The provincial government will be renewing leases for Crown land community pastures for further ten year terms as present leases expire. The announcement was made today by Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Minister Walter Bradley and Transportation and Public Works Minister Keith Milligan.
"Beef producers using community pastures have, and continue to make, significant investments in their maintenance and improvement," said Mr. Bradley. "By extending the lease term to ten years they will better able to plan their operations over a longer period of time."
Mr. Bradley said the present leases were for a five year period which provided insufficient time for producers to make long-term plans and investments.
"This new lease term also demonstrates our commitment to keep community pastures in use," said Mr. Milligan. "With increased competition for land, the availability of community pastures is important to many cow-calf and beef producers." He said the cooperatives who lease the land pay the property taxes. The cooperatives in turn charge fees to users to cover operating costs such as fencing, forage improvement and maintenance.
There are four community pastures in Prince Edward Island, with a total of more than 5700 acres of land. The pastures, which are privately managed by producer cooperatives, provide services and facilities to close to 120 producers with a combined herd of approximately 2500 head of cattle.
Mr. Bradley and Mr. Milligan said considerable work has been done by management and users to bring the pastures into working condition. They said that by offering longer term renewal of leases, government is demonstrating its commitment to community pastures as a means of strengthening beef production in the province.