After more than ten years of work in the world of small-scale agriculture, I wrote a text on the need for sustainable farms online on Rizen. It is both the cry from the heart of an organic market gardener and the assessment of a graduate in sociology who observes that agricultural land changes vocation almost as often as it changes hands.
In my opinion, the central question is the following: is it still possible to waste so much time and resources to give such free rein to free enterprise in agriculture?
Economists say it: the price of agricultural land has clearly exceeded the profitability of agricultural activity. The owner-farmer model no longer works on paper. In this context, subsidies for agricultural enterprises, like other forms of support for the purchase of agricultural land, are destined to maintain a model where only the most privileged, the most innovative, the most resilient or the most fiercest among us persist. Many sacrifice their financial, physical and psychological health, and sometimes their lives…
Behind our beautiful vegetables, our publications that make us dream and the smile on our faces at the market, small-scale agriculture is staggering. Physical injuries, financial difficulties, illnesses, exhaustion, disgust, separations or successions that are settled in court are among those individual human conditions that too often get the better of our initial enthusiasm.
So, commercial production is stopped, removing more agricultural land from its function. Or we sell the whole farm outright: liquidation of the equipment on Marketplace and sale of the land at a high price to whoever can afford it…
And we haven’t lost everything, because many of these facilities and buildings have been subsidized by taxpayers through the Ministry of Agriculture and especially the Financière agricole du Québec, which offers $20,000 to $50,000 $ to any young person starting a farming business.
If the intention is laudable, it is clear that such subsidies paid to the “individual” in no way guarantee that the resources acquired thanks to them will continue to be used within an agricultural production system in the medium to long term. What if, instead of being paid to individuals starting a business, these subsidies were given to sustainable farms when they welcome new members?
Farms whose land could, for example, be protected through an agro-ecological social utility trust (FUSA) so that its vocation is legally registered in perpetuity.
On these lands, labor could be organized into cooperatives or non-profit organizations that may have surface ownership or other ownership that justifies long-term investment.
Each generation would bring its colors, its methods and its marketing. But we wouldn’t have to drain, bring water and electricity, buy machinery and equipment, build greenhouses and buildings, and above all buy land each time it changes hands.
So, maybe we could finally afford a salary exceeding that of a teenager starting his career at McDonald’s. The next generation of farmers could decide to join an existing farm that thrills them or to start a new sustainable farm – if necessary.
As a working member of a collective perennial farm, the next generation would maintain their entrepreneurial momentum by having the right to vote and taking on roles and responsibilities within the company.
Yes, we need diversified perennial farms; with hens, a bread oven, flowers and fruit trees. What we all dream of when we cultivate the land, but which we rarely have time to create in a lifetime.
We want perennial farms in space-time, which we can build ad infinitum, to build our floors without interruption, without fear that our farm will become a parking lot for a shopping center.
We want sustainable agro-ecological farms, because at a time when the ecological crisis is knocking on our doors, we can no longer consider dumping synthetic products and sewage sludge into our soils and waterways.
We want permanent local farms, like for hospitals and schools, that we find within a reasonable radius around all the communities. Because eating is a right as essential as access to health care and education.
The possibilities are immense, if only we could make the leap from an individualistic model to a collective model of agricultural enterprises.