Each year, the month of May is the time for a meeting between the Minister of Agriculture of Quebec, the agri-food industry and various organizations challenged by the importance of “feeding our world”.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
At a time when the precariousness of our food systems is being felt with full force – galloping prices, labor shortages, declining global production and droughts, the move bodes well.
However, there is a downside. It is expressed by a lack of consistency of measures for a food system that really nourishes our health, that of our territories and that responds to the climate emergency.
No farmland, no food
It should be noted that the Biofood Policy is directly linked to the agricultural territory. The protection and development of agricultural land for present and future generations go hand in hand with territorial development objectives.
However, in the light of a long series of government decisions in favor of the dezoning of agricultural land, it seems clear that the balance has tipped on the side of development.
The race for economic development, without a long-term vision of the protection of agricultural land, results in the proliferation of dezoning projects, whether it be the REM, Highway 30, or the battery plant in Bécancour. For the period 1998 to 2018, the loss of agricultural land is estimated at 34,000 hectares. It’s the equivalent of the city of Gatineau!
Knowing that only 2% of Quebec’s territory is arable, it is alarming to see so much laxity, especially since cities “generally have sufficient space to meet needs”. To this end, the Advisory Committee on Climate Change in Quebec recommended to the government last week to stop the artificialization of natural environments. This principle is just as valid for agricultural land in Quebec, in our opinion.
Healthy eating: investments that set us back
Although the processing sector is a major economic pillar in Quebec, it is also important to point out that food is not just a commodity. Ultra-processed, these foods become harmful to health and their overconsumption causes huge costs to the State.
It is therefore disconcerting to see the government awarding a $3 million government grant to multinational PepsiCo to increase potato chip production capacity in the name of food self-sufficiency.
Beyond the creation of short-term jobs, we must consider the negative consequences of the food whose production and processing we encourage.
The good news is that foods that are good for you are also good for the planet, as the experts of the EAT-Lancet commission pointed out.1. These are nutritious, minimally processed and mostly plant-based foods.
With such a diet, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is possible to healthily feed a growing population of 10 billion people by 2050, while respecting planetary boundaries. However, it will be necessary to revolutionize our diets from agricultural production, through thoughtful food processing in order to preserve the nutritional quality of our food. Producing more ultra-processed foods is nutritional waste!
For our decision-makers, elsewhere as in Quebec, this means accelerating the diversification of agricultural production and increasing access to food of good nutritional quality for everyone. We therefore invite the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec (MAPAQ) to take advantage of the meeting of the partners to reflect on how to do better in order to ensure consistency in all government investments.
* Co-signers: Thomas BastienDirector General of the Association for Public Health of Quebec; Malek BatalCanada Research Chair in Nutrition and Health Inequalities; Corinne Voyerdirector of the Quebec Coalition on weight issues