Quebec’s biofood policy, implemented in 2018, is at a crossroads. Unknown to the general public, this policy nevertheless guides the entire biofood sector, from what we produce in our fields to what we eat on our plates. It is thus called upon to bring about fundamental changes in our ways of producing, transforming and consuming.
The emerging socio-economic and ecological issues leave no room for interpretation: Quebec must initiate a major transition in the biofood sector in order to make it migrate towards a healthier, more local and more sustainable food supply. We must adopt structural and ambitious measures to prepare for the future now. For this, the bio-food policy is the ideal framework. Its renewal, scheduled for 2025, is the perfect opportunity to stimulate new ways of doing things.
The crises of recent years, notably that of COVID-19, will have taught us at least one thing: manufacturing supply chains, which are largely globalized, are particularly vulnerable to socio-economic shocks. The bio-food sector is no exception. Taking note of this, the Government of Quebec has placed food autonomy at the heart of its biofood policy. This answer is a step in the right direction.
However, it is clear that food autonomy remains to this day an imprecise and fragmentary notion. Composed of a few key proposals, the policy sees its potential thwarted by a lack of structuring measures to support the transition of the biofood sector. We need to feed our world first, and do it wisely. Many recent investments made in the name of food self-sufficiency support the production of ultra-processed foods, and this type of inconsistency has the merit of encouraging us to better define the content of food self-sufficiency in line with the challenges of the decades to come. come. Three clear orientations must mark out this content.
Ecological transition
The first orientation is that of ecological transition. As Quebec begins to decarbonize its economy, the role of a biofood policy worthy of the 21e century is to contribute to this transition. By replacing food imports, particularly grains and legumes, with diversified local production based on sustainable agricultural practices, Quebec is killing several birds with one stone.
Reducing the number of kilometers traveled reduces GHG emissions, while a greater diversity of crops on our land improves the health of the soil, which then acts as a carbon sink and fights against global warming. Not to mention that by supporting the development of emerging plant crops, such as buckwheat or dry beans, we contribute even more to reducing GHGs emitted by the food system.
Healthy and nutritious offer
Second orientation: the growing concerns about the quality and nutritional nature of food must be part of the notion of food autonomy. The Quebec State must be exemplary and support the development of a healthy and nutritious food offer throughout its territory. The effects of food choices on public health are well documented, and biofood policy must translate into consistent measures.
Thus, rather than serving as a basis for financing the development of ultra-processed food sectors, food autonomy should, on the contrary, lead to the development and consolidation of nutritious product sectors. Many of them are waiting for favorable conditions to be met to take more place in our economy and our diet.
A local system
Finally, a third orientation is essential: we must aim to increase local biofood production and processing. The socio-economic potential associated with the development of biofood product chains throughout Quebec is enormous. We now have the resources and talent needed to deploy even more and better, in all regions of Quebec, a biofood system rooted in the territory.
A system that will be more resilient by reducing its dependence on imports. The notion of food autonomy should be understood in the manner of the Russian doll principle, that is to say by declining according to complementary and inclusive territorial scales, ranging from local to national. We have what it takes for that.
It is at the confluence of these three orientations that lies the heart of an ambitious and coherent bio-food policy. Food self-sufficiency is a fabulous opportunity to renew our bio-food system, by giving it the means to live up to the great transition that is beginning. All that’s missing now is the will to get started.
* Also signed this text:
Thomas Bastien, Director General of the Quebec Public Health Association
Malek Batal, Canada Research Chair in Nutrition and Health Inequalities
Corinne Voyer, Director of the Quebec Coalition on Weight Issues
François L’Italien, researcher at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics
Marcel Groleau, President of the Feeding Humanity Sustainably Coalition
Émilie Viau-Drouin, General Manager of the Cooperative for Ecological Local Agriculture
Jean-Nick Trudel, General Manager of the Association des marchés publics du Québec
Jérôme Dupras, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Ecological Economics