Agriculture Minister Derek Johnson has announced changes to the Agricultural Crown Lands (ACL) Leases and Permits Regulation .

The ACL program is designed to support improving forage productivity, growing the livestock industry and advancing sustainability.

He notes that the ACL Program also needs to work for leaseholders and Indigenous Peoples who use these lands for traditional purposes and to exercise treaty rights. 

Johnson says after a 45-day public comment period that included Indigenous communities and organizations, as well as stakeholders, the province is revising the ACL Leases and Permits Regulation to improve the program for all who use it.

Based on the public feedback, the revised regulations will enable outgoing leaseholders to choose the value of improvements for compensation at either the value set out in the appraisal report or a lesser value they specify.

According to the province, the current amendments to the ACL Leases and Permits Regulation 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 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 leases to an eligible third party;
  • developing a process that could enable legacy leaseholders to transfer their agricultural Crown lands to a third party by nominating the next leaseholder if the agricultural Crown lands are not selected under Treaty Land Entitlement and do 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 amendments to the ACL Leases and Permits Regulation will come into force on Jan. 1, 2024.