Thursday, March 26, 2009

globeandmail.com: Natives, Bay Street form country’s biggest farm

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/s…

… in Saskatoon today, Bay Street investors and a group of chiefs from Saskatchewan and Alberta will formally announce the unlikeliest of marriages, one that will make them the most influential farmers in all of Canada, with a super-sized one-million-acre operation that could rival the largest corporate farms in the world.

Under the plan, 17 native bands will lease their land at market value to a new entity called One Earth Farms Corporation, which will focus on sustainable, environmentally responsible land use, hire and train aboriginal workers, and provide first nations an equity stake in the company.

This is an interesting initiative and worth tracking – not because of the massive size of the project. Rather, the partnership between bands and investors is novel.