Farming | Discouraged market gardeners | The Press

Quebec wants to increase its food independence, but the market gardeners who feed it are facing rising costs, stagnant incomes and regulations that are becoming impossible to manage, to the point that many are giving up.

Helene Baril
The Press

“If I sell my product for the same price as last year, I’m in the m…”

At the end of February, after doing his calculations, Alain Dulude brought together his spouse, Caroline, and his children, who are also his business partners, to ask them the killer question. Are we continuing? he asked them.

For the first time, the family of market gardeners from Saint-Rémi has questioned what has been their raison d’être for 35 years.

The investment required before putting a single vegetable plant in the ground is always important for market gardeners, but this year, with the increase in the price of packaging, cardboard, gasoline and labor, the equation no longer works.

“It costs me $300,000 or $400,000 more than last year. If I sell my product for the same price as last year, I’m in deep trouble”, summarizes Alain Dulude.

Stagnant prices

The price the producer gets for his vegetables is a bit like a lottery. If he is lucky and the weather cooperates, the season will be good. If the heat wave rages, he could lose everything. But year after year and despite the increase in costs, prices remain desperately stable, laments the producer, “while everything increases right and left”.

It is not a question here of vegetables sold at high prices in public markets or farmer’s baskets, which remain a marginal activity, but of products that fill the shelves of supermarkets to be consumed everywhere in Quebec.

The Dulude family nevertheless planted 2.8 million cabbage plants, 200,000 tomato plants, onions and squash this year, with the help of its 60 employees, including 38 from Guatemala.

The alternative, large-scale cultivation of cereals such as corn, soybeans, wheat or barley, was considered. “With the size of the land we have, it’s attractive,” weighs Alain Dulude.

His wife, Caroline, does not want to hear about it. “I don’t want that,” she says. I want to keep feeding the world, that’s what keeps us alive. »

“I find it deplorable that we are in 2022 and that we are not able to live from our work”, laments Marie-Philippe, their daughter who, with her sister Carolanne and her brother Jean-Sébastien, has the intention to take over the business built by his parents.

Farewell, celeriac, cabbage, onions

To do something else, for Alain Dulude as for all discouraged market gardeners, is to embark on large-scale farming, for which prices are predictable and profitability assured.

Alain Ferland did it this year, after 16 years growing celeriac, cabbage and onions in Saint-Rémi.

“It was my lifeline, a little boy’s dream”, he still regrets after having sown all his land in cereals.

Alain Ferland also made his decision after making his calculations at the start of the season, last February.

“I put in, energy and money. I’m still an enthusiast, but there, in the spring, I said to myself that it didn’t make sense. I cannot invest all this money to start a season without knowing the price I will get for my vegetables. »

For 25 lbs of beets, he could get $2.50 one week, or $6 the next. This uncertainty ends up wearing out her man. “I always felt like I had a knife between my teeth and a gun to my temple,” he says.

The question of succession haunted him.

This is what a growing number of market gardeners are choosing to do. Some of the larger ones, like Vegpro, have attracted the interest of American investors.

Alain Ferland has decided to continue feeding Quebec, but differently. “I am 45 years old, he drops. I still have a head on my shoulders, my wife is still here. I have three children who still recognize me. Cultures Ferland took up all the space and that’s it. Alain Ferland came before Cultures Ferland. »

Although he still has “the motton” when thinking about his former vocation, the producer can appreciate the difference between market gardening and cereal cultivation. “When you have done market gardening and you arrive in large crops, you are almost like on vacation, he notes. Recently, I even ate with my neighbors after the garage sale in Saint-Rémi! »

Another major difference is that the banks are better disposed towards a producer whose income is predictable because it is fixed on the international market and part of the production can be sold in advance.

Despite everything, Alain Ferland will always regret market gardening, which he associates with an art. “But I made my decision. I have a 12 year old boy, he loves tractors. It’s sad, what I’m going to say here, but I wouldn’t want my children to go in that direction. »

What local purchase?

The great speeches on food autonomy and the growing desire of Quebec consumers to source locally, Catherine Lefebvre does not really believe in it.

“We don’t feel that, but really not,” says the president of the Association of Vegetable Producers of Quebec, who is also a producer of beets, cabbage and onions.

The reality, she says, is that consumers are not willing to pay more for local products that cost more to produce.

The consumer who tears his hair out at the high prices of vegetables at the grocery store should know that the producer sells his products to wholesalers, who are not shy about pitting companies against each other.

“Catherine, what price are you paying today?” $8.50? Alain makes them for me at $7! Checking with Alain, whom she knows, that’s good. It’s not true. “It’s a daily struggle,” she sighs.

Catherine Lefebvre believes that chains want Quebec products to ease their conscience, but at the same price as products from elsewhere. They buy prices before buying products. Hence the efforts of wholesalers to “squeeze” local producers.

To say that we can produce vegetables at the same price as Mexico is nonsense, according to her.

Standards, and more standards

One might think that the scarcity of labor is the main problem for market gardeners. This is not the case, according to the president of their association. The main burden is the successive layers of regulations that apply to vegetable production and which force producers to spend more time filling out forms than tending to their fields.

Access to foreign workers, for example, has become more complicated because all sectors of activity, and not just farmers, can have access to them. Regulation has increased, she explains. “We now have to reserve our workers in November for the following season,” she illustrates.

No one is against food safety standards, but they are multiplying and eating up more and more time for producers. The management of water, pesticides and pesticide residues, the recycling of agricultural plastics are all new social concerns that are on the table of market gardeners who do not have the resources to deal with them effectively.

Climate change also adds to the level of anxiety for producers, who often only have a few hours to decide whether to irrigate their fields or brave the heat wave at the risk of losing everything. There is growing distress among producers, notes their representative.

Once at the grocery store, no one pays attention to the fact that cucumbers grown in Quebec must meet much stricter standards than those from Mexico, laments Catherine Lefebvre.

As the producers’ representative, Catherine Lefebvre leads the battles she believes need to be fought for the future of vegetable production in Quebec. But sometimes she gets discouraged, too.

At 45, she has a daughter who could take over the family business. She wonders if it’s a good idea.

“There are days when we would sell everything,” she said.