High house prices and a precarious job market make it tough for young couples in Canada. There may be an alternative. For half the price of a one bedroom condo in Toronto, you could have a house + 50 acres in rural PEI and join the new local food sell direct market. That would be a big operation in the new context.
I have several friends with less than 10 acres, one with 2, who are able to make a living here.
This is not the back to the land escape of the 1970's. This is getting in on the edge of the real new farming revolution where people grow real food on small units and sell direct to people who know that Big Food is harming them.
In parts of Europe the flood to the cities is reversing. Governments are starting to help this return to the land. On PEI we need 10,000 young new families. This is one of the ways we can get them. Here is what is going on in Portugal:
Jose Diogo, who spent two years in Lisbon working as a technical advisor at a meat company, was one who fled at the beginning of Portugal's debt crisis in 2009, and has no regrets.
"I lived in Lisbon and decided to go back home to the interior to grab the opportunity of exploring the land my father owned," Mr Diogo said on the porch at his stone farm house, looking out over apple orchards and grazing fields for his 30 cows.
Far from discouraging people like Mr Diogo, the government is trying to get others to follow in his footsteps.
In February it launched an initiative to map the country's unused land and terrain that does not have a known owner, with the aim of making it available to be rented to those who want to work it.
The government has also approved a land exchange scheme by which private owners of unused land will win tax benefits if they make their properties available to be rented by farmers.
Around 1.5 million hectares are expected to be made available through the scheme.
"In tough times, this is a way for people to generate some income, both those who put the land out for rental and those who exploit it," said Agriculture Minister Assuncao Cristas.
