Behind the carrots, tomatoes or cheese that are found on our plates are hidden passionate producers and farmers, hard workers who fight against winds, tides and other vagaries of the climate to garnish our tables and feed Quebec.
In our collective imagination, this work in the fields often evokes the image of a farmer dressed in overalls, his skin tanned by the sun, driving a tractor, plowing, weeding, watering. However, most of the time, these agricultural workers could not ensure the harvests and deliver the goods without the presence of one or more women, whose work – essential, but generally associated with the domestic sphere – is often invisible, trivialized, relegated to second place. Where are the women in agriculture, and what are they doing?
From her childhood in Rimouski to more than ten years of research on the agricultural world, including a brief return to the land on a collective farm, Julie Francoeur, co-founder of the Research Group on Agricultural Work at the UQAM has rubbed shoulders with a large number of women farmers working in all fields. In his eyes, women were numerous, everywhere, and essential on Quebec farms.
However, the reality on the ground was not reflected in institutional spheres. In scientific publications, history books or public policies, women were non-existent; an invisibilization linked to a patriarchal and productivist agricultural structure, which has persisted in Quebec since the end of the Second World War. To testify and correct this reality a little, Julie Francoeur is publishing these days the essay Get out of line.
Systemic disparities
“All the bases for the development and organization of agriculture in Quebec rest on the report of the Héon commission, commissioned by Maurice Duplessis in 1955, explains the researcher, who met with The duty at the Jean-Talon market in Montreal. This report introduces for the first time a professional agricultural model. It says that the purpose of agriculture is to meet the needs of urban populations — to feed the cities — and to enable farmers to establish their sons. Their son, not their daughter. In this logic, women were seen as housewives rather than professionals. »
Even today, the whole edifice of family farming helps to secondarize the work and contribution of women. In Quebec, it is estimated that one woman farmer in three still works in a family business without salary or shares. “You can’t imagine the cost of our food if women’s work were paid at its fair value. »
The law on the protection of agricultural land, established in 1978, consolidates this model and contributes to reinforcing and maintaining these inequalities, in addition to having significant consequences on the development and renewal of agriculture. “Everyone agrees that the growing urbanization of Montreal threatened the province’s food autonomy and required a political gesture. But when we study the verbatim of the debates that led to the adoption of the law, we understand that the decision-makers wanted to limit the number of small farms and thus ensure the possibilities of expansion for existing farms. This has an impact today on the transmission of farms and on the development of agricultural projects on small areas, a strategy often used by women to access agriculture. »
Mentalities evolution
Even if public policies and agricultural governance are slow to address these glaring problems of inequality, mentalities on the ground are changing. “Through their growing engagement in new ways of cultivating, raising and marketing, women are overcoming their historical dependence on men for access to land and capital. As various studies show, more and more of them are starting or owning their own business, setting up cooperatives, establishing themselves independently…”, writes Julie Francoeur.
The men of the younger generations are also more interested in collective models, which distribute the risks and financial burdens, and are also more concerned than their predecessors to be involved with their children and to share more equitably the mental load of the foyer.
“Collective models and cooperatives theoretically allow for a complementarity of expertise that goes beyond sexual complementarity. They also provide an opportunity to rethink parenting models. Not to mention that these models are much less risky from an economic point of view, since they are often smaller companies, which require less machinery and less start-up investment,” argues the researcher.
More and more, the community is realizing that the family and productivist model that favors large agricultural businesses is not the only one capable of feeding families in Quebec. In her essay, Julie Francoeur cites the example of Véronique Bouchard, director of the La ferme aux petits ignons cooperative which, with only four hectares of land, can feed nearly 1,000 families in the Laurentians.
For greater durability
Julie Francoeur is categorical. Tackling the obstacles that limit the participation of women in the profession is an objective compatible with the social and environmental challenges in which we are immersed. “Recent studies show that when a woman is involved in decisions on a farm, it has more environmentally friendly practices. » While many men see organic monoculture farming as a sufficiently sustainable model, women would be more motivated by a “care” approach, based on small-scale food networks, ecological proximity farming, circuits food distribution courts and positive community relations.
“The agricultural model in Quebec — with all due respect to the people who work there — is in crisis. Families are in debt. Psychological distress, for both men and women, is on the rise. Not to mention the immense impacts of our agriculture on the environment. Because women have a different vision of sustainability, customer relations, “care” and the sharing of tasks, we have everything to gain by giving them a greater role, both in decisions and in the field. »