Both among producers and citizens, the public consultation mechanism around pig farms has been criticized since its entry into force in 2004, but it has not been revised since. Beyond the projects already on the table, there are also two visions of agriculture that collide, say two researchers to broaden the conversation.
At the heart of the differences are also environmental issues, which occupy more and more space in the public arena. For Geneviève Brisson, who has studied the question of the impact of the pig farm on the quality of rural life at length, the two subjects are linked: “The consultation should be able to settle both sides: how to improve the pig farm and, socially, how we go through this change. »
But the current formula is “grossly unsatisfactory for everyone”. She has also never responded to the recommendations of the Bureau of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE), she wrote with colleagues from the National Institute of Public Health (INSPQ) in 2010. Today a professor at the University of Quebec at Rimouski and always passionate about territorial development, she still observes that these sessions can even exacerbate conflicts rather than resolving them.
“Unconsciously, people have the impression that they are going to a BAPE and will be able to list their concerns, their realities. People are excessively shocked,” she said.
Mme Brisson has traveled the countryside to conduct his research and recalls that the divisions affect both citizens and farmers. “In previous conflicts, we have seen farmers’ children being pushed around at school, or people speaking incivilly. »
Producers are also facing pressure from the pork industry to grow or modernize. Unlike dairy cows, it is a production that is not subject to quotas and therefore subject to the laws of the international market, even if the industry has received a billion dollars in ten years, calculated The duty in November 2020.
The model in question
“Polarization will not solve anything”, summarizes Mme Brisson, especially since the environmental concerns of citizens go much further.
“We can very well question certain societal choices without going to war against the pork industry,” says Patrick Mundler, professor at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences at Laval University.
Since the 1990s, the pork sector has been decreed by successive governments as a production of the future from the point of view of exports.
“It’s a strategic choice that can be questioned,” says the expert, while the problem of social acceptability still does not seem to be resolved and environmental problems related to the industry continue to arise.
Producers say they already have a number of standards to meet, including an agro-environmental fertilization plan (PAEF). This governs the spreading of fertilizers, including pig manure.
Several players in this industry also say they have greatly improved their practices. “We are far from what happened in the 1980s, we learned a lot from mistakes and changed ways of doing things. We know very well that if we do not respect the environment and citizens, we will lose our rights to produce,” insists, for example, Marquis Roy, technical director of pork production at Olymel.
For the citizens and experts interviewed, the guidelines are not strict enough or respected enough. Phosphorus levels in agricultural rivers are notably still red, despite some improvements.
“Even if there has not been a dramatic increase in the number of pigs produced in recent years, we are continuing with a model that is not viable and that goes against the objectives of the sustainable agriculture plan presented by Minister André Lamontagne”, objects Pierre Avignon, a citizen of Estrie who has formed a citizens’ committee around hog issues.
It is therefore not just a matter of manure management: the large-scale cultivation of corn and soybeans also has its share of environmental consequences, whether they be those of monoculture for biodiversity or the generalized use of pesticides for these two seeds.
More than 80% of the grains produced across Quebec are used for animal feed. This land could be used for something else, or at least integrate another cereal into the crop rotation to protect the soil, among other things, says Professor Mundler.
“At the provincial level, our production feeds our pigs, but does not allow us to make our bread,” he wrote this summer in the magazine Relationships.
“More and more Quebecers want an agroecological transition, and we need to have this conversation. »
Monday: environmental problems caused by piggeries and possible solutions.