Cultivated cultivators | The Press

It is certainly not because one cultivates the land that one forgets to cultivate one’s soul. Along the fields and forests of Quebec, agricultural workers nourish their passion for literature, essays, poetry or the French language. Better still: they harness these pieces collected in the books to their daily work. Meet three of these cultured farmers.

From books to plowing

Frederic Turgeon-Savard

Whether you talk to him about carrots, cabbage or lettuce, or about Spinoza, Marx and Friedman, Frédéric Turgeon-Savard will be equally at ease on these two terrains. Because if you dig a little bit into the land of the organic farm La Roquette, which he co-founded with his acolytes, you will certainly find around fifty vegetables there, but above all ideas and working philosophies, directly rooted in readings of academic works and great classics of socioeconomics. In fact, this underlying culture constitutes the very foundation of the agricultural cooperative established since 2019 in Brownsburg-Chatham, in the Laurentians.

“We are five co-owners and have all studied at university, in sociology, psychology, visual arts, tourism, etc. Some have gone on to doctoral studies. We then turned to studies in agricultural techniques in Victoriaville. The farm project was born out of political and philosophical reflections, there is a whole intellectual process behind the coop,” explains Frédéric Turgeon-Savard, one of the co-founders of La Roquette.

This taste for reading, ideas and debates has never dried up; the farmer’s library, already 500 books strong, continues to grow every year. His cute sin? Titles calling for consideration.

In the economy department, he admits to being fond of Écosociété, Lux, Flammarion editions, as well as authors steeped in “alternative management”, quoting Pierre Kropotkine, Murray Bookchin, or even the Quebecer Jonathan Durand-Folco. On the sociology side, he evokes Michel Freitag, one of the pioneers of the UQAM department devoted to this discipline. Without forgetting this king field: philosophy. “For me, the founding father of all these authors is Spinoza. After that, I appreciate contemporaries like Marx or Nietzsche, who are quite a bit of Spinoza applied to their time,” he summarizes.

Ideas that germinate

At the La Roquette coop, from books to plowing, there is only one step. “It taints our management style. The basic idea is to try to apply certain authors to the co-op. For example, we strongly advocate the decentralization of powers to the municipalities, and we aspire to this same principle in our company”, illustrates the young farmer, who refers for example to mutual aid by Kropotkin.

“The basis of organic farming is a bit of mutual aid. When we talk about the capitalist economy with the Chicago school and Milton Friedman, organic farming is exactly the opposite. We are not trying to put plants in competition, but we are looking for symbioses with fungi and bacteria. It is a snub to several economic concepts that dominate our current era. That’s what spoke to us,” says Mr. Turgeon-Savard.

Her piece of choice: mutual aidby Peter Kropotkin

The ramifications of language

Andre Roy

In the veins of silviculturist André Roy flows the sap of an insatiable curiosity, fueled by an unconditional love of the French language. “For me, it is a monument of the intangible heritage of humanity, which must absolutely be preserved”, he announces.

Made of the same wood as his father, who bequeathed his noble profession to him, for half a century he has managed a 170-hectare estate in Chaudière-Appalaches, where some 200,000 trunks take root, without forgetting to carve out a dense culture. .

“It first came about through the art of song in the 1950s. My mother listened to the radio a lot, it contributed enormously to making me love the language”, recalls the forester, rocked in his green years by Edith Piaf, Félix Leclerc, The Song Companions. Subsequently, his ears and his soul were seduced by Raymond Lévesque and Jean-Pierre Ferland, but above all marked by this artistic earthquake: the discovery of Gilles Vigneault.

“He is a giant of French and universal literature, his language is highly savory,” enthuses André Roy, also bewitched by the great troubadours of Europe, such as Brassens, Brel or Ferrat. “To discover authors, sometimes, is to recognize oneself through them”, he philosophizes.

Vigneault, Hugo: giants

He then drinks from the prose of the classic writers of the 19^e (Victor Hugo, of whom he cherishes Contemplations, Émile Zola, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé…), from the XX^e (Albert Camus, François Mauriac), as well as playwrights, like Marcel Dubé. His curiosity branches out more broadly: geography, poetry, painting, architecture and, above all, history. “I’m really keen on it, I’ve read everything that came to hand. I’m also interested in architecture, I loved discovering the castles, cathedrals and major Parisian districts during trips to France,” says the forester.

Rather than letting himself be tied down by the plots of the stories, André Roy rather delights in the resonance of the words.

As for his job, it seems to act as a catalyst for these terrestrial foods. “Work in the forest is generally done rather alone and isolated, which leaves time for contemplation, reflection, meditation. I believe that human beings need beauty, language, poetry, music. It’s something that I find is a little soul-elevating. »

Having inherited the status of forester from his father, Mr. Roy can also be proud of having passed on a legacy to his children: one of them got involved in silviculture, while another wrote novels fantastic under the name of Henry Leroy. In addition, one of his grandchildren will become a forest engineer in the fall. The expression couldn’t be more apt: apples never fall far from the tree.

His favorite pieces: the work of Gilles Vigneault, Contemplations by Victor Hugo. André Roy is fond of all of Gilles Vigneault’s work, whether it be his writings or his songs.

In the furrows of poetry

Emilie Viau-Drouin

What would be the secret natural fertilizer to sprinkle on the crops to obtain the most beautiful flavors that the earth can offer? Ask the question to the young market gardener Émilie Viau-Drouin, she will surely answer that it is a spreading of poetry and literature. The one who, after training in advertising and communication, very early turned away from urbanity to sow her happiness in the regions is today co-director of production at the Jardins de la Grelinette in Saint-Armand, on the border between Montérégie and Estrie.

For the past six years, she has supervised the growth of around forty organic vegetables and orchestrated the making of market garden baskets. But if it were possible, she would gladly grow bouquets of books beside them, the beautiful letters being firmly entangled in her way of life.

“Poetry and literature is something that carries my life, both in my reading and in my writing,” she confesses. “I love authors who put our territory into prose and who are able to transport us to their regions,” says Ms.^me Viau-Drouin, evoking mirror works, such as the triptych by Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba (Encabannee, Waterfowl and Bivouac) Where Habitable lifeby Véronique Côté, “a book that was transformative, through its words chosen to describe the beauty of the world”.

Readings acting like fertilizers, but also like so many bubbles of oxygen. “In my activity, it moves a lot, we are outside, it is sometimes a little intense. With these writings, I feel transported, I find this fullness with a calmer moment, a bit like the well-being felt after a yoga session,” explains this up-and-coming cultivator.

Revolutionary Fields

The essays also resonate strongly with her, especially when they embrace her vision on food or environmental issues, such as Harvest timeby Elisabeth Cardin, or The house is burningby Naomi Klein, two works encouraging us to rethink our lifestyles.

If she tries to reserve slices of reading in the evening throughout the year, she especially takes advantage of the winter slowdown to reap the fruits of her library. Does this passion for poetry and literature make Émilie Viau-Drouin a rare bird in the agricultural world? Perhaps it would be time to weed out some prejudices: “I don’t know any of my fellow market gardeners who don’t read! This very day, I brought a book to my colleague,” she brandishes.

Living under a sky streaked with birds even encourages people to pick up the pen: the worker does not hesitate to indulge in writing and to germinate poetry or reflections on paper. Cuttings that one day will bloom in bookstores and libraries? Everything comes at the right time to who knows how to spread.

Her piece of choice: Habitable lifeby Véronique Côté

Our Inspiration

Recently, a report from the 1960s titled The Wisdom of Learned Shepherds resurfaced on the web. It depicts herdsmen from the south of France sharing their passion for poetry, literature and philosophy, quoting Montaigne, Descartes, Raimbaud… These images led us to probe the current agricultural world in Quebec, which there is no lack of “educated cultivators”.