By Robert Arnason
September 2, 2025
Excerpt from article:
WINNIPEG — In the last five years, the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Canada have committed more than $2 billion to expand the acreage of irrigated cropland in Western Canada.
That’s positive, but Stephen Johnston is urging governments and private investors to do much, much more.
Johnston, director of the Omnigence Asset Management investment fund, says irrigated farmland is a significant opportunity for Canada to boost productivity and gross domestic product.
“Despite Canada’s large agricultural footprint, its irrigation (of farmland) lags far behind global peers,” Omingence said.
“Canada has the potential to increase its irrigated acreage by up to 400 per cent… Irrigation is … a catalyst for improving farmland productivity, enabling access to higher-value crops and driving land value appreciation.”
Omnigence, which owns about 140,000 acres of farmland in Western Canada and controls other assets, published a brief report on the potential of irrigating more farmland last month.
Full article here