The Union of Agricultural Producers of Lévis (UPA), Relève agricole, Équiterre, an alliance of organizations and a collective of citizens are demanding on Wednesday morning that all the land of the defunct Rabaska project be placed in trust. Even as we learn that Quebec wants to remove the file from the hands of the Commission for the Protection of Agricultural Territory (CPTAQ), all these regional actors are instead ordering it to protect the entire 272 hectares of territory for agricultural and conservation purposes. .
In recent months, Rabaska lands have become a new symbol of interests that are difficult to reconcile. Excluded by decree from the green zone in 2007 to make way for a now abandoned LNG port project, they attract the desire of the City of Lévis and the Port of Quebec. The Minister of Economy and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, formalized the purchase of this space on February 21 at a cost of $38 million. The day before, the City of Lévis asked the government to help it establish an industrial park there.
A version of a ministerial decree obtained by Radio-Canada now indicates that the government wishes to regain control before the CPTAQ gives its preliminary orientations, after a deadline already postponed three times.
“Green Belt”
But the proponents of a total reset in agriculture and natural conservation united on Wednesday morning and tried to take the lead with a completely different proposal: “We want to say that a green belt is possible rather than a concrete belt with industries,” points out Françoise Legault, market gardener in the region and spokesperson for the Rescue Collective for agricultural heritage in Lévis and Beaumont. “We can bet that the people of Lévis will be happy to be able to continue to recharge their batteries in nature and have access to local and diversified agriculture,” she adds.
A trust would make it possible to protect the land “irreversibly and permanently”, indicates Jean-Paul Tardif, maple producer and president of the Lévis UPA union at a press conference. Such a structure would make it possible to continue the cultivation of potatoes currently underway on around sixty hectares, to further develop the maple production potential and to ensure the connectivity of islands of nature which promote biodiversity.
“We know that Lévisiens will support this approach,” he says confidently. These local actors wanted to speak with a common voice to reiterate “that this is an asset of inestimable value, as much for agriculture, the environment, as for people”. The location of these lands is spectacular, with exceptional views of the St. Lawrence River and the Île d’Orléans, and represents one of the places in the province where agriculture has been established for more than 300 years, recall -they.
More than 600,000 m2 wetlands are also located on the site, three times the area of those of the Northvolt project, according to the citizens’ collective. Quebec has recently been criticized for its inability to prevent the destruction of wetlands, despite a law adopted in 2017.
Putting it in trust would remove all the threats weighing on agricultural land, argued Tommy Labrie, a dairy producer who represents the Relève agricole de la Chaudière-Appalaches, namely “urbanization, industrialization, speculation, and in the longer term, rezoning.”
The price of land in the region has become “unaffordable” for the vast majority of farmers. The proposed solution would therefore make it possible to “create a bank of accessible land for the next generation” and maintain “a diversity of agricultural models,” said Carole-Anne Lapierre, agricultural analyst for Équiterre and coordinator of the SaluTERRE Alliance.
This coalition’s protection plan also provides for the continuation of outdoor activities that already take place there, to the benefit of Lévis city dwellers, in particular cross-country skiing in a center installed on the site, they argue.