Quebec is no exception.

The answer in many rural parts of the province is health co-operatives.

The model was designed to relieve the overtaxed provincial health care system by meeting several first-line needs. But it hasn’t been — and still isn’t — an easy go.

I spoke with Amy Goodall-Tolhurst, founder of the Ici Santé health co-op, and Robert Brault, board president of the Co-op Ici Santé, about how this model of health care came into existence, how the co-op works and the services — and hope — it offers rural residents.

The beginning

As far back as 1998 Goodall-Tolhurst had been working with a health care program started through Howick United Church in Howick, Que., called parish nursing.

But as demand for health care in the region was getting larger due to an aging and growing population, “We got to a point after 10 years where the service needed to grow,” she recalls.

“We needed to offer more hours but as is often the case, we didn’t have enough money to cover the demand.”

While Goodall-Tolhurst was spending 16 hours a month on parish nursing, she also took a part-time job at a private medical clinic in Châteauguay, Que., about a half hour away. This type of health care setting provided insight on how that type of organization worked and what the challenges and expectations were.

“I said, okay, we need to try and combine something here, because people need the services. Some are willing to pay and for some it can be covered by their insurance. How do we make it all happen?”

In the early 2000s, she explored the model of health co-ops in surrounding municipalities to learn about how it might be applied in her region.

In 2012, the municipality of Howick conducted a study as part of its municipal family policy to explore how they could better support seniors and families. Subsequently, the embryonic Howick health co-op set up a meeting with local businesspeople, mayors and the local representative for Quebec’s national assembly, who was a major champion of the initiative. They set up a provisional committee and met every two weeks for two years. The committee also travelled around the province to learn from various established co-ops.

“We follow the standard model for health co-op development established by the regional co-op development organization, but you really have to adapt to where you live and what the needs are,” she says.

The structure

The Co-op Ici Santé (loosely translated as “health here”, meaning health care customized for the region) operates from two service centres (Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague and Howick) and counts 2,000 members.

Quebec health co-ops are grouped under the Fédération québécoise des coopératives de santé (Quebec Federation of Health Co-operatives). The FQCS has existed since 2018, and its 40 co-operative members are focused on filling the unmet needs of rural health services through preventative and curative first-line health care.

The provincial group of co-ops is made up of approximately 350 doctors and nurses and dozens of health professionals with expertise in physical and mental health.

To receive care at Ici Santé a patient is required to pay a one-time member fee of $10 which gets them a share in the co-op for life.

The patient is also supposed to pay an annual fee of $125. “This is where we need to adapt to our clientele,” says Goodall-Tolhurst. “Paying an annual fee enables the co-op to have an operating budget, but it has required a lot of persistence to get people on board with this. Those with fewer health issues interpret this fee as an expensive blood test. Well, maybe it is, but these are building blocks for the future of the co-op.”

Brault adds, “If you offer a service you have to hire the personnel regardless, whether there are two people or 10 who show up. That’s the reason for membership: it’s like an insurance. It costs $125 and maybe today you just need a blood test, but maybe tomorrow morning you might need a nurse to visit you at home. So, they have to understand that we have to hire that nurse and pay her no matter what.”

Goodall-Tolhurst says that the board chose to develop services progressively and carefully because “we cannot commit to things that we cannot do.”

Currently, she says the two big areas of health care that need to be addressed in the region are with young families and senior citizens. “Generally, everybody in between can cope with an emergency room or take action to improve the issue. They might not need it seen to immediately, as long as they can still function.

“It’s the parents who aren’t getting any sleep at night because their kid is crying, and it’s the seniors whose families become anxious because they’re worried or unable to be present for their parents. We want to support our seniors in their homes and accompany our young people as they navigate their roles as parents.”

She says the fit also has to work for health professionals. “Each professional has different strengths which brings a rounded dynamic to the team. And people raised in a rural setting often identify with the challenges of access to health care. For example, there was a nurse who felt she didn’t fit in an urban setting because she valued the rural life she grew up in and so she made the move to one of our co-ops.”

The benefits

Many local doctors refer their patients to the Co-op Ici Santé because a patient will get an appointment quicker than in the public system.

“Some doctors will call and say, ‘Listen, I’ve got an emergency here. I need to have this done right now.’ We will do our best to help the doctor get the patient taken care of,” says Goodall-Tolhurst.

Doctors who work in Quebec’s relatively newly established Groupes de médecine de famille (family medicine groups) enjoy what that organizational structure offers. By grouping together, administrative tasks are taken care of for them by government allocation. However, there are also obligations with this structure.

“Our approach is similar,” says Goodall-Tolhurst. “We aim to take the burden of administration and bureaucracy off the doctors’ backs so that they can do what they do best: provide care.”

Services offered at the Co-op Ici Santé consist of everything from blood samples to foot care; vaccinations to ECGs; tick, stitches and bandage removal; cryotherapy and much more.

A local resident can call the co-op one day and usually have an appointment the next.

One of their most important services is consultation. “The public system is difficult to navigate. If patients come to us with something we cannot address then we’ll work through their options to help them make the best decision,” says Goodall-Tolhurst.

The future

Goodall-Tolhurst, who has occupied all roles within the co-op — board of directors, administration, nurse, resource person — now occupies more of “a position with a title” rather than an active role because she sits on the federal board of co-operatives. She brings information from the provincial level back to the local co-op and feeds federal and provincial governing bodies information about what’s happening locally on the ground, such as what needs are required and where.

The biggest challenge is funding.

This is where Goodall-Tolhurst says they fall through the cracks. “We’re not a charitable organization, we’re a not-for-profit co-op. This combination excludes us from many grant opportunities. Historically, community investment is how our entire province’s health care system started: little villages encouraged people to sign on as members to build their hospitals. Businesses were solicited for donations. But currently, people are stretched very thin in terms of what they can afford.”

Brault says he knows that complementary services like theirs are helping to take the burden off the “big” health care system. “There’s 900,000 people on a waiting list to see a specialist in Quebec. So, there’s a place for complementary services.

“While we’re not able to offer all the services of a hospital, we can offer followups so that someone doesn’t have to sit in an emergency room for 12 hours for, say, stitch removal,” he says.

Goodall-Tolhurst experienced firsthand how important access to a local health co-op can be. “We have been told on several occasions that one blood test saved a life. In our case, my husband was able to receive timely treatment for prostate cancer thanks to early detection with a PSA test and he is now cancer-free.

“My goal when starting Ici Santé was to ensure the type of care I want to receive when I’ll need it. A co-operative model enables the clinic to improve their team approach at a local level. Our rural health co-op prioritizes its members.”

The post Rural health co-ops give a boost to Quebec’s struggling health care system appeared first on Country Guide.

Twenty-two-year-old Neveu is a dairy farmer who milks 60 (mostly) Jersey cows alongside her dad, Steven. After completing the three-year Farm Management and Technology program at Macdonald College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que., she returned home to farm full time in April 2024.

Country Guide: Why did you decide on a career in the agriculture industry?

Béatrice Neveu: In my early years of high school, I was milking the cows before going to school and I started driving tractors when I was 13. As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to take over the farm alone. It was my dream from the start because I didn’t have many models of women in agriculture, so I always made it my goal to be part of the change. I wouldn’t mind if one of my sisters took over the farm with me, but it is much easier now thanks to the new free stall barn and robot milker that we installed in 2019.

CG: What is your perception of the Canadian ag industry today? What excites you about it?

BN: The technology. It blows me away how detailed we can be in managing our herd, how much can be done from a distance and how much data we can pull from our computers. We can collect data about how much each calf is drinking, how many times a cow is giving milk and how much milk she is giving. You have access to data by the minute, if you need it. 

That part has made our lives easier and more interesting. It changes the job a lot. It’s helping us move ahead and produce more with what we already have just by collecting data.

CG: What expectations did you have coming into the industry and how do they compare with your actual experience? As a young person coming into the ag industry, have you found it difficult to earn people’s trust and confidence, to show that you know what you are doing?

BN: I have been around our family farm for a long time, and my dad has always included me in the operation so people know me and know that they can ask me pretty much the same questions they ask my dad. 

I have friends in agriculture who have more trouble with people not taking them seriously. The reality in our industry is that women probably face those challenges more than men. I’m very lucky that I haven’t felt that way.

But I also don’t really care, meaning that if I am going to a parts shop, I will ask what it is that I need, and I won’t have a reaction to how the person treats me. I think I act with confidence and so those things have never bothered me. 

CG: What are your personal career goals and what new ideas and fresh approaches do you have to help benefit agriculture and in particular the dairy sector?

BN: We are a small farm, and we know that the average farm size is increasing, and we try to keep up to date. We do have quite a big step to take but by maximizing our installations and filling up our robot to maximum capacity we’ll probably grow into an average farm size. A goal for the business is to make the installations that we have as efficient as possible. 

But I also hope that the rest of the industry does that because we all have to work together to move ahead. Some farms have a big step to take in the coming years. We have some rules around animal welfare that are coming into play that will have a big impact on some small family dairies. But, whether big or small, if we all realize the importance of our industry and stand together, we can keep it alive.

CG: How do you feel about the future of the dairy industry?

The quota system is a big thing that is going to continue helping us. If it can remain, it’ll be a game changer. There will always be dairy farms, although the number of farms will probably go down, but I hope that most will stay in the industry because the more farms that are around, the more people there are to represent the industry and the more weight we have on decisions made higher up.

CG: If one day your children came to you and said they were considering a career in ag, what area of the industry would you encourage them to look at? Where do you see the best opportunities?

BN: There are so many opportunities depending on what your interests are. There will always be a need for nutritionists and agronomists. A veterinarian is a great opportunity and it’s a fun job because you get to talk with farmers and follow herds and bring animals to life. There are so many careers. If you like to drive a truck, we need milk truck drivers. You could be a banker or a financial advisor. Agriculture is a great industry to be working in. Farmers are fun to get along with and it is a good community no matter the career you choose.

The post Youth focused on keeping Quebec’s dairy industry strong appeared first on Country Guide.

Glacier FarmMedia reporters and contributors from Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba asked farmers about their election priorities, how represented by the federal government they’ve felt — and finally, if there’s anything they’d like farmers from other regions to understand about the issues they face.

In part three of this series, farmers answer the question, “Do you feel represented by the federal government?”

Read part one and part two of the series, which look at farmers’ views on U.S. President Donald Trump, trade, the economy, and what the federal government can do to build a better business environment.

For more coverage of the 2025 federal election, visit the Western Producer’s election page.

Ontario

Ontario farmers Glacier FarmMedia spoke to felt generally well represented by their MPs. In all cases, those were Conservative MPs elected in ridings where agriculture is a significant economic driver.

“From Ottawa as a whole, though, I don’t feel the current government provides as much support as I would like to see for grain farmers across the country,” said Matt Underwood.

Brayden Older, a dairy farmer near Embro, says he “feel(s) like we’re rudderless right now.” He criticized former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for proroguing Parliament immediately upon announcing his intention to step down as Liberal leader. He also mused about the possibility that the nation could — if Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives win the election — potentially be led by three different prime ministers within a few months.

Pete Overdevest, who is on the Dairy Farmers of Ontario board, says the ruling Liberals made campaign promises in the past but failed to follow through once elected. He expects little better this time.

Overdevest and fellow dairy farmer Braydon Older shared the concern that if the Liberals secure a third successive victory the alienation due to lack of representation for farmers — particularly Prairie farmers — in Ottawa will rise to troubling levels.

Older wants to hear assurances from party leaders this campaign that supply management will be protected in any trade negotiations. But he admitted he worries that putting too much emphasis on poultry, eggs and dairy could leave voters in Western Canadian farm country feeling left out.

“We need to be united over the whole country,” agreed Overdevest.

Quebec

“The strongest element of a society is also its weakest link: its farmers,” said fruit producer and Bloc Québécois candidate Christian Hébert. His comments are translated from French.

“We can’t just pick up tomorrow and go. So, if farmers’ concerns are not prioritized in public policy, then we’ll be the first ones sacrificed. I find this very sad.”

Hébert said Quebecers unanimously support reciprocal norms — that is, that imported products sold in Québec must be subject to the same standards and requirements as Québec products.

“The federal government is not playing an adequate role in terms of control over products coming through the border,” he said.

Hébert said in recent years there have been several demonstrations in Quebec, other provinces and the U.S. about reciprocal norms.

Manitoba

Curtis McCrae said his biggest fear is that eastern voters will forget what has happened in the last ten years.

“We haven’t been represented as part of the country. We’ve just been where everything gets pushed to solve problems,” he said.

He said he’d love to see a government that understands the importance of primary industry, and the growth it can spur in the rest of the economy.

Scott Peters, who sits on the Canadian Pork Council, said representation has been okay at times. It can be difficult to get meetings with officials, but he understands they are very busy.

However, he said AgriStability has been toyed with too much, and programs have been cut — possibly because agriculture is poorly understood or forgotten.

Alberta

Hog and grain farmer Bryan Perkins said agriculture seems to get lost in the mix, while tariffs on other industries receive all the attention from the federal government.

“They’re spending a lot of time working on and being worried about tariffs and whatnot, but we’re here with 100 per cent tariffs on canola oil and canola meal and 25 per cent tariffs on pork going to China, and there just doesn’t seem to be a whisper on that,” he said.

“Yet, when there’s a 25 per cent tariff on automobiles or steel and aluminum — and those are all really important industries, for sure — all of a sudden there’s lots of government attention,” Perkins said.

China placed tariffs on agricultural products in retaliation for those Canada placed on electric vehicles, he said.

The post Canadian farmers’ view of the federal government differs by province — but not by much appeared first on Country Guide.

Neither have we.

The utter thrill of getting into farming for the first time is incomparable. The freedom to make one’s own decisions and, rightly or wrongly, see those decisions through.

With time, of course, farmers gain perspective. Perhaps those older voices offering advice weren’t so out to lunch after all. And maybe some of the highly idealistic goals the rookie farmers set for themselves weren’t as far-fetched as others might have thought. There’s always a balance.

Country Guide was curious about what 10 years does to a person in the farming business. Did the farm and all its supposed glory live up to the hype? Surpass it? Fall short? Also, what’s different then versus now? Is what’s different better, worse or simply just different?

Two Quebec farmers share their thoughts on what it’s like to farm in 2025, and beyond, with 10 and 12 years’ experience under their belt.

Vergers Rockburn Orchards, Hinchinbrooke, Quebec

When Laurie Ann Prevost and Roger Duheme Jr. decided that a conventional 9-5 life wouldn’t cut it, they didn’t quite know where that would take them. It was 2012 in Huntingdon, Que., and Duheme was working in construction while Prevost was studying business administration.

“I thought maybe we can get a little farm and do something,” says Prevost.

While Duheme had some level of familiarity with farms having worked at a couple over the years, Prevost was a complete greenhorn but knew that an office job was not her calling as she trudged through a mandatory internship.

They found an apple orchard for sale by longtime farmers in nearby Hinchinbrooke. Prevost’s father financially backed their farm purchase: 125 ready-made acres (40 acres of which are apple orchards), a sizeable controlled-atmosphere storage, 3,000 maple syrup taps and plenty of room for their imagination to run wild.

From day one, it’s been a grind.

“Right away, we jumped right into it,” says Prevost. “The previous owners helped us out and quickly taught us a few little things, but it was very intense from the start.

“It’s a lot more work than I thought it would be. Everyone thinks it must be so nice and peaceful living on the farm. No, no, no. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot more complicated than what I was expecting it to be.”

The first thing they learned was that they were doing a lot with a lot. The 40 acres of apples were all dwarf trees, and each tree requires an 8’ x 16’ plot. An apple-heavy region, many other producers in the area were moving away from the dwarves and replanting with tall and thin super-spindle trees that only require a 3’ x 12’ plot. Having 1,210 trees/ac. is much more efficient than the previous 340/ac.

“And the yield is higher,” says Prevost.

They grow nine varieties, including Ambrosia, McIntosh, Honeycrisp and the ultra popular Ginger Gold. In addition to the apples, they now plant and manage one acre of blueberries and have 3,000 maple syrup taps.

Duheme primarily looks after the orchard and Prevost manages the back end, which has come to mean a lot of paperwork and screen time. From day one, she was quickly introduced to the heavy administrative load that’s behind every farm, no matter the size or scope. They received Canada GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) program certification and also had to create a fertilizer management plan, which must be signed off by an agronomist. These were just the basics, but it was burdensome.

“Any type of business was a lot, but farming was even more, and I didn’t know there were all these additional environmental regulations,” says Prevost.

Even though her educational background was business administration, Prevost says the schoolwork did not prepare her for when she was in charge of a business and the pressure is on 24/7.

“What you study in school is still not enough to prepare you for real life,” she says.

One area in which she has become a relative expert is in procuring foreign workers. When they first began, they employed 34 locals to pick apples for a couple of months during harvest season. In 2018, out of those 34 pickers they ended up with just four, the majority lost to attrition for various reasons.

“That year, 25 per cent of our crop was on the ground because I didn’t have the people to pick the fruit,” she says. “People don’t understand that when an apple is ready to be harvested, it has to be picked or it’s going to drop to the ground within a week or two. It’s very time-sensitive and getting people was very difficult.”

For the following year’s harvest they employed 12 Mexican workers, none of whom quit, and only a few very keen locals, all of whom have since retired.

Their farm is more labour intensive than others, as well. They still rely on ladders whereas more sophisticated farms use platforms.

Now, they manage 20 acres of trees and will slowly turn over the entire orchard to tall spindle. In 2026, they will plant two acres of high-density orchard at a cost of about $40,000/ac. when posts, wire and anchors are included.

Their move to plant certain varieties is very deliberate. They once thought a good apple was a good apple, but that’s not quite the case. Varieties like McIntosh and Cortland are well known but costlier, more difficult to grow with the changing climate and don’t sell as fast. They have cut down 20 acres of unproductive Mcintosh and Cortland trees since starting.

“But planting orchards is very expensive. So, we didn’t plant as fast as what we thought we would, but it’s okay because a smaller orchard is easier to manage.”

It’s clear to Prevost that had they known then what they know now, the orchard would be converted incrementally each year.

“I would have started replanting the orchard sooner to have trees in production by now, because we didn’t start replanting until 2020. We would have better varieties now and more income to stay more competitive.”

She encourages would-be farmers to be resilient, especially if things go south, which is not an if-and-then, but an if-and-when scenario.

“Someone who works with a paycheque, you get your paycheque every week, it is what it is. But us? We can work all year, harvest our fruit, put it in storage and lose everything in storage and end with zero money.”

Beyond that, farmers and managers must get comfortable with the idea that they will either have to hire a person to do all the non-farming tasks or look after it themselves. Even though she knew she didn’t want to work in an office, Prevost admits her schooling has come in handy to manage all the paperwork she’s tasked with.

She does submit, though, that she essentially has a desk job, not a farming job.

“I spend more time sitting at a computer than I get to be outside working in my trees and doing the fun stuff,” she says.

These days it seems as though there’s always one more task to take care of, and her efforts are rarely enough to climb out from under the work.

As the farm progresses, Prevost’s goal is to continue to diversify, possibly secure more maple syrup tap leases and, overall, drive dollars up and hours down.

“My aim is not to be bigger, it’s to make more profit with less effort,” she says.

Les Jardins Glenelm (Glenelm Gardens), Elgin, Quebec

You don’t plant flowers in February, for obvious reasons. It’s also not advised to plant vegetables into heavy clay soil that hasn’t been worked in a century, as farmers Ian Ward and Sarah Rennie can attest.

Now with a decade of farming experience growing vegetables, they attribute their success to hard work, trial and error, and timely mentorship.

They first became curious about agriculture when they volunteered to be a drop spot for a local community supported agriculture (CSA) operation. Ward, who always had a green thumb growing up in Toronto, Ont., was more than open to the idea of producing vegetables himself. When he and Rennie moved into their 1.5-acre property in 2013, the dream was there, they just had to make it come to life.

“I took a season to figure out whether we had soil that could be farmed because that wasn’t a guarantee,” explains Ward.

He grew a couple of test beds, sold the vegetables to restaurants in the nearby town of Huntingdon and had a positive reception. “So, we just decided to keep going and expand and keep growing it.”

When he got serious about growing produce, though, the first issue to tackle was just about staring him in the face. Four-and-a-half foot tall weeds dominated the property along with small scrub brush intermingled among immature trees.

Ward describes the overgrowth as “tenacious” and soon came to realize the problem below the surface was even bigger than what was above. The region is built on heavy blue clay that is as unforgiving as it sounds.

“I made my first few beds with a pickaxe,” says Ward with a grin.

His Italian-made BCS rotary plow, which he describes as a “rototiller on steroids,” is a two-wheel walk-behind tractor used to loosen the soil. The couple became stuck multiple times and Rennie describes both of them being “thrown like a rodeo bull” at various times thinking they had hit a rock when it was just a particularly troublesome lump of clay. “I was hanging on for dear life as my feet definitely left the ground a few times,” says Ward.

A neighbour came in with his machinery and plowed it for them. He estimated the ground hadn’t been worked in 100 years.

The first two years are aptly described as “backbreaking labour.” Some beds fared better than others and Ward contended with the heavily waterlogged soil. Eventually he thought it may be best to tackle the moisture issue from the outside for long-term success. He trenched a line around the property with a backhoe and was glad he did but was shocked all the same.

“We made the right decision because there was water pouring out from the trench like a faucet on full blast,” he says. “All that water would have been seeping into our field. No wonder we weren’t able to drain it properly.

“There were a couple of years there when we realized very quickly that we were not going to be getting the yields that we were seeing in farming books or pulling out $1,000 per bed. It just wasn’t going to happen. We weren’t in that game yet, so we had to grow our market very slowly,” he says. “We worked on our soil, we worked on our own skills, built it up little by little, keeping an eye on expenses, keeping things relatively cheap, so that we didn’t get ahead of ourselves because we knew we couldn’t justify a big investment.”

Their soil continually forced them to use the BCS to keep the ground loose enough to allow for root establishment.

It wasn’t until year four they began to reap consistently good yields and produce a quality product.

“We spent three or four years figuring out how to get decent yields on soil that was too wet,” says Ward. “It was never going to give us the yields that we were looking for when the roots can only go down three or four inches before they hit water. That was an eye-opener for us.”

Over the course of their first four years, they built four unheated, passive solar greenhouses, each 100 feet long and ranging between 20 to 26 feet wide. The first was constructed on skis so that it could be moved relatively easy.

It was in 2019, with four tunnels up and running well, that Ward began to search for additional land to grow more space-consuming crops such as potatoes and squash. A few minutes up the road, local CSA pioneers Jamie Quinn and his wife Nora Johnston were looking to rent out one of their fields, a 2.5-acre plot with pristine soil. They knew the blue clay so well that their farm is named after their mastery of it: Ferme la Terre Bleue.

Inspecting Quinn’s field, Ward remembers plunging his hand into soil adjacent to carrots that was so fine it felt like sand. Ward was beyond excited at the prospect of having soil that was 30-plus years ahead of his in terms of stewardship.

“I hadn’t dreamed that our soil could be that light and fluffy,” he says.

Quinn had modified a plow into straight knives and was cutting the soil up 12 inches deep, which gave crops the necessary breathing room to grow and thrive.

And Quinn challenged him on ideas about row spacing. Ward was open-minded enough to hear him out and he’s glad he did.

“The main thing that I’ve learned from that farm is that I’ve moved from a focus on maximum density to maximum efficiency,” he shares. “In some cases, maximum efficiency does mean taking advantage of the highest density that I can get, but in other cases, it’ll be spacing things out quite a bit to make sure that I can weed them effectively. I never thought I’d grow more carrots on three rows than six.”

Today, the couple grow enough produce to support 120 families through a CSA and they also sell at local markets.

Their tools have changed to a degree, but the BCS is still the number one implement. They also have a 40-hp tractor at the 2.5-acre site, and they use a subsoiler attachment for the BCS. Ward says it’s less efficient, but it’s the right tool, especially considering he can’t get a tractor inside his tunnels.

The subsoiler can make 10- to 12-inch-deep furrows in the soil without pulverizing it, which allows the air to come up, and a good environment for micro-organisms to thrive.

“We’re still using compost but we’re also providing the micro-organisms with the conditions they need to improve the soil for us,” Ward says.

They also acquired a Power Ox, a 3.5-hp, two-wheeled weeding tractor which means they can work two or three rows at a time. It cost him less than $10,000 and is invaluable for what it allows him to do — for instance, he can weed three rows of carrots in a 60-inch bed simultaneously in only 10 minutes and eliminate 90-plus per cent of weeds.

All these innovations, along with mentorship from Quinn and Johnston, have helped their farm immensely. Still, times are tough in 2025, and Ward admits their sales are not where he wants them to be. People buy local for various reasons and at various times, but not all the time. “Local farms,” he says, “don’t need your support. They need your commitment.” He says prolonged uncertainty, which set in around 2021, has made it difficult to grow their market share.

Yet they grow.

This fall they intend to build their first heated greenhouse but even with grants, it will cost close to $100,000. It’s a big gamble, but Ward is confident and plans to bet on himself. He believes he can do better in a heated year-round greenhouse that will measure 100’ x 42’ x 18’.

And after all the hard work battling the clay over the years, Ward has actually come to embrace it. The clay produces a distinct taste that many have come to know and expect from their produce.

“While it is a royal pain in the butt to work with, it does produce higher-quality vegetables, more nutritious vegetables, and more phytonutrients,” he says. “You can actually taste the difference pretty clearly.”

Even though he has “never worked so hard to earn a dollar” in his life, Ward says the massively improved, well-drained soil produces quality crops year in, year out.

He encourages young farmers and would-be farmers to understand their soil before they get too far down the path.

“You can’t underestimate drainage. Vegetables will not grow in wet soil. That’s something that we learned the hard way,” he shares.

Ward also challenges farmers to be honest with themselves about their farm and where the pinch points are and lean into them. Although it sounds counterintuitive, he believes it will pay some of the biggest dividends for the average produce farmer.

“Think about what your limiting factor is, whether that’s time or space and try to maximize your efficiency on that indicator,” he says. “Don’t just assume that because one is working for the farmer down the road, that that’s what’s going to be best for you.

“It’s also dangerous to try to think that you can do everything. It’s really easy to get lost trying to do everything and doing nothing well. Control what you can and make one small, good decision after another. After a while, it usually adds up to a positive outcome.”

So, after 10 years, is he in it for the long haul?

“The biggest surprise for me is that I still really enjoy what I do despite knowing that I’d earn more doing just about anything else,” he says with a laugh.

The post Quebec farmers still learning after 10 years appeared first on Country Guide.

Too often it seems we never hear the words “disruptor” and “Canadian agriculture” used in the same sentence. When we’re thinking about hot new business concepts like disruption, Silicon Valley is more likely to come to mind with all of its tech businesses and rule-breaking entrepreneurs. And what may be least likely to be thought of is a seemingly sedate industry like agriculture, or especially one of its quiet corners, like dairy.

Yet if what we mean by a disruptor is this — someone who re-imagines how things get done in the business world and who gets the money for doing it — then here’s a farm a half hour north of Montreal at Ste-Anne-des-Plaines that is asking us to rethink just how far Canadian agriculture can go.

If this isn’t disruption, nothing is.

The farm we’re talking about is called Ferme Vachalê/Lait Charbonneau, and it dates way back to 1634 when Olivier Charbonneau was the first European to farm what is now the island of Laval.

Today, incredibly, this family farm is in its 12th generation — a generation that includes co-owner siblings Luc, Julie and Mathieu along with co-managers Jocelyne Prud’homme and Marie-Andrée Raiche (married to Luc and Mathieu, respectively). There are also the 10 kids in the up-and-coming 13th generation, plus several farm and store employees. And, of course, the grandparents.

Combined, they milk 160 cows two times a day with eight double automatic take-off milkers, 16 cows at a time in barn space they’ve expanded twice since 2009, with each addition big enough to hold an additional 40 cows.

They also grow 435 acres of forages, cereals, corn and soybean in an eco-responsible business that makes every effort to reduce their environmental footprint. For example, they find ways to limit diesel and pesticide use, their feeding program reduces methane output from the cows, they use cover crops and windbreaks to build soil health, and they use cropping systems like direct seeding to encourage earthworms and soil structure.

The farm philosophy is based on their mother’s term “reasonable farming” (or, as she would say, “l’agriculture raisonable”), which means that Mother Nature does a pretty good job on her own; we just have to help her along by doing “reasonable” things, i.e. things that on that particular region and farm will complement her natural forces and cycles.

Thinking beyond

Their business management, by contrast, is creating its own sense of direction, unafraid to go beyond the expected as the Charbonneaus become disruptors, taking charge of slim profit margins by going vertical and by processing milk on-farm to supply their retail dairy store, Lait Charbonneau.

Launched in 2022, the storefront and milk processing plant are just steps away from the main farm.

In a way, it’s a back-to-the-future concept for the family. Until 1972 the Charbonneaus handled the evening milk run themselves, delivering milk door-to-door in the community.

But if the concept isn’t new, the reasons driving it are. Or, at least, they’re more intense.

When we meet, Marie-Andrée Raiche clicks through a list of those reasons.
“The farm economy is difficult,” says Raiche. “Input costs are too high. We want to receive a fair return, not the crumbs we do for the work we do while everyone else down the supply chain is making money.

“We needed some leverage, a way to control our own business costs and profits. We have 10 kids coming in the next generation. And since the end of our milk run, we always wanted to have the opportunity to be that contact point with customers again.”

They also knew they wanted to be part of the agro-tourism scene (“because let’s be honest: that’s where the money is,” says Raiche) and that the business would have to be completely transparent about how it operates and how products are made.”

Finding the right advice

The family has many ideas for future growth, but they pace themselves and work in stages. “We need to be successful quickly because there are always bills to be paid,” Raiche jokes, “but at what speed? You can be successful in 10 years or you can be successful in one — but you need to be able to deliver. So, yes, you can ‘go fast and break things’, but to a point. For example, the quantity of milk we’re producing every day means we can deliver, but we need to grow at a reasonable pace or we’ll kill ourselves with work.”

They visited about 15 other dairies when they were in the research stage of their store project — and everyone had advice to share. “The thing about advice,” says Raiche, “is that it’s that person’s experience, something they’ve lived through and so maybe that piece of advice helped them. During our visits, most owners were generous and shared a lot of advice. Some of it was not for us. Some of it we brushed off and shouldn’t have. Some of it turned out to be very helpful. But what advice is good for you always depends on what you want to accomplish, what kind of image you want to portray, what kind of customer you want to attract.”

They got good marketing advice too. Projecting the right image can be a challenge, they found. “We struggle sometimes with figuring out how to showcase our products without being too showy, too market-y, too ‘not us’,” says Raiche. “There’s competition out there and we think our products are the best, but … if it’s not marketed in the right way to those who don’t know our products, it can be the best product in the world, but no one will be interested in trying it to find out.”

Raiche, meanwhile, has emerged from the process with some thoughts of her own. Her best business advice? “Follow your heart. Listen to your partners, your team, your customers. When you’re overtired, take a break, step back. It’s not easy, but you need to pace yourself and understand that you’re only human. And build big! Everyone said we would have to expand about two years after opening and it hasn’t even been two and we already know that we’re going to have to get bigger.”

In 10 years they want to be able to process all milk on-farm into products for the store. Thanks to the advice they received while visiting other dairies during the planning stage (build big!), they “built with the intention to destroy” — meaning that all the plumbing, electrical, etc. in the processing section of the building were designed to be easily added to or modified. The store will help pay for the new barn addition in 2025 and those cows will help finance the processing facility’s growth.

“It’s very exciting — especially when you see the face of a customer who’s tasting your product for the first time and their eyes roll back in their head,” Raiche beams. “To see the results of all your efforts, that’s priceless.”

Making the decision

There’s a big unanswered question, however. How does a family come to big decisions like these, with everyone on the same page? “We all sat down with some beer and wine and a legal pad and a pen, and we listed everything everyone wanted,” Raiche says.

But she also agrees there’s more to it than that. “We had to deal with our expectations — and eventual client expectations — and so we had to also work out, okay: how are we going to realistically do this? Because we are five people with five visions for the business.”

They knew they wanted to be as transparent as possible so customers feel confident in what they do on-farm and in the store, so it turned out one thing they all immediately agreed on was placing a window in the store that looks into the processing room so customers could see how the products are made.

The farm also hosts hundreds of Quebecers each year at the annual Portes ouvertes (“open house”) event in September, organized by the province’s agricultural union. “This year, half the village is reserved for event parking (the farm is metres away from town limits) and we’ll have 50 people working here that day,” Raiche says proudly.

“Before our store opened, the average length of a visit was about an hour and a half. Now it’s three to four hours.”

Each co-owner and co-manager is responsible for a part of the business, but major decisions or big purchases are made as a team. “Someone can’t just go out and buy a $200,000 tractor if they feel like it,” says Raiche.

“There must be boundaries and respect for each person’s area of responsibility.” Luc manages crops and machinery; Julie handles financial tasks and manages the herd; and Mathieu takes care of human resources. Raiche manages the store and its 12 employees, and Jocelyne develops and makes most of the products and monitors quality control.

The grandparents are still involved as is Raiche’s 15-year-old daughter, who is interested in taking over someday and works in the (delicious!) on-site food truck for the summer.

But a business is a business even if — sometimes especially if — you’re working with family, so setting up roles and responsibilities helped avoid confusion and frustration.

“Our biggest hurdle was figuring out who was going to do what. We all want to contribute to the business and do our best,” says Raiche. “But we all have different fields of interest and expertise, and also different ways of thinking. One of the first things we did was make a list of what each person was responsible for to ensure that work wasn’t done twice, or something didn’t get done because it was assumed someone else would do it.”

Raiche’s face brightens as she adds: “It’s not a secret, okay … It’s called talking to each other. You know, communicating.” Compared to previous generations, she thinks more people are discovering how to listen and communicate, and that it takes all kinds of people to run a business. “Even when you are co-owners, some people are better at managing the day-to-day, others are more visionary. But you can’t just be a visionary and forget the day-to-day. We need to use everyone’s skills to be able to function. It takes a variety of perspectives to make a healthy whole.”

And remember there will be bumps. “It’s a business, so there’s always something to be anxious or worried about,” concedes Raiche. “My advice is to stay calm … There’s always a solution. You might not see it at first, but there is one.

– This article was originally published in the October 2023 issue of Country Guide.

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“This decision comes against a backdrop of falling production volumes, which has led the plant to operate at only 40% of its operational capacity,” the company said in an April 19 news release.

Operations at the plant will be “redeployed” to other Olymel facilities.

The closure will affect 135 employees, including 30 temporary foreign workers. The company said workers would be given the option to relocate to neighbouring plants.

Olymel has seen a spate of losses in recent years. It dialed back hog production in Alberta and Saskatchewan last year, and closed several processing plants in Ontario and Quebec, including at Vallee-Jonction, Sainte-Hyacinthe and Princeville.

Earlier this year, Olymel’s parent company, Sollio Cooperative Group, said it was back in the black after 2023’s losses, with Olymel posting a surplus of $138.3 million after a loss of $446.1 million in 2022.

The company said it achieved this via improved performance in fresh pork, reduced slaughter volume, consolidating plants and distribution centres, disposing of “non-strategic assets,” recruiting foreign workers to offset local labour shortages and focusing on value-added products.

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Even now, says Quebec’s UPA, its main farm organization, the province has only 0.24 hectares of arable land per person, the lowest in North America.

And more pressures loom.

The past

Quebec has long favoured careful management of its agricultural lands.

In 1978, on the heels of almost two decades of an economic boom that saw mass migration to urban and suburban centres, the provincial government implemented the Loi sur la protection du territoire et des activités agricoles (LPTAA — Act Respecting the Preservation of Agricultural Land and Activities).

More than 20,000 hectares of quality soil were sacrificed to urbanization surrounding the city of Montreal between 1964 and 1975. To stymy land speculation and unchecked development of prime agricultural land, the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec (CPTAQ — Commission to Protect Agricultural Land) was also established in 1978 following enactment of the LPTAA.

The CPTAQ’s mandate was, and is, to protect Quebec’s farmland through application of the LPTAA. It is responsible for reviewing and approving (or refusing) requests for authorization to use farmland for non-agricultural purposes. When assessing requests, the CPTAQ follows a list of 10 mandatory and two optional criteria. It also takes into consideration any distinctive regional characteristics while acknowledging the importance of the land’s sustainability for future generations.

“In Quebec we talk a lot about food autonomy and security,” says UPA president Martin Caron. “The most important tool we need to achieve those goals is our agricultural land. Having the lowest ratio of land to citizen… well, we had better think twice about protecting our farmland, because that’s our pantry.”

The present

The battle to protect farmland is about more than just losing it to urban sprawl — although that is a very real and considerable challenge.

“We have arrived at a critical moment of increased density of urban sprawl — and it will require a concerted effort to protect our farmland,” says Caron. “For example, we shouldn’t just be building one- or two-storey houses, but several storeys if we want to decrease urban sprawl and its impacts on agriculture.”

Caron notes that a city’s impetus to expand is because it’s increasingly difficult to obtain revenue from land taxes. “The more households they have, the more revenue they get, but the more services are required in terms of infrastructure to support those households, and so they have to find a way to pay for that infrastructure (which means adding yet more houses). It becomes a vicious circle,” he says.

Then there’s the phenomenon of “non-agricultural use.” Land is typically zoned either green, meaning it’s for agricultural use, or white which is for non-agricultural use, e.g. residential, industrial and commercial. “But the green zone is increasingly being used for non-agricultural activities while remaining zoned as green,” says Caron. “Regional County Municipalities (RCMs) and land developers are using this loophole and, at last assessment, the UPA calculated that 61,000 hectares were lost from the green zone this way.”

Caron says that in most cases non-agricultural applications are usually for infrastructure like hydro lines, so the land is not de-zoned, but it is being used for non-agricultural purposes. “We’re seeing this occur more often in recent years and it has a real impact on our agricultural land base,” says Caron. He says it also skews the reality and severity of the situation. “So, the government tells us, ‘It looks like we haven’t lost that much in the green zone after all’; however, the CPTAQ keeps track of these numbers and we know that 61,097 hectares in the green zone have been sacrificed to non-agricultural use.”

As Country Guide covered in our November issue, steep climbs in farmland values are also having an impact on ownership. This is an important concern for the UPA. “Farmland is typically purchased and owned by three types of people: agricultural producers, producer-entrepreneurs and speculators,” says Caron. “More and more we have people buying farmland on speculation. We’ve seen this for the past few years when interest rates were low. As farmland values increased, its value became much higher than interest rates. So, we saw a lot of farmland being purchased by non-farmers, i.e. speculators, because a year after they bought it, that land’s value would increase by eight or 10 percent.”

The UPA is pushing for a law regarding land speculation. “If we can’t have a land registry that adequately traces all real estate transactions (of who is purchasing farmland), then maybe we can take other actions that bring us to the same end goal, or that help diminish the negative impacts of current practices (on our agricultural lands),” Caron says optimistically. “The government incorporates food sovereignty into many of its provincial plans, and with the current public consultation (see more about this below), it’s an opportune time for us to make demands.”

Caron says that there’s a concentration of land speculation activity in certain regions of the province. “Speculation combined with increases in the price of farmland is making it difficult for the upcoming generation who want to buy land,” stresses Caron. “It creates a situation where the land’s value is not based on its agronomic value. If the value of land is not based on its agronomic value, but rather on its market value, it’s difficult to make it profitable over 20-25 years (the length of a traditional loan).”

To compound the problem even more (yes, there’s more!), Caron says there’s still a lot of work to do around protecting agricultural activities. “This is important because currently land can still be classified in the green zone, but there are limits around the activities occurring on it. For example, you can’t use certain pesticides, or some types of work can only be done between this-and-this date. The green zone was set up specifically for agricultural activities, but the work being carried out in it is being questioned and, currently, villages and municipalities have the right to legislate agricultural activities in their jurisdiction. This is a huge slap in the face for producers, like their profession and their expertise is not recognized or is being questioned. They go to school to become professionals in agriculture, but then they’re being told they must do their job this way, not that way.”

The future

Quebec’s agriculture ministry is hosting a public consultation which began last June (2023) and runs until June 2024. The Consultation nationale sur le territoire et les activités agricoles ­­— Agir pour nourrir le Québec de demain (Provincial Consultation on Agricultural Land and Activities: Act Now to Feed the Quebec of Tomorrow) consists of three phases: agricultural land, agricultural activities, and landholdings and ownership.

The goal of the consultation is to learn more about the types of activities occurring on agricultural land and about ownership in terms of who should be eligible. Input from the consultation process will be used to overhaul the laws that currently govern provincial farmland protection.

During the current third and final stage of the consultation, the UPA is putting pressure on the provincial government regarding the issue of who can purchase farmland. “The UPA wants to enact some measures but correct others. For example, we really must enact some kind of policy or regulation that prevents investment funds from purchasing our farmland. As we’ve seen recently in Saskatchewan, what happens when those types of entities purchase land is that when they resell, no one can afford to buy that land, so it just goes into the hands of another consortium.”

Caron says the UPA has already proposed that the government cap the number of hectares someone could purchase. “We suggested a cap of 100 hectares, meaning that a person would not be eligible to purchase more than 100 hectares per year.” (See ‘Acquisition of farmland in Quebec by non-residents’ at bottom)

Quebec has a registry of non-residents or non-farmers who purchase land, but, Caron asks, how can we manage it better? “Elsewhere in the world, and here in Canada in Prince Edward Island, for example, if you’re looking to purchase land as a non-farmer, you must declare whether you have shares in a company that has ownership of that property. That’s what we’re looking to avoid in Quebec, having a situation where there’s a concentration of those types of people or companies (speculators). Land is the most important tool agricultural producers require to practice their profession; to not have that tool makes things very complicated.”

One of the tools the UPA, along with a few other organizations, has developed is the “fiducie foncière”, a property trust. It works like this: a producer interested in selling their land can sell it to the trust and then rent it for a 40-year term. This ensures that the land remains in agricultural use. After the end of the term, the lessee has the option to purchase, or they can renew the lease.

Another challenge has been the aforementioned “loophole” of “demandes à portée collective” (applications of collective scope), otherwise known as Article 59. This provision allows RCMs and communities to plan for long-term residential needs in agricultural zones.

The intention is to approach land development in a way that establishes clear rules around the development of residential zones in the green zone by applying a sustainable development lens while acknowledging protections for agricultural land and activities.

“About two-thirds of RCMs have used this process, for example to build houses in zones that will have less of an impact on agriculture,” Caron says. “But there are tools that currently exist for municipalities and the agriculture sector to collaborate, to find that middle road of solutions. To us it’s clear that requests must pass through the tools we already have available, for example the CPTAQ, which is impartial. Requests most certainly should not bypass the checks and balances currently in place.”

The UPA also has several concerns with the Quebec government’s Plan Nature 2030, a far-reaching consultation and planning project aimed at determining how best to preserve and protect 30 percent of the province’s biodiversity (terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems) by 2030.

In November, Caron stated that “the protection of biodiversity… must not be done to the detriment of agricultural activities” and that the UPA will push for consistency between federal and provincial biodiversity protection plans, Quebec’s Sustainable Agriculture Plan, and Ottawa’s Agricultural Climate Solutions Program.

Food movements as well as world events such as a pandemic, wars, climate change and other food system disruptors are altering food production systems. The key is to find systems that are sustainable and beneficial to all stakeholders.

Caron says that ultimately, we must reinforce laws and regulations that protect agricultural activities and land and add laws that will limit the scope of land speculation, including implementing a thorough land registry.

“Citizens are beginning to see the importance of this matter,” he says. “When you keep reinforcing the facts — that is, less than 2 per cent of our land is available for agriculture and that there are only 0.24 hectares available per citizen — and then not only farmers but other organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation, Heritage Montreal and many others are telling consumers the same thing, it becomes very real, especially after the pandemic. No one actually went without food during the pandemic, but it really made consumers realize how precarious the food system is.”

“One of the main goals of the LPTAA was to ensure that there is a future for our agricultural lands and that those lands would stay in the hands of those working in the agriculture profession,” says Caron. “But there are those who become agricultural landowners and don’t cultivate it (e.g. those who buy 10 hectares or less). We’ve seen elsewhere that laws have been enacted which mandate landowners to cultivate that land. This decreases the pressure on farmland availability and price — but this requires everyone to mutually agree on an approach to agricultural land management.”

And that — to mutually agree on a solution that benefits everyone — is a tale older than Quebec.

Acquisition of farmland in Quebec by non-residents

The Act Respecting the Acquisition of Farm Land by Non-residents lays out the rules for who can purchase agricultural land and how much.

Non-residents of Quebec (including residents of other Canadian provinces) are limited to owning four hectares (about 10 acres) of farmland unless they demonstrate intent to become residents and establish themselves within four years.

A resident is considered a natural person who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident within the meaning of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and who has lived in Quebec for not less that 1,095 days during the 48 months immediately preceding the date of acquisition of farmland.

A legal person is a Quebec resident if it is validly constituted (regardless of the manner or place of constitution). In the case of a legal person with share capital, more than 50 per cent of the voting shares of its capital stock must be owned by one or more persons resident in Quebec and more than one-half of its directors must be natural persons resident in Quebec. In the case of a legal person without share capital, more than one-half of its members must be resident in Quebec. Furthermore, the legal person must not be directly or indirectly controlled by one or more non-residents.

Non-residents cannot, directly or indirectly, make an acquisition of farmland without the authorization of the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec (CPTAQ). Non-residents cannot add more than 1,000 hectares per year to their holdings, but they may exceed this limit with permission from the CPTAQ. An application to purchase land must be accompanied with an affidavit declaring the reasons for the acquisition of the land, the intended use and that the applicant intends to settle in Quebec.

Before the CPTAQ grants permission, it will examine such factors as the intended use (whether the land is suitable for cultivation or raising livestock); the impact the acquisition will have on the price of farmland in the region; the effects of the acquisition or projected use on the economic development of the region; the development of agricultural products and the development of underutilized farmland; and the impact of land occupancy.

The CPTAQ’s decisions are final and without appeal. Furthermore, if a person is found to be contravening any provision of the act, the CPTAQ can issue an order to “cease and desist” within a set timeframe. If the person fails to comply, they may be ordered to divest themselves of the land within six months of the date of the decree.

Source: legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/a-4.1

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“By increasing our production capacity, we have been able to supply many more distributors, who are fond of our high‑quality product,” said Dany Deshaies, CEO of Sherbrooke-based SoyXpert Inc in a federal news release today.

SoyXpert was founded in 2019 and uses traditional Japanese techniques to produce its certified organic, firm tofu, its website said. It received the $400,000 “repayable contribution” through Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED), the news release said.

It recently built a new production facility and installed digital equipment, including a highly automated production line, which has allowed it to increase production and develop its flagship product ‘Soykei,’ the release added.

Quebec is home to multiple producers of the soy-based curd product, including Soyarie, Horium Foods Inc., and Unisoya.

Even so, local manufacturers haven’t always been able to meet demand in the province.

In early 2019, La Presse reported that Unisoya, unable to fill all customer orders, had voluntarily stopped selling to Costco. It was in the midst of expanding its facility.

At the time, Soyarie reported a 25 per cent or more increase in sales over the past few years, the La Presse report said.

The report attributed the increase in tofu demand to factors like the rising cost of meat, interest in reducing meat consumption for health and environmental reasons, and rising interest in vegetarianism.

In 2019, Quebec residents were more likely than other Canadians to eat tofu.

“In fact, 26 per cent of Quebecers will eat tofu on a regular basis versus 16 per cent in the rest of Canada,” said Sylvain Charlebois, professor of food distribution and policy and Dalhousie University, in a Jan. 31, 2019 report from CTV.

At the time, the province was experiencing a shortage of tofu.

—Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor of AGCanada.com. She writes from southeastern Manitoba.

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Production Lareault, based on just over 450 acres at Lavaltrie, Que. — about 40 km northeast of Montreal, in the province’s Lanaudiere region — has been acquired by investors Antoine Casimir and Andrea Borodenko for an undisclosed sum.

The Lareault business produces multiple varieties of early-, mid- and late-season strawberry plants for commercial-scale, greenhouse and U-pick growers and garden centres as well as for backyard and balcony use.

The company also sells various varieties of raspberry, high- and lowbush blueberry, blackberry, cherry, haskap and other berry plants as well as asparagus and rhubarb, among others.

Owner/operators Luc and Lyne Lareault plan to retire from the business that’s been in family hands since 1953.

Casimir and Borodenko are the husband-and-wife operators of Greenlore, a Montreal venture capital and private equity firm with a focus on businesses in the agriculture, food and e-commerce sectors that are seeking partnerships for their growth or succession-planning phases.

Casimir was also previously a principal in Quebec private equity firm Novacap, with a focus on companies seeking either growth or exit strategies, while Borodenko previously worked for Montreal digital marketing firm Mediative.

The acquisition was backed with loans from Quebec pension fund Fonds de solidarite FTQ, financial co-operative Desjardins Group and Farm Credit Canada (FCC).

“The support of our financial partners was crucial to the deal’s success and to keeping the head office in Quebec,” Casimir and Borodenko said jointly in Thursday’s release.

“We are also delighted that all the employees will remain and that we can count on the support of Luc and Lyne Lareault to facilitate the transition,” they said. “Lareault is an excellent platform for our future projects, which will leverage the company’s enviable reputation for quality and innovation.”

Business transfers are a “major challenge” for small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Fonds de solidarite FTQ CEO Janie C. Beique said in the same release, adding that “solutions exist for entrepreneurs who want to ensure the future of the company they’ve built and for buyers who want to contribute to our local economy.”

Desjardins vice-president Jean-Yves Bourgeois, in the same release, described the deal as
“excellent news for the agri-food sector,” adding that “a good plan, developed well in advance, helps owners anticipate how they will transfer the business to the next generation. But beyond purely financial matters, buyers and sellers need to be guided on a human level during this critical period.”

Luc Lareault, who will remain with the company through the transition, described the new owners as “dynamic Quebecers who know the market very well” and have “several meaningful projects in mind for the future.”

— Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Provincial Agriculture Minister Andre Lamontagne on Thursday announced the passage of Bill 28, which amends legislation governing organization of farming activities and the accreditation of UPA.

The bill allows the UPA to launch a review of its funding structure and begin consultations with farmers on new regulations that would change how farms are categorized and represented — and, in turn, the annual UPA dues those farms pay, the province said.

Said new regulations would then be submitted to the Regie des marches agricoles et alimentaires du Quebec — the province’s marketing regulator for farm production — for its approval.

EN FRANÇAIS: Plus d’équité entre les producteurs agricoles et l’UPA

The province’s current Agricultural Producers Act allows only for flat-rate annual fees for UPA membership, at either a fixed single or double rate depending on a farm business’ legal structure.

The bill is meant to give UPA greater flexibility in setting farms’ annual dues through parameters such as a farm’s volume of production or its acres under cultivation as well as the size of the farm’s operating company.

Such a move, the province said, will result in “greater equity” given the diversity in farm businesses in all four corners of Quebec.

“It will be possible from now on to develop a more equitable formula, as producers have demanded for several years,” UPA president Martin Caron said in the association’s release Thursday, thanking Lamontagne and politicians from multiple parties for both the quality and speed of the discussions leading up to the bill’s passage.

More flexible and equitable contributions to UPA in turn will encourage new small farms and start-up farm businesses, Lamontagne said in the province’s separate release, noting the bill meets a 2022 election campaign promise by the governing Coalition avenir (CAQ).

The bill applies to all 42,000 UPA-represented farmers in the province and to related farming and ag industry stakeholder organizations, the province said.

UPA noted the bill will also allow those other associations more flexibility in funding their operations. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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