Three keywords in the campaign against farmland consolidation and the loss of small farms through the lens of the Prince Edward Island Chapter of the National Farmers Union

Abstract

This thesis uses an ethnographic approach to examine campaigns against farmland consolidation and the loss of small farms through the lens of Prince Edward Island chapter of the National Farmers Union (NFU PEI). Using Raymond Williams’ Keywords concept, I trace three terms — “absentee landlords,” “family farm,” and “soil health”—as used by NFU PEI participants and their interlocutors at a time when loopholes to the Prince Edward Island (PEI) Lands Protection Act were publicly debated. Through this examination of meaning, I show how specific language used by participants and other groups illuminates underlying issues, debates, areas of consensus, and shifts in the agricultural landscape of PEI. These issues included contested claims to authenticity, remnants of colonialism, and the erasure of Temporary Foreign Workers, refugees and immigrants. Additionally, I show how an emphasis on issues such as heritage, obscure challenging questions around who owns land, who works the land and what makes “good” land. These arguments are supported by evidence from fieldwork in PEI from August 2021 to early June 2022, with additional meeting attendance in 2023 and 2024. Fieldwork consisted of library research, 15 interviews with NFU PEI members and members of related organizations, 8 farm visits with NFU PEI members and attendance at organization meetings, NFU conventions and other community meetings related to PEI land issues.