Feeding Quebec without the help of lawyers and without administrative support

I am writing to you, Mr. Minister of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks, between harvests and preparation for my weekend public markets, as part of the public consultation on changes to regulations in aquatic environments, the supervision of flood protection works and the delimitation of flood zones and mobility zones.

I am an agricultural producer, forest producer, forestry engineer and agroforester with 25 years of experience in support in Quebec and elsewhere on the planet. I have worked for more than 15 years to set up innovative projects to make communities more resilient in more than 15 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Equipped with these experiences of innovations and adaptations, I have been developing organic agricultural production with agroforestry systems on a farm with agricultural and flood zoned lands in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade for 12 years. My clients are local people, from the region.

I am not a multinational, but I live in my country, I use the services of my village, my children attend local schools and I participate in the coexistence of our communities. For four years, I have been coming up against the civil servants of your ministry, the rigidity of the system, the unanswered questions, the repeated requests for clarification, the administrative insecurity, the 15 forms of the ministerial authorization application, the $668 fee to have my file analyzed, which is ultimately inadmissible, and the little boxes that do not make sense (does a vegetable growing in a greenhouse make noise?).

Without going into all the details, it seems important to me to simply tell you that your laws, your regulations and their interpretations should also allow agricultural producers to cultivate their land to feed Quebec, without the help of lawyers and administrative support to communicate with the government.

My vegetable production requires production tools such as temporary caterpillar tunnels and greenhouses on the ground (and not on a cement floor). It seems reasonable to me to think that a market gardener should be able to invest in his business to be more productive and diversify his vegetable and fruit production. A greenhouse and tunnels installed in a field plot in production for 300 years, in a flood zone, but without ice, just water in a field, will have no impact on the environment and will not pose a safety risk.

To demonstrate this, I have to survey the coastline and hire agronomists and biologists. It’s too much. Too long, too painful to answer all these little boxes, too expensive for a permit application, and it’s stressful to be looked at like a bandit destroying a wetland. It’s been an agricultural field for centuries, since the first settlers of New France, not a marsh. In fact, the term “market gardener” appeared in the 18th century^e century and was used to designate the activity of gardeners who cultivated, around Paris, vegetable gardens generally located in humid areas.

Cultivating wetlands is the basis of market gardening techniques and I practice it with care.

A valid player in the territory

The last few years have been difficult weather-wise, and the economic situation makes our activities even more fragile. It is in this context that we need a resilient and strong agricultural system in Quebec. I am not asking for more subsidies, not for government assistance, but simply to be considered a valid player in the territory, as the manager of my 41-hectare farm.

Environmental protection is essential, it is the very reason why I choose production instead of a salaried job, the reason for my commitment to my farm, it is these ecosystems that I have been respectfully alongside every day for 12 years. The regulations are complex, and I am not paid when I have to learn these legislative details.

I get paid when a eater buys one of my carrots, a pepper, an eggplant or a squash; vegetables and fruits that I spent months producing on land in the St. Lawrence Valley, in harmony with its winds, its rains, its insects and its water cycle.

And if I can’t do anything anymore, if the regulations and intentions to protect the banks require me to stop my activities, please buy my land and tell me to leave. After many discussions with officials from your department, I now clearly understand that my occupation as an agricultural producer in a flood zone will be marked continuously by the presence of the Ministry of the Environment. I now know that I will have to maintain contact with your organization and live at the pace of your regulatory changes, as I must do with the CPTAQ, Financière agricole, Revenu Québec, the CRA, the food inspection, the MAPAQ, Hydro-Québec (there are poles at my home), Transport Québec (I am located on Route 138), my MRC and my municipality.

It is in this context that I aspire to continue developing my skills in order to better understand ministerial paradigms and, in doing so, be able to respect the universe of constraints imposed on citizens who develop Quebec’s wetlands to feed Quebecers.

Here is my recommendation in this consultation:

1) Give agricultural producers some regulatory relief and the opportunity to continue planting trees and peppers.

2) Be flexible when specifying 30 square meters of permitted buildings. This is not the suburbs here. Yes, a shed on a 10,000 m2 lot²this can have a significant impact. On the other hand, at my place, my agricultural buildings which measure several dozen square meters were there well before the regulations, and a greenhouse measures nearly 300 m²These few additional square metres of greenhouses and tunnels will not change the water dynamics of a 41 ha area.

3) Let’s be reasonable, the fight against and adaptation to climate change must be done in collaboration with agricultural producers.

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