The province is looking for public input on their proposed changes to the Agricultural Crown Lands Leases and Permits Regulation.

Agriculture Minister Derek Johnson says agricultural crown lands are used by approximately 1,750 forage leaseholders on 10,750 leased land parcels, primarily for grazing and haying, supporting nearly 90,000 cattle for the grazing season.

"The Agricultural Crown Lands Program supports sustainable expansion of livestock herds, contributes to ecological goods and services, and provides mitigation and adaptation to climate change. In particular, many Indigenous Peoples use these lands for traditional purposes and to exercise treaty rights."

The government's proposed amendments include: 

  • reducing forage lease rents over the next several years to help producers recover from drought and flood conditions in recent seasons;
  • extending lease terms by five years to a maximum of 20 years from 15 years when producers invest in forage productivity improvements;
  • enabling 15-year leaseholders to transfer the remaining years of their lease to an eligible third party;
  • developing a process that could enable legacy leaseholders to transfer their ACL to a third party by nominating the next leaseholder, if the ACL is not selected under Treaty Land Entitlement and does not impact Indigenous treaty rights;
  • including non-profit Indigenous organizations to be eligible to hold forage leases, in addition to the bands that are already eligible; and
  • formalizing the process for assessing land productivity used to determine rent to create an incentive to manage the land and invest in its productivity.

The proposed amendments to the ACL Leases and Permits Regulation will be posted for a 45-day consultation from today until July 17th on 
the Manitoba Regulatory Consultation Portal.  

Feedback can be provided here.

More information on agricultural Crown lands can be found here.