. One of the chief intermediaries between the Chinese government and the Coop fédérée in forging this relationship was Pierre Bourque, a former mayor of Montreal. Bourque was unavailable for comment Friday.
djohnston@thegazette.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
Quebec farmers union wary of Chinese connection
Interested in large tracts of land; speculative buying would drive up prices, says Union des producteurs agricoles
By DAVID JOHNSTON, The Gazette March 27, 2010
Harvest in Ste. Clotilde de Horton: Quebec farmers have a problem in that many are approaching retirement and succession interest among their children is not strong.
Photograph by: Tyrel Featherstone, The Gazette
MONTREAL – Quebec's powerful Union des producteurs agricoles says it is concerned by reports of investors of Chinese origin inquiring about buying large tracts of agricultural land in the province.
The UPA says Quebec needs to make sure this does not grow into something that threatens the province's food security or is connected to new international property speculation in agricultural land.
Speculative buying would drive up farm prices and make it very hard for young Quebecers to get into farming and compete with multinational agricultural giants, says the president of the UPA.
"It's clear that this is something that we will want to follow very closely," Christian Lacasse, president of the UPA, told The Gazette Friday.
Quebec's leading agricultural newspaper, La Terre de Chez Nous, reported in its March 18 edition that a Brossard firm purporting to represent Chinese buyers has been making purchase offers on agricultural land in recent weeks.
The firm, Monaxxion, says it is looking to buy 40,000 hectares of land in Canada. Monaxxion agent Pierre Bergeron told The Gazette this week that western Canadian farmers have been unreceptive to selling to buyers of Chinese origin and that his clients are now looking at the Quebec market.
He said he is representing people of Chinese origin who are legal immigrants to Canada and have their own sources of financing in China.
Quebec has rules against foreign ownership of farmland, but there is nothing to prevent immigrants from buying it. Farmers, however, are leery of Monaxxion.
Sherbrooke's La Tribune newspaper reported Friday that a farmer in Ste. Clotilde de Horton recently backed out of a tentative
$30-million deal with Monaxxion after concluding the firm and its clients weren't as solid as he had been led to believe.
While Lacasse says it remains to be seen who Monaxxion's clients really are, he says fears over their motives are justified in light of how China has been investing heavily in agricultural land in Africa and other Third World nations.
With 20 per cent of the world's population and an increasingly wealthy middle class, China has been actively seeking new supplies of food, hydrocarbons and other commodities on international markets.
The country has been trying to buy into Canada's oil-sands developments. It has reconfigured its foreign-aid programs to concentrate on helping such countries as Zambia that have rich copper deposits. And it has worked hard to develop closer relationships with oil-rich countries like Iran.
Quebec farmers, meanwhile, have a succession problem on their hands. Many farmers in the province are the eldest sons of large families who inherited their farms from their parents. Today, they are approaching retirement and succession interest among their two or three children is not strong. To retire comfortably, they need to be able to sell their farms at a good price.
As for people of Chinese origin, there has been speculation that investor-class immigrants might be looking at farms as new stepping stones into Canada, with family and extended-family members available as new sources of farm labour. At the moment, Quebec farmers are importing farm labour from Mexico and Central America.
More needs to be learned about Monaxxion's clients before a clearer picture can emerge about what these expressions of buyer interest potentially mean for Quebec farming, says Daniel Mercier Gouin, a professor of agricultural economics at Université Laval.
But Gouin says there is no longer any doubt that the world is seeing the beginning of a speculative boom in agricultural land. In English Canada, Donald Coxe, a strategic adviser to BMO Capital Markets, has been saying the same thing.
To date, there have been plenty of inquiries and even purchase offers by Monaxxion, but nothing really solid in terms of sales. However, Bergeron of Monaxxion says there are some important transactions being negotiated right now. And he said he plans to make his investors more open for public scrutiny.
Claire Bolduc, president of Solidarité rurale du Québec, an organization based in Nicolet dedicated to the promotion and preservation of rural life, says stories about Chinese would-be buyers were first published last fall by the magazine affiliated with La Coop fédérée du Québec.
The Coop was hired last fall by the government of China to develop pilot projects in China along the Coop's hybrid capitalist/socialist principles. One of the chief intermediaries between the Chinese government and the Coop fédérée in forging this relationship was Pierre Bourque, a former mayor of Montreal. Bourque was unavailable for comment Friday.
djohnston@thegazette.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
