Quebec launched Wednesday morning the largest project on agricultural land since the creation of the law on its protection in 1978. The purpose of these consultations and these exchanges over a period of more than a year is to modernize the system to better protect some lands that face urbanization and develop others.
The announcement of this major initiative was made Wednesday morning by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Quebec, André Lamontagne, accompanied by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest. Other important representatives were also present, such as the president of the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), Martin Caron, as well as Jacques Demers, president of the Quebec Federation of Municipalities (FQM), Martin Damphousse, president of the Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ). The Quebec Federation of Agricultural Succession was also represented by its president, Julie Bissonnette, who is also a dairy farmer.
By bringing together so many players, the government wishes to demonstrate “a collective commitment that goes far beyond individual interests,” Minister Lamontagne said at a press conference. “It is time to think again, together, to forge a new social consensus on the issue,” he insisted.
Since the beginning of his first mandate, he says he has observed while traveling through the regions that agricultural vitality “is fragile and sometimes depends on very little”.
It is both for their strategic nature and because they “shape the identity of our territory”, notes the Minister, that agricultural land deserves increased attention.
For the president of the UPA, Martin Caron, it is necessary to “reaffirm” that the agricultural zone is limited, non-renewable and at the same time essential to food self-sufficiency, a theme dear to the current government. He wants to “raise the protection of our pantry to the rank of a real national priority”, he said in turn at the microphone.
The municipal world has been calling for this kind of reflection for a long time, recalled Jacques Demers of the FQM. “Modernizing a 1978 law? Finally, many will say, ”also slipped Martin Damphousse, of the UMQ. Laws on agricultural territory and land use planning have existed for a long time, “now it is time to modernize them”, supported Minister Laforest.
Factual portrait
Although agricultural land has been relatively stable in the province over the past three decades, these lands are under all kinds of pressure to make other uses of them. The Commission de protection du territoire agricole (CPTAQ) received and processed no less than 38,000 requests between 1998 and 2022, 74% of which were authorized.
Applications for residential use (construction of houses) accounted for slightly more than half. Those for commercial or industrial use as well as for the exploitation of resources made up the rest, including large areas devoted to gravel and sand pits.
Quebec is vast, its agricultural territory much less, and the areas actually cultivated, even less. Between 2006 and 2021, in the entire agricultural zone, 63,000 hectares of land have ceased to be cultivated, which is more than the size of the Island of Montreal. This “enrichment” is a subject of particular concern to the government.
Of the entire province, only 4.7% of the territory is agricultural area and 2% is actually cultivated. Of all these lands, less than a third is classified among the most fertile, with the best potential. These are the very areas where the pressure is the strongest, because they are located in the same space where the majority of the population lives: the lowlands of the St. Lawrence.
It is thus these best lands that have declined the most with a net loss of 4,426 hectares since 1988. On the other hand, areas of less well classified soils, but which can be used for pasture or maple syrup operations, for example, have been added. As a result, the agricultural area has grown by 3,584 hectares thanks to inclusions such as blueberry and maple groves, according to the data collected to inform this process.
Several phases
The process will begin by holding consultations on three themes: agricultural territory, agricultural activities and land ownership. For each of these consultations, a booklet is made public in order to bring together the most objective and complete information possible. Comments will then be collected for 45 days.
These consultations will culminate in a webinar, with the main actors and speakers on a subject who will make themselves available to deepen the crucial elements. A summary report is expected in the spring of 2024, to then lead to a bill and regulatory proposals.
The exercise should serve to better reconcile the various interests of development, between the multiplication of greenhouses, the development of energy or other resources, the growth of the population, and the major objective of food self-sufficiency. The consultation bears the title of “Acting to feed the Quebec of tomorrow”.
More details will follow.