To put an end to monoculture and its devastating impacts on arable land, more and more producers are turning to regenerative agriculture, a mode of operation that places respect for soil biodiversity above profitability. In Humus, committed director Carole Poliquin points her camera at a couple of Montérégie market gardeners who have embarked on the path of “regeneration”. A path strewn with pitfalls, however, we discover throughout this documentary.
During two years, Humus follows François D’Aoust and Mélina Plante, two neo-rurals who left everything in town to settle in Havelock, near the American border. Inspired by the relationship that Aboriginal people had with nature before colonization, the couple adheres to the precepts of regenerative agriculture, which is gaining popularity in the era of climate change.
No monoculture therefore grows on the D’Aoust-Plante farm, where we try to preserve as much as possible the natural balance between the different species. The land is not plowed either, always following this idea that everything is interrelated and that from this mix of species will emanate different viable crops.
“By being plowed by earthworms and bugs, the soil drains better than by being plowed by machine. The water goes to groundwater. At the moment, in Sutton, there are water problems because the water runs off and does not soak into the ground. It stays on the surface until it evaporates. However, water can also be a greenhouse gas,” explained in an interview with To have to Carole Poliquin, who devoted several years of research to regenerative agriculture before giving birth to this film.
The documentary filmmaker staunchly defends this approach and has a sincere admiration for her protagonists. She hopes that Humus will arouse reflection in the population, but especially among farmers. Carole Poliquin says she is against the productivist model of the Union des producteurs agricole, which leads farmers to their own loss. According to her, profitability is only illusory.
“How long is this model profitable for? We must deconstruct a vision of the world in which we have no responsibility for the living, where we only have rights. The decline will come by itself. Either we choose it now, or we will suffer it with the coming recession. Because I happened to read a lot, during the preparation of this film, about the collapse of civilizations in history. Each time, the knowledge was there to avoid what happened, but we didn’t give ourselves the means to change things. Like today,” says the director, who has repeatedly dealt with issues related to identity, injustice and globalization in her latest films.
The hard life on the farm
This time, she does not carry such a political charge. Humus — meaning earth, in Latin — remains a more personal documentary, which is essentially confined to the conviction of François D’Aoust and Mélina Plante. Beyond the environmental question, Carole Poliquin’s film allows a rare incursion into the reality of farmers, too often hidden in the major Quebec media, according to the director.
Whether they adhere to conventional, organic or regenerative agriculture, producers face the same problems. Starting with the onset of climate change, which is accompanied by more intense drought periods in summer and earlier ground frosts. But also loneliness, financial problems, vagaries of the weather, labor shortages, the pandemic…
The life of the D’Aoust-Plantes has nothing to do with the romantic idea that some city dwellers may have of returning to the land. Because they too must pound on their convictions to hire Guatemalan workers. They too are sometimes seized with despair and want to give up everything. But that’s not what Carole Poliquin wants us to take away from her film, which aims to be optimistic; not fatalistic and even less miserable.
“I wanted to make a film where there was hope. It is not a naive hope. The idea is not to say that we can change the world. I think it’s going to get very bad before it gets better. The planet is finished. Utopia is to think that we can continue to consume as we do now. But to reverse the course of things, I believe that agriculture would be a good start; it’s the basis of everything”, drops the director by way of reflection.
The documentary Humus hits theaters on May 20.