Canadian Lawyer

W ith low oil prices and strained relations with the United States, business for lawyers in the prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Mani- toba can rely on the ancient basics. "Things like mining, oil and gas produc- tion, construction, commercial real estate are still feeling the pinch from the downturn in the economy," says Jeff Grubb, Saskatchewan's managing partner of Miller Thomson LLP. "One of the areas though, that — remarkably, we think — has kind of weathered through the economic downturn and has maintained a fairly consistent level of growth is agricul- ture," he says. The price of farmland is increasing or holding at record highs, those selling machinery and manufacturing imple- ments are doing well and wind farms are driving growth in renewable energy, he says. Over the last 20 years, agribusiness has seen the consoli- dation of farms and the aging of farm operators, producing a steady need for legal advice. Around $50 billion worth of farm assets is expected to be transferred to new ownership in the next decade, according to Christopher Masich of McKercher LLP writing for Global Ventures Magazine. With the average age of a Canadian farmer at 55 and the fact that only eight per cent of farm operators have succession plans in place, the opportunities are bountiful for lawyers in the wills, trusts and estates field. "They are now thinking about how do we transition that to the next generation," says Grubb. "We're seeing more and more that farmers are doing that. It is very much a growth industry in Saskatchewan for legal service providers, assisting with developing estate plans, tax plans, corporate structures, all of that kind of work to be done." The trend of consolidation is continuing. The number of farms has decreased by almost six per cent since 2011, but dur- ing that period, the area used for cropland increased by nearly seven per cent, according to the 2016 Census of Agriculture. "There definitely is a trend of farms becoming larger and larger that's been happening over the course of, I would say, the last 20 to 25 years, and there's no indication that While agribusiness remains a stable source of work for firms across the Prairies, the profession is adapting for the future By Aidan Macnab STABILITY IN AN ERA OF CHANGE P R A I R I E S R E G I O N A L R E P O R T w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8 31

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