Canadian Farmland Values 2026 — Two Independent Measurements, Three Publishers.

The numbers diverge, yet each is published by a credible institution. The central question for any farmer, lender, or land-allocator is simple: when these three figures disagree, what is each one actually counting — and how independent are they from one another in the first place? This brief decodes the methodologies. It does not arbitrate which figure is correct, because each is correct within its own definition. The substantive finding is that two of the three publishers measure overlapping populations, and the third does not measure farmland at all in the 2024–2026 window — it cites the first.

The decode does not attempt to produce an independent farmland-value estimate. It does not arbitrate which publisher's figure should be used for which decision. It does not characterise any publisher as inaccurate. It does flag — using publishers' own disclosure language — what each figure includes, excludes, and depends upon. Cross-reference format: [Row N: Publisher]. The primary FCC PDF was inaccessible during verification of a small subset of provincial subset disclosures; verbatim quotes used in this brief were cross-referenced from the FCC press release and FCC knowledge-article landing pages, which carry the same disclosure language. All figures verified 2026-05-26.

FCC's national figure is an index of "cultivated farmland" values. The publisher's methodology section is explicit: "FCC selected benchmark farm properties to monitor variations in cultivated land and pastureland values across Canada. These parcels are representative of each area of the country. FCC appraisers estimate market value using recent comparable land sales. These sales must be arm's-length transactions. Once sales are selected, they are reviewed, analyzed and adjusted to the benchmark farm properties." [Row 3: FCC] FCC then derives a reference value in each region from "the average value of our benchmark properties and the average sales price in each region" [Row 5: FCC]. National change is calculated as a weighted average across provincial changes, with Saskatchewan "the single largest contributor to the national average" because it holds the highest number of cultivated acres [Row 20: FCC]. The 9.3% headline for 2025 [Row 1: FCC] and the matching 9.3% for 2024 [Row 2: FCC] are therefore appraised changes in benchmark properties supplemented by observed arm's-length transactions, with outliers trimmed (90% of sales data retained, top and bottom 5% excluded [Row 6: FCC]).

Statistics Canada's series measures a different quantity. The dataset title is "Value of farmland and buildings per acre, for Canada and the provinces at July 1 (in dollars)" [Row 23: Statistics Canada]. Two scope elements separate it from FCC's index. First, the inclusion of buildings — barns, grain bins, silos, irrigation infrastructure, farm residences attached to the operation — folds depreciable structures into the per-acre figure. Second, the reference date is July 1 of each year, not the calendar window [Row 34: Statistics Canada]. The target population is "all Canadian agriculture operations as defined by the Census of Agriculture" [Row 26: Statistics Canada]. The most recently published value is $5,302 per acre at July 1 2024, up from $4,957 at July 1 2023 — a derived +6.96% increase [Rows 27–29: Statistics Canada].

Re/Max Canada's 2025 Commercial Real Estate Report covers "first-quarter activity across 12 major markets" with a focus on multi-family, industrial, and retail commercial asset classes [Row 36: Re/Max]. Farmland appears in one section: a paragraph attributing the 13.1% Saskatchewan figure for 2024 to "Farm Credit Canada's 2024 Farmland Values Report released in March 2025" [Row 35: Re/Max]. Brokerage commentary follows, noting that good-quality cultivated acres in East Central Saskatchewan can reach $3,800 per acre and that irrigated land continues to draw a premium [Row 37: Re/Max]. There is no Re/Max-originated national farmland index in the 2024–2026 window covered by this brief.

Three populations, then. FCC measures appraised market value of benchmark cultivated farm properties anchored by arm's-length transactions [Rows 3–5: FCC]. Statistics Canada measures the per-acre value of all agricultural-operation land and buildings combined, derived from the Census-of-Agriculture base and rolled forward by external change ratios [Rows 24–26: Statistics Canada]. Re/Max measures commercial-asset activity in 12 urban markets and quotes FCC for the rural farmland reference [Rows 35–36: Re/Max]. A reader who sees three "farmland-up" headlines and assumes they triangulate has miscounted the independence of the underlying measurements.

The structural link between the two series is contained in that single sentence from the Statistics Canada Value of Farm Capital survey methodology page [Row 24: Statistics Canada]. Combined with the disclosure that "the value of land and buildings is benchmarked to the Census of Agriculture" [Row 25: Statistics Canada], the architecture becomes legible. Statistics Canada's per-acre estimate in any non-census year is not the output of an independent farm-operator survey. It is an FCC growth rate applied to a Statistics Canada absolute base, with the base re-anchored at each Census of Agriculture (most recently 2021).

The implication is structural rather than critical. Statistics Canada and FCC are publishing related figures derived from related inputs. The figures differ in absolute level because Statistics Canada includes buildings and reports on a July 1 date, while FCC reports a calendar-year cultivated-land change. They differ in headline percentage because Statistics Canada applies FCC's annual change ratios at a provincial level to a Census-benchmarked base that includes pastureland, irrigated land, cultivated land, and farm buildings — a broader scope than FCC's cultivated-land headline — and the July 1 reference date captures roughly half of the calendar-year FCC change in a given publication cycle.

A worked example anchors the point. For the year 2023 to 2024, FCC reports cultivated farmland up 9.3% on a January-to-December basis [Row 2: FCC]. Statistics Canada's national per-acre figure goes from $4,957 at July 1 2023 to $5,302 at July 1 2024, a derived +6.96% [Row 29: Statistics Canada]. The Statistics Canada change captures the middle of the FCC calendar window — six months of 2023's growth and six months of 2024's growth — applied to a broader scope. Provincially, the divergence widens, and unevenly. Saskatchewan, the province FCC reported up 13.1% in 2024 [Row 43: FCC], shows on Statistics Canada's table as $2,385 to $2,647 per acre, a +10.99% July-to-July change [Rows 30–32: Statistics Canada]. Ontario, which FCC reported up 3.1% in 2024 [Row 43: FCC], shows on Statistics Canada as $19,738 to $20,782, a +5.29% July-to-July change [Rows 30–32: Statistics Canada]. British Columbia, which FCC reported up 11.3% in 2024 [Row 43: FCC], shows on Statistics Canada as $10,069 to $10,187, a +1.17% July-to-July change [Rows 30–32: Statistics Canada] — the widest provincial gap between the two series in the 2024 reading.

The BC outlier illustrates the timing dynamic precisely: the StatCan July 1 2024 reading captures roughly the second half of calendar 2023 — when FCC had reported BC down 3.1% [Row 44: FCC] — and the first half of calendar 2024, when FCC reported the rebound. Blending half of a decline year with half of a recovery year on a July 1 reference date produces a near-flat StatCan figure even as the FCC calendar-year measure for 2024 is strongly positive. The provincial relationships rhyme but do not match — exactly what the timing, scope, and inclusion of farm buildings would predict.

Re/Max's status as the third publisher is different again. Re/Max Canada operates broker and agent surveys for its housing and commercial outlooks, with results weighted by transactions in each region [Row 38: Re/Max]. For farmland in the 2024–2026 window, however, Re/Max does not run a separate index. Its commercial-report farmland paragraph cites FCC directly and overlays brokerage commentary on Saskatchewan land prices in specific submarkets [Rows 35, 37: Re/Max]. The brokerage commentary is potentially additive information — qualitative texture about which submarkets are bidding up irrigated acres, where private sales vs. realtor-mediated sales are dominating — but it is not an independent measurement of national farmland value change.

Three publishers, two independent measurements, one of which provides the growth ratios that anchor the other.

The decade-long arc surfaces both rhythm and discontinuity. FCC's published series for annual change in cultivated farmland values runs: 2016 +7.9%, 2017 +8.4%, 2018 +6.6%, 2019 +5.2%, 2020 +5.4%, 2021 +8.3%, 2022 +12.8%, 2023 +11.5%, 2024 +9.3%, 2025 +9.3% [Row 17: FCC]. Mid-year editions show the within-year pattern: H1 2024 ran at +5.5% [Row 19: FCC], H1 2025 ran at +6.0% [Row 18: FCC], with full-year figures landing at +9.3% in both calendar years.

Two structural points emerge. First, the three publishers converge in direction. FCC's positive 9.3% nationally for 2024 [Row 2: FCC] aligns with Statistics Canada's positive +6.96% July-to-July [Row 29: Statistics Canada] aligns with Re/Max's positive directional commentary [Row 35: Re/Max]. No publisher in the window reviewed for this brief reports a national year of declining Canadian farmland values. Provincially, FCC reports British Columbia at −1.7% for 2025 [Row 16: FCC] — the only province in negative territory in either of the two most recent FCC editions — while Statistics Canada has not yet published the comparable July-to-July 2024-to-2025 reading. Direction-of-travel agreement, where readings overlap, is the area of strongest convergence across the three series.

Second, the divergence opens at the provincial level when the windows misalign. For 2024, FCC reports Saskatchewan at +13.1% on a calendar basis [Row 43: FCC]; Statistics Canada's derived July-to-July figure is +10.99% [Row 32: Statistics Canada]. For 2024, FCC reports Manitoba at +6.5% [Row 43: FCC]; Statistics Canada's derived figure is +7.47% [Row 32: Statistics Canada]. The differences are not errors. They are the predictable result of applying FCC's cultivated-land change ratios at a July 1 reference date to a Statistics Canada base that includes farm buildings and pastureland. The discrepancy magnitude is uneven across provinces: in 2024, seven of the nine FCC-published provinces sit within roughly two percentage points of the Statistics Canada July-to-July figure (Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan and Ontario), while New Brunswick diverges by about five percentage points and British Columbia by about ten percentage points [Rows 32, 43]. Readers who treat the two series as point-equivalents will be wrong by single digits in most provinces and by double digits in the outlier cases.

Where the framing differences make convergence look like contradiction is the headline-vs-headline read. A farmer reading "Saskatchewan farmland up 13.1%" [Row 35: Re/Max, quoting FCC] and "Saskatchewan farm land and buildings up 10.99%" [Row 32: Statistics Canada] can resolve the apparent gap as a window-and-scope difference, not a methodological contradiction. The same farmer reading "Canadian farmland up 9.3%" [Row 2: FCC] and "Canada farm land and buildings $5,302 per acre" [Row 27: Statistics Canada] is reading a growth rate and an absolute level, which cannot be put on the same axis without further unpacking. The scopes are different by construction; setting them side-by-side does not adjudicate which is correct — it makes the headline-vs-headline comparison legible.

Three things the publisher disclosures allow this brief to state with confidence.

First, FCC's national +9.3% for 2025 [Row 1: FCC] and +9.3% for 2024 [Row 2: FCC] are appraised changes in benchmark cultivated farm properties supplemented by arm's-length sales data, weighted by provincial cultivated acreage, on a January-to-December calendar window, excluding the territories and Newfoundland and Labrador for insufficient transactions [Rows 3–7, 20: FCC]. The figure is internally consistent across the editions reviewed.

Second, Statistics Canada's per-acre figure of $5,302 nationally at July 1 2024 [Row 27: Statistics Canada] is a derived series. The non-census-year estimate is constructed by applying FCC's change ratios to a Census-of-Agriculture base that includes land and buildings [Rows 24–25: Statistics Canada]. The provincial table allows level comparisons between Ontario ($20,782 per acre [Row 30: Statistics Canada]) and Saskatchewan ($2,647 per acre [Row 30: Statistics Canada]) that the FCC growth-rate series cannot directly support, but the level comparisons should be read as level-of-land-and-buildings, not level-of-bare-cultivated-acre.

Third, Re/Max Canada's published commercial-report farmland references in the window reviewed cite FCC as the upstream source [Row 35: Re/Max] within a 12-market urban-commercial scope [Row 36: Re/Max]. Re/Max's brokerage commentary on specific Saskatchewan submarkets and irrigated-land premia [Row 37: Re/Max] is additive qualitative texture, but treating Re/Max's 13.1% citation as a third independent reading of national farmland values would double-count FCC.

Three metrics to watch in the next edition of this brief. The first is the FCC 2026 mid-year report, expected in autumn 2026, which will indicate whether the +6.0% H1 2025 pace [Row 18: FCC] held into the second half. The second is the next Statistics Canada Table 32-10-0047-01 release, expected November 2026 with reference period through July 1 2025, which will be the first Statistics Canada reading that captures fully one of the two consecutive +9.3% FCC calendar years. The third is the 2026 Census of Agriculture cycle — Statistics Canada conducts the Census every five years and the next iteration will re-anchor the Value-of-Farm-Capital base. Census-of-Agriculture years are the rare moments when the Statistics Canada per-acre figure is not a derivation but a periodic measurement, and any future divergence between FCC's growth path and the Statistics Canada-Census level is most informative at those re-anchoring points.