Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration National Historic Event

The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration was designated as a national historic event in 2025.

Historical importance: Federal government program aimed at improving the severe drought and soil erosion conditions faced by many farming and ranching families living in the prairies provinces during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Commemorative plaque: no plaque installed^{Footnote 1}

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration

Established in 1935, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) was a federal program aimed at improving the severe drought and soil erosion conditions faced by many farming and ranching families living in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta during the Great Depression. Implementing livestock initiatives and educating citizens in cutting-edge agricultural techniques, the success of the PFRA was a complicated and mostly cooperative effort among all levels of government and citizens. Initially envisioned as temporary and established among several different Depression-era federal initiatives, the PFRA became a permanent function of government for more than 70 years and played a role in important irrigation and water development projects in the Prairie provinces. By 1945, the initiative eliminated the devastating effects of soil erosion and reshaped the viability of prairie lands. While over time the program had long-standing positive effects on environmental and water conservation in the region, some PFRA initiatives had negative impacts on Indigenous communities.

Passed in Parliament on 17 April 1935, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act was designed to coordinate and assist farmers with an effective response to severe drought conditions during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The administration that was established by the Act was paramount to an effective response to a rural exodus that had, by 1936, resulted in approximately 13,900 farms or 3 million acres (approximately 1.2 million hectares) of farmland being abandoned. By conducting scientific investigations, implementing environmental knowledge, and promoting specific agricultural practices, the PFRA instituted a comprehensive program to address the issues of soil erosion, water shortages, and soil conservation. Important PFRA initiatives included seeding grass for community pastures, promoting strip farming to prevent soil drifting, assisting in water dugout development, and planting shelterbelts for farms. Though it took some time to overcome logistic challenges, by most measures the PFRA successfully addressed the environmental crisis through policy decisions and promotion of specific agricultural practices. After the 1940s, the PFRA was involved in several large water development projects including the creation of irrigation systems connected to the St. Mary, Bow, and South Saskatchewan rivers.

While much of the PFRA’s work has been well-regarded, it has had unfortunate impacts on certain Indigenous Peoples. In the late 1930s, residents of the Métis community of Ste. Madeleine in Manitoba were dispossessed of their land to make way for the development of community pastures. To streamline the PFRA-led Gardiner Dam project on the South Saskatchewan River, ‘Mistasiniy,’ a millennia-old glacial erratic rock with important sacred implications to different Indigenous Peoples on the Plains, was destroyed despite campaigns for its relocation. In addition, the flooding of reserve land from several other dam projects in Saskatchewan removed much-needed resources that supported First Nations’ traditional economic and cultural practices.

In 2009, the PFRA was dissolved and its activities reassigned to other federal and provincial agencies. Its community pastures were either sold privately by the provinces, folded into province-led pasture programs, or transferred back to the federal government for wildlife conservation purposes.

“Recognizing the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) as an event of national historical significance exemplifies the importance of grit and tenacity, scientific research, and community adaptation in developing viable agricultural techniques that work within and extend the possibilities of landscape and culture. It's critically important to also recognize the negative impact of PFRA initiatives and agricultural development in general on Indigenous communities. As Indigenous and western agriculture grow in strength, lessons from the PFRA will continue to give critical insight for the path forward."

This press backgrounder was prepared at the time of the Ministerial announcement in 2025.

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