Andrew McClelland

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Agrologists and governments have been telling farmers for years that being efficient is the key to running a successful farm.

And young Ontario producer Olivia Mudde is so busy that she had to learn how to be efficient in every part of her life.

“My time at Macdonald Campus (in Ste. Anne de Bellevue) helped prepare me for life and business because I was on the varsity women’s rugby team. I had to be very good at time management because all practices and games were downtown!” beams the 21-year-old Farm Management and Technology (FMT) graduate. “By being on the team and having a full schedule with the FMT program, my spare time was limited.”

Looking at Mudde’s résumé would leave one wondering how she has had time to earn all the accolades that have been awarded her in recent years. A two-time FMT scholarship recipient at Mac, Mudde also completed an internship with Bayer Crop Science Canada in her second year of university, and, along with playing on McGill’s women’s rugby team, dove headfirst into planning the FMT graduation supper and started a fundraiser for the event with Farmers Feed Cities.

Her efforts were acknowledged following that when she was awarded Mac’s Gold Key Award for her outstanding and commitment to enriching student life on campus.

“Since graduation, I find myself having more and more contacts from people at Mac,” said Mudde, who completed her final semester last spring. “And that has helped me the most with learning about new ideas and techniques to implement on my farm.”

Responsible for the herd

The farm in question is no small operation. Together with her father, Ian, Olivia is now the youngest generation to run Mudde Farms Inc., a cash cropping and swine farm in Iroquois, Ont., 60 kilometres up the St. Lawrence River from Cornwall.

With 1,930 acres on a corn/soybean/winter wheat rotation and a swine herd of 230 sows, there’s lots of work for an eager producer to do around the farm.

“I’m in charge of managing the swine barns — still with some guidance from my dad,” Mudde explained. “I’m also the certified site manager and CQA (Canadian Quality Assurance)manager, meaning I’m responsible for the animal welfare aspects and deciding if a pig is fit to ship, as well as the treatments it will receive and record keeping.”

Growing up, Mudde had plenty of opportunities for gaining experience in agriculture: her grandfather — who emigrated from the Netherlands in 1966 — ran the cash crop and swine herd, and her mother’s family ran a dairy farm. Mudde got the chance to work on both farms, learning the ropes and making memories.

“My first memory of the farm was helping my Opa move pigs out of the hot rooms to the grower barn. He was always so patient with my brother and I, since we were just small, and often the pigs were almost the same size as us.”

Mudde was very enthusiastic about moving to the island of Montreal to attend Macdonald Campus at just 16 years old. And then COVID happened.

“I couldn’t go to school, couldn’t play the sports I loved. Everything just stopped,” she said. “I’m a very athletic person, so there was no way doing nothing was going to work for me. I began going to the barns and working in the fields when I was supposed to be doing ‘online school’. I think every farm kid was doing this.”

But the experience of quarantine was a blessing in disguise, helping Mudde to see what a career made on the family farm would be like.

“Truly, being on the farm during COVID helped me to find my love for farming,” she explained. “And seeing my entire family work together during this weird time was amazing. I loved it.”

Grateful for family business

Mudde feels that her degree at Mac help her see the business side of the family farm she grew up on. And now, it’s her (and her family’s) intention to manage that business so that it can support her family and allow her father to retire. And she has lots of ideas.

“Since being back on the farm, I’ve seen a need for better record keeping,” said Mudde, who has introduced the online platform PigKnows to the farm, allowing Olivia and her father to keep better records of all sows and inventory of pigs.

“It’s a key program for us to get good at using before next summer. That’s when we’ll be converting our dry sow barn to a free-access stall barn.”

Until then, Mudde is enjoying life on the farm and the challenges it gives her to apply her learning, work with her father, and being productive and efficient in her craft.

“Being back on the farm has been great,” she said. “The summer has absolutely flown by.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Ben Nichols knows that any successful dairy farmer has a good team around him.

“I built my barn to be able to manage my farm by myself if need be, but in reality you can’t do it on your own,” said the Eastern Townships producer. “You need family, you need reliable teams and the proper tools to help always improve. I never think I’m perfect.”

Family farming has always been the way for Nichols and his ancestors. His great-great-grandfather came to Canada from the U.S. in 1887, purchasing 50 acres in Compton, southeast of Sherbrooke, that would become the nucleus for the land Ben and his wife, Annie Grubb, still farm. It was Nichols’s grandfather who brought in the Ayrshires that would be the basis for their Crystal Brook Farm’s dairy herd.

“When my father took over, he improved the field management quite a bit,” Nichols said. “I’ve been working hard to increase both the field production and milk production with all the tools that I try to bring to the farm.”

Ben took over the family farm in 2014, after graduating from Macdonald Campus in 2010. He had big plans to expand right away, bringing in five kilos of relève quota to help increase the 24 kilograms of the farm’s quota. Today, they have 60 kilograms.

But Nichols knew expansion would require more help. And that’s why, in 2020, he decided the family team on his farm needed a little help from a robotic milking system.

“A robot never calls in sick,” said Nichols with a smile. “It’s always very consistent, and it’s a bit better tempered than we can be sometimes.”

Specifically, Nichols went with the Lely Astronaut A5 milking system, known for its adaptability to cattle behaviour, allowing each heifer to choose when to be milked and resulting in less stress and higher milk production.

Data galore

Nichols explained his approach to mixed herd management through robotic milking during a videoconference in June hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association.

“The cow learns the robot and the robot learns the cow,” Nichols explained. “Starting from Day 1, the robot memorizes where the teat placement is. So if the cow moves to the one side, the robot knows that the next time, it’ll probably move again.”

From the start, Nichols could see that the system provided a wealth of information for herd management.

“It’s got over 100 reports that I can view at any time on the computer or from my phone,” he said.

Lely Horizon — the management system that comes with the A5 — provides charts, graphs and statistics on anything and everything from Herd Overview, Cow Robot Efficiency, Health Report, Cow Daily Production, Milk Yield Prediction and Herd Plan.

“With these kind of graphs, which I can see every day, the system helps me plan for the future to make sure that I’m not going to be overproducing or underproducing,” Nichols explained.

Crystal Brooks’ milking herd currently sits at around 45-55 head, mostly Ayrshires, according to family tradition, but with 20 per cent Jerseys and five per cent Holsteins.

Nichols uses a bedded pack barn design, which he finds provides flexibility for different cow sizes and superior comfort compared with other housing systems. While aerating the hardwood shavings requires a lot of management and cattle wrangling, it’s a system that suits his herd.

“In the wintertime, it’s twice a day I have to work it and turn it over,” Nichols explained. “I have to put shavings down about every four or five days at its extreme in the winter — and once every couple weeks in the summer. But for the herd, it’s a comfort that you can’t have in any other system.”

Team work

Nicholsis a firm believer in doing the work he does best — and then hiring the rest. That means relying on expertise from different field reps, vets and genetic advisers.

“I know a little bit about everything and a lot about nothing. So I make sure that I have a good team behind the scenes to help me out for cattle management.”

As such, Crystal Brook Farm uses feed reps to offer advice on rations, field reps to help manage field performance, visits from the Clinique Veterinaire Coaticook every three to five weeks, and genetic reps from CIAQ or Select Sires to inform him of new bulls that would complement his mixed herd.

“I don’t think any ‘brand’ is better than the other. I think it’s important to find which reps in your area you can trust. Because if you’ve found you can trust them in the past with good advice, they probably have your best interests at heart,” Nichols said.

But, in the end, family is the biggest part of the equation for Nichols’ success. Just as it has been for the four generations.

“My family is always there, too, telling me if I’m doing things right or if I’m forgetting something,” Nichols admitted. And that humility is part of how he innovates and continues to learn.

“If I think I’m doing something right, I make sure I find somebody who tells me I’m doing something wrong and find out what I can do better. Because there’s always room to improve.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

When it comes to qualities that a young person needs to be an agricultural producer, determination is high up on the list.

And 20-year-old Maude Legault definitely has that in spades.

“Trying to make a living just out of agriculture can, in fact, be stressful for some of us young farmers,” said the cash crop producer from Godmanchester, in the Châteauguay Valley. “Especially when you know you could have chosen a more profitable career. But, in the end, it’s all about doing what you want to do.”

The young producer is a graduate of the Farm Management and Technology program at Macdonald Campus. In 2022, she received a Warren Grapes Agricultural Scholarship from the Quebec Farmers’ Association. Then, in her final semester, Legault was awarded the Médaille d’or du ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec and the Governor’s General Collegiate Bronze Medal (twin awards given out to the student ranked first in their graduating class) and the Union des producteurs agricoles bursary for demonstrating exemplary results in farm accounting, budgeting and administration.

Those awards were a boon to her confidence, but not as much as the accolades that followed from her instructors and peers.

“When I learned that I won those awards, I was in shock — but not as much as when my friends and teachers started congratulating me,” Legault said. “Their comments were so wonderful, ranging from ‘I saw you were hardworking right from the beginning, you deserved it,’ to being told by a teacher that I was a role model! I just couldn’t believe it. I was full of joy.”

It runs in the family

You would almost expect a young producer like Legault to win awards related to farm business management. Not only was she an exceptional student, but great farm management skills were modelled for her by her father and uncle at the family’s 2,400-acre cash crop operation.

Legault’s grandfather, Richard, established the farm in the 1970s, in the township of Godmanchester, just north of Huntingdon. In 1997, her father, Simon, graduated with a farm management degree from Institut de technologie agroalimentaire in St. Hyacinthe and started working on the farm full time with his brother.

“Since my dad and uncle already did the best they could to keep the farm in great condition, it’s hard for me to come up with ideas that will improve the farm extraordinarily!” Legault said. “I’m proud of what my family built and I want them to be proud of me when I start managing it.”

And working back on the family farm is exactly what Legault has been doing since her graduation. The Legaults cultivate about 1,000 acres of corn, soybean and winter wheat. That’s on top of managing 400 acres of custom planting and 1,000 acres of custom harvesting.

“We try to improve or at least take care of things on a regular basis,” Legault explained when asked about how the family makes decisions on the farm. “We managed to build a planter, improve our drying plant, build a megadome, change the combine, and buy other farm equipment in the last decade.”

Farm management a must

The family is also constantly revising its crop plan. They recently stopped producing buckwheat after winter wheat, instead seeding cover crops after winter wheat in a bid to increase corn yield and improve soil health.

Cover crops were something Legault learned lots about at Mac. And, as she works on the farm alongside her father and uncle, Legault has lots of opportunity to implement what she learned at school on the family farm. But for now, she’s taking the transition to being farm manager slowly and cautiously.

“I take part in discussions related to decision-making and try to bring ideas or useful thoughts, but I don’t necessarily make those decisions myself,” she explained. “I like to come up with budgets or cost calculations to have a clear view of our different options. I might not have enough experience yet to make major decisions, but I feel it’s my duty as the ‘relève’ to build positive management skills and a great sense of critical thinking.”

Choosing farming over career

That approach will serve Legault well as her experience builds and daily farm management increasingly becomes her role on the family operation. And for now, the variety of challenges and tasks that running a large cash crop offers is what keeps her interested in the agricultural life.

“When I chose to be part of the FMT program and take over the family farm, I knew I could make more money working somewhere else,” she said. “But still I chose to be a farmer because being a farmer is also being a mechanic, a welder, an electrician, a manager, a heavy equipment operator and lots more.”

With her skill set, Legault could absolutely pursue more lucrative off-farm work in research, agromony or business administration. But her vision and determination are focused squarely on the farm.

“I might not make a tonne of money living off the farm, but I am building myself an infinite amount of knowledge and skills. Plus, I’m confident that living just from agriculture is highly achievable with willpower, hard work and proper management.” 

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Farm Credit Canada says changes to its loan program designed to make intergenerational transfers of farms easier will improve how assets move from one generation to the next.

“One of the most consistent challenges faced by Canadian producers is transitioning their operations to either family or an outside qualified buyer,” said Justine Hendricks, FCC president and CEO. “It is complex, nuanced and emotional.”

In response, the FCC has created the “Enhanced FCC Transition Loan.” The loan allows the seller (i.e. the older generation) to agree on a payment schedule anywhere from two to 10 years with the buyer (the younger generation).

FCC guarantees those funds and disburses the money accordingly at agreed-upon dates. This amount is added to the buyer’s loan, and they only pay interest on that amount.

Under the new arrangement, FCC guarantees the seller’s payments, giving them financial security. At the same time, buyers can avoid the burden of making a large down payment, easing the path for the next generation of farmers, according to the lender.

Colin Brisebois, vice-president of products and market strategies with FCC, says that the enhanced loan program was launched specifically to address the price of transferring farm assets.

“I think it’s important now as the industry continues to evolve, the price of assets continues to grow and there continues to be opportunity to do more on the farm transition side — as far as having the next generation take over for those currently involved in the industry,” Brisebois said.

For those starting or expanding a farm or agribusiness, FCC’s transition loan can cover the full purchase price. The program offers flexibility: new owners can choose to make accelerated principal payments to build equity more quickly than with a traditional loan — if they can manage the higher costs.

Alternatively, they can make interest-only payments to preserve cash flow and invest in other parts of the business, particularly during the early stages of operation, Brisebois said.

Young producers groups across Canada welcomed FCC’s introduction of the new loan program.

Here in Quebec, the Fédération de la relève agricole, a specialized federation of the UPA that advocates for the needs of the next generation of the province’s farmers, said it fully supports the new program.

“The changes to the FCC loan program recognize the economic reality faced by emerging farmers,” said FRAQ president David Beauvais. “A five-year timeline is simply too short for a new agricultural business to achieve the stability required to begin repaying a loan.” 

The FRAQ points out that there is no lack of technical know-how regarding farming among the younger generation: Quebec universities and CEGEPs award more than 1,000 diplomas in agriculture each year. However, it notes that Quebec loses approximately five farms per week.

Wave of transfers

Canada’s agriculture and food system is sitting on more than $50 billion in farm assets expected to be transferred in the next 10 years.

In Quebec, nearly 40 per cent of agricultural producers are over 55 years of age and say they are likely to transfer their farm in the near future. Every year, an estimated 600 to 800 farms or agri-businesses are transferred in the province.

But those statistics cause some alarm among farm industry reps who are anxious to curb the trend of mega farms and consolidation. To hold steady at the number of 30,000 farms currently in Quebec, the number of transfers happening per year would have to be up around 1,100.

Currently, 29 per cent of Quebec farms have a completed or in-progress succession plan in place to ease the transfer of ownership from one generation to the next. That’s the second-highest rate in the country, just behind New Brunswick’s 31.6 per cent.

For more information on FCC’s Enhanced Transition Loan, visit www.fcc.ca/transitionloan

Cutline:

David Beauvais, president of the Fédération de la relève Agricole du Québec, says that a new loan program from Farm Credit Canada answers many of the industry’s needs regarding flexible loans for young producers to acquire farm assets. “A five-year timeline is simply too short for a new agricultural business to achieve the stability required to begin repaying a loan,” Beauvais told the Advocate.

Credit:
Photo by Frederic Lavoie

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL) issued an urgent call to the United Nations in July on what it describes as ongoing violations of Indigenous rights in Quebec.

Concluding a diplomatic mission at the 18th session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the First Nations leaders demanded greater international scrutiny of Quebec’s public policy reforms — specifically the way the province wants to manage its forests.

“In Quebec, a reform of the forestry regime is under way, which directly affects our territories, our cultures, and our ways of life — without adequate consultation, without recognition from our governments, and without respect for our knowledge,” AFNQL Chief Francis Verreault-Paul said in a statement.

The AFNQL represents 43 First Nations governments of Quebec and Labrador.

At issue is Quebec’s Bill 97, which would divide Quebec’s forests into three zones: one that prioritizes conservation, one focused on timber production and a third zone for multiple uses.

The bill includes a clause that says that any activity interfering with or restrictingforest development efforts is prohibited — with the exception of Indigenous activities pursued for domestic, ritual or social purposes. 

But that clause “in no way guarantees the preservation of the quality of these territories, which are essential to the preservation of their traditional ways of life, cultures and languages,” the AFNQL stated.

In other words, Quebec First Nations communities would be free to use a third of the province’s timber forests, but only after the forestry industry was done, citing concerns over environmental degradation.

“They call it triade in French, meaning 30 per cent of the territory will be specifically used by the industry in exclusion of other users,” Lac-Simon Anishnabe Nation Chief Lucien Wabanonik told the UN gathering. “They exclude everyone else.”

Quebec’s Minister of Natural Resources and Forests Maïté Blanchette Vézina tabled the bill this spring, following what she described as “extensive consultations” with Indigenous leaders.

However, Verreault-Paul noted that a board with Indigenous leaders was only formed after the bill was tabled in April 2025, despite their explicit request that they be consulted beforehand.

“Once again, we are faced with a fait accompli,” Verreault-Paul told Blanchette Vézina at a meeting in early June.

Other AFNQL representatives echoed these concerns.

Chief Wabanonik accused the Quebec government of “methodical territorial dispossession” by reserving one-third of public lands for private interests without Indigenous consent. He called the forestry plan a violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Quebec’s constitutional obligations.

Beyond the formal UN sessions, the AFNQL delegation met with Indigenous leaders from across the globe and Canadian officials, including the country’s UN ambassador. These diplomatic efforts aimed to build solidarity and ensure international awareness of the challenges First Nations face in Quebec.

“Our sovereignty predates that of the states,” Verreault-Paul said. “We are governments in our own right, with our own institutions and legal systems.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

For renowned soil scientist Odette Ménard, why we do something in agriculture is much more important than how we do it.

“We don’t ask ourselves the ‘why’ part of doing what we do in agriculture often enough,” Ménard said. “I’ve been to so many meetings where the focus is just on ‘How can we do this?’ But if you don’t know why you’re doing something, sometimes it’ll work — and sometimes it really will not work.”

Ménard has been at the cutting edge of getting farmers to change the way they think about farming the soil for nearly 40 years.

Starting as an agronome in 1988, the Ange-Gardien native became MAPAQ’s regional adviser on soil and water conservation, covering the Montérégie region for 36 years.

That job made Ménard quickly realize the negative effects of traditional agricultural practices on soils. Just as quickly, she became a leading voice for conservation and no-till practices — at first in Quebec and then throughout the world. She’s spoken and led projects on farms as far away as Australia and Ukraine; in 2013, she was invited to speak at the U.S. National No-Till Conference in Indianapolis and received the prize for best lecture.

“When I started over 30 years ago, producers found it funny to see someone showing up with just a shovel to look at what’s in the soil,” Ménard said.

Look at your soil

“Back then, we were relying on the labs to tell us about our soil. But now, we’re coming around to the idea that the first step is to do a soil profile. And as you see your soil, as you see its living potential, then you can understand the impact of tillage, machinery and chemicals.”

In 2005, Ménard became the first Quebecer and the first woman to be inducted into the Canadian Soil Conservation Hall of Fame. The accolades followed one after another as she worked tirelessly to promote sustainable agricultural practices focusing on soil health. In 2013, Ménard created the Caravane santé des sols (Soil Health Caravan), a program that allows experts to visit farms to assess soil health and propose solutions.

Most recently, Ménard received the high honour of being inducted to the “Temple de la renommée de l’agriculture du Québec” (the Quebec Agriculture Hall of Fame) in November 2024.

Earthworms are key

But to her friends and followers, she is often called “Madame Vers de Terre” (Madame Earthworm), a term of endearment that points to Ménard’s reminder that these invertebrates recycle crop residue left on the soil, stimulate biological activity and promote root growth.

“The data has been there for a long time: earthworms help with drought resistance; infiltration; climate control because of their effect on organic carbon; nutrient availability due to the carbon transformation they’re doing and because of the stable root galleries they create,” Ménard said. “They are vital to taking care of the residue at the soil surface. And you can see them with your own eyes just by looking.”

Looking at the soil was the theme of the evening as Ménard spoke to members of the Quebec Farmers’ Association during a videoconference May 28.

The CRO₂P. concept

“I like to start all my talks with the ending, just in case we get carried away and run out of time,” Ménard said with characteristic humour. “You have to remember the ‘crop’ concept for having healthy soil — that’s CRO₂P.”

CRO₂P, Ménard explained, is a helpful acronym to remember the four essential criteria for soil health and conservation. “C” for “cover” — a minimum coverage of 30 per cent after sowing must be achieved to adequately protect the soil against erosion, from both wind and water, and the sun.

“R” is for “roots.” Roots are essential for maintaining microbial life in the soil and, thus, ensuring both a better structure and better structural stability.

“O_2” is for oxygen. And “P” is for “porosity.”

“We need to make sure that we don’t break our soil’s porosity,” Menard said. “Soil porosity is really related to machinery, and the weight that we put on our soil. Maintaining the wheel load below 3,500 kilograms is necessary to maximize soil porosity.”

Over the course of her career, she’s influenced thousands and developed a following of devotees who have applied her research to their farms to great success. But for Ménard, the first rule of agriculture is to observe the soil and ask deceptively simple questions about what farming is.

“How many of us can say that our soils are healthy? How do we even measure our soil’s health? And once we’ve determined that, where does soil health fit into our farm management?”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Canada’s agricultural industry used to be a place where only farm kids worked. You grew up on the farm, you maybe went to college, and then returned to the family farm.

After all, who else but young folks raised on a farm were tough enough to put in the long hours? Certainly not some college grad who had never milked cows at dawn growing up.

But that’s all changed in the past 30-odd years. Increased enrolment in ag colleges from students without a farming background, and the real labour shortage in the industry, have changed the face of who farms in Canada.

Eighteen-year-old Florence Bolduc benefits from that change. Growing up in the town of St. Louis de Gonzague, in the MRC of Beauharnois-Salaberry, southwest of Montreal, to a father who works for Desjardins and a mother who advocates for workers in the daycare industry, Bolduc wasn’t a typical “farm kid.” But she is now.

“When I was 14, I started to go work with a friend at their farm and I fell immediately in love with that world,” Bolduc explained. “I’d visit the barn and help with chores every weekend. That’s how I came to understand that farming was something that could help the world.”

Loved it from the start

That farm is “Ferme Iceberg” in St. Stanislas de Kostka, the next town over. A Holstein-herd dairy operation owned by David Cecyre, Ferme Iceberg gave Bolduc her first glimpse into farm life and the joys of working with animals.

“Everything I know about agriculture is mostly because of my boss David,” Bolduc explained. “He taught me everything he knows — from the field work to the impact of it in the barn.”

Starting off helping with basic chores, Bolduc’s enthusiastic volunteering on Ferme Iceberg grew into an employee relationship over the years. Equipped with a 3 Lely A4 robot to milk the cows and a milk taxi to feed the calves, the farm keeps a herd of 150 lactating Holsteins – and Bolduc is now essential to their upkeep.

“I mostly do barn work — any and every task that needs to be done during the time we’re in the barn,” Bolduc said. “We have multiple vaccines that we need to give the calves, heifers and cows for different reasons, so I created the computer files to help us keep track of which animal needs which vaccine and when.”

Enrolled at Mac

That’s a lot of responsibility for a young producer entrusted to working on a family friend’s operation, not to mention that Bolduc also monitors the health of the herd and handles their registration with Holstein Canada. That’s why Bolduc enrolled in Macdonald Campus’ Farm Management and Technology program in 2023, hoping to gain theoretical knowledge behind the hands-on training she learned at Ferme Iceberg.

Bolduc gained that and more. She was one of five students to win a Warren Grapes Agricultural Scholarship awarded by the Quebec Farmers’ Association at the organization’s 2024 annual general meeting last November. Now, her plans are to move on to a degree in agronomy at McGill University or Université Laval after graduating from FMT.

“I want to stay in the industry and help farmers,” Bolduc said. “And there’s still not that many female agronomes out there.”

Future might be more female

Having a female presence in agriculture is important for the future of farming, Bolduc said. While she describes her experience as a female producer as positive, she realizes that’s not always the case.

“I’ve always been welcomed where I work and have never had any issues with male employees being unwelcome to women,” she explained. “My boss makes sure that we are comfortable and makes an environment safe for us. But the industry in general should promote agriculture to young girls like me, who are not born on a home farm and want to explore this beautiful industry that feeds the world.”

Not being born on a farm but loving agriculture is something Bolduc knows much about. But this articulate young producer is hopeful that Canadian farms in the future are learning to invest in young workers – regardless of whether they’re “born and raised” there or not.

“The cost of land is high and interest rates are climbing, which often makes it impossible for a non-farmer to borrow enough money from a bank to buy a farm,” she said.

“But if farms are making plans for the future and want to invest their money in the right place, future farmers will be able to continue and find a place in agriculture.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The House of Commons unanimously passed a bill aimed at protecting supply management in future trade negations earlier this month, as the BlocQuébécoisramps up its efforts to pressure the federal government to keep its promise on defending Canada’s protected agricultural sectors.

“The current context forces us to act as quickly as possible to protect the Quebec agricultural model, which is under increasing commercial pressure from the United States,” said BQ leader Yves-François Blanchet, who tabled the bill on May 29.

 “We must defend our agriculture tooth and nail so that no part of the supply management can be sold during negotiations with the U.S. administration.”

Blanchet’s bill, now designated Bill C-202, is timed to make Prime Minister Mark Carney follow through on his statements that the Liberal government would defend supply management.

Speaking of future trade negotiations at the French-language leaders’ debate in April, Carney said: “We have to be clear what will never be on the table: the French language, Quebec culture and supply management. Never on the table.”

The bill also comes on the heels of King Charles’s May 27 Speech from the Throne, during which the visiting monarch mentioned the Crown’s desire to protect agriculture in general — and supply management specifically.

“The government … will protect the people who give us access to fresh, healthy and quality food: agricultural producers,” the King said. “And it will protect supply management.”

Quebec’s dairy producers welcomed the bill’s passing on June 6, echoing the anxieties shared by many Canadian farmers regarding Donald Trump’s aggressive stance on U.S.-Canada trade relations.

“We thank all parties in the House of Commons for allowing the bill to pass quickly, especially in the current context with what appears to be the resumption of trade and security discussions between Canada and the United States,” said Daniel Gobeil, president of Les Producteurs de lait du Québec in a post on the group’s official Facebook page.

Quebec milk producers reminded the public that the battle over supply management, particularly in the milk, egg and poultry sectors, has been waged for the past five years.

“Supply management, which has been the subject of concessions in the last three trade agreements, is simply not negotiable,” wrote Gobeil, referring to the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Those agreements, while leaving supply management fundamentally intact, made some concessions on modifications to the milk class system and allowed a greater share of Canada’s fine cheese market to overseas imports.

The BQ introduced a similar bill, which was approved by 80 per cent of the Hosue of Commons in 2023, including the entirety of the Liberal caucus (except for two MPs), as well as the NDP and Bloc. At the time, Conservatives voted 56 for; 49 against.

Yet, that bill was ultimately stalled in the Senate in 2024 by Independent Senator Peter Boehm and Progressive Senator Peter Harder, in a move the BQ described as “literal sabotage.” It then died in January, when Parliament was prorogued.

“I don’t think it’s in Canada’s national interest to pass this bill because it divides the agricultural community … and it will impact future trade negotiations,” Boehm said at the time.

Neither senator commented on the Bloc’s reintroduction of a supply management bill.

A review of the CUSMA deal is scheduled for 2026. Blanchet said that he would be meeting with the prime minister this month to discuss the bill.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The Union des producteurs agricoles is planning big changes in how it collects fees from Quebec farmers, with the aim of making the system fairer for all producers.

A new payment and collection formula is scheduled to be approved by UPA members at the organization’s general congress in December.

In a public consultation document published in April, the UPA says producers have been asking for years to make union dues and rates more equitable for all farm businesses.

“There is a desire to modify the current system,” the UPA said in a statement. “Firstly, so that the assessment amounts are based on farm size, and secondly to achieve a better balance between production types that pay contributions to the UPA under joint plans and those that do not.”

Quebec’s agricultural producers union has been holding consultations on the process since November 2023. Now, three main changes are being considered to its union dues and contribution fees, or what the UPA commonally calls its “cotisation” structure.

First, tiered assessments would be introduced based on a farm business’s gross receipts.

Second, an assessment increase (in the form of complementary assessments) would come into effect for businesses where 25 per cent or more of gross farm receipts come from production types in which no contributions are paid to the UPA through joint plans.

Third, producers would have to file annual declarations to determine the assessment amounts they would be charged.

“The new contribution scheme is not intended to increase the union’s budget,” said Mathieu St-Amand, a director for the UPA’s training and organizational development.

“It aims to meet already anticipated financing needs,” St-Armand said. “Under the proposed new scheme, only the distribution of the amounts collected will change to ensure greater fairness among agricultural businesses.”

Currently, the UPA is financed by a mix of fixed charges and variable contributions based on a calculated assessment determined by the size of their business. All producers are charged a fixed amount, also known as dues, which are paid by all registered producers in the province.

“Variable contributions” are percentages: producers in sectors covered by joint plans are charged a variable contribution (in addition to their fixed assessment) based on the individual production volume for their business.

The changes are aimed at reconciling a long-held rift within the union. Producers covered by a joint marketing plan, such as grain or maple syrup producers, have long paid a contribution based on their total sales volumes.

However, those not covered by a joint plan, such as market gardeners, haven’t historically paid contributions to the UPA, only an annual fee. The proposed solution, according to the proposed UPA plan, is to require those sectors to declare their income, so that the UPA will then charge them a higher contribution based on their volume of business.

“The proposed changes respond to repeated requests from producers in recent years for a fairer contribution system for all businesses,” said UPA president Martin Caron.

“They also allow for better preparation for the future and the provision of all the representation, interventions and follow-up required for the sector’s sustainability, throughout the country and in all forums.”

UPA officials point out the new regime is still in its consultation phase. Producers are encouraged to participate in the consultations scheduled for the local union meetings in September and October.

Following those consultations, a resolution and bylaw governing the new dues system will be presented at the UPA’s 2025 annual general congress in December. If the bylaw is approved there, it will be submitted for ratification to the Régie des marchés agricoles et alimentaires du Québec. The goal is for the changes to take full effect in January 2027.

Producers interested in learning more and getting involved in the consultation meetings should visit https://www.upa.qc.ca/en/producteur/union-life/consultation-dues-system (the webpage is available in English)

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Jacques Nault is very honest about why he uses his knowledge to fight climate change.

“For my part, I’m a very climate-anxious person,” said the St. Chrysostome-based agronome. “It scares me. And the only way I can sleep at night is by taking action.”

It’s been a long road for Nault to reach the point where he feels he is making a change that can prevent, and even reverse, aspects of the current climate crisis. But after more than 25 years in business, his company has developed programs that can help agricultural producers take advantage of the Canadian carbon market and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

“My brother and I founded Logiag in 1999,” Nault said, referring to the company that is at the centre of his efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of the agricultural sector. “And a few years ago I gathered all our employees and said, ‘OK, we’re going to develop a service to help farmers in their climate transitions. We’re going to try to sustain a company that advises farmers who are interested in turning their farms around and facing the climate crisis that’s in front of us.”

That mission led the company to create its climate transition plan for farmers. The voluntary program starts by conducting a greenhouse gas inventory on a producer’s operation, and recommending cost-effective practices to reduce its GHG emissions and accumulate carbon in the soil.

Through anything and everything – from creating windbreaks, planting cover crops and optimizing nitrogen fertilizer application – participating agricultural businesses can build carbon assets that add value to their farms or invite non-farm businesses to purchase GHG reductions to offset their own emissions. 

“That’s what people are talking about when they talk about the ‘carbon offset’ market,” Nault explained.

But as much as such programs work on paper, they can be abused and aren’t necessarily the smartest way for climate-conscious producers to work.

“If you reduce (your carbon footprint) by a thousand tonnes (of carbon), you sell it, you get money, and once you do it, it’s gone,” Nault said. “You cannot claim it again. You cannot say you’ve reduced because your credit has been sold, your effort has been sold somewhere else, and it can only be sold once.”

Focus on dairy

As an industry leader in climate transition and GHG reduction, Nault wanted to find a better way for dairy farms to reduce their emissions and create a roadmap for producers wanting to make an environmental difference. What they came up with is what they call “Dedicated Dairy Farms,” a voluntary program currently in its third year of operation that’s already showing great results.

“In dairy, 87 per cent of GHG emissions come from the farm,” Nault explained during a videoconference April 23 hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association. “That’s a lot more than from transport and from packaging and processing. So if we want to actually, physically reduce those emissions, we have to start at the farm.”

Dedicated Dairy Farms starts by doing some “greenhouse gas accounting” on a producer’s operation, taking into account all emissions and finding a baseline that all improvements can be measured from.

“We look everywhere for where emissions are coming from: in the barn, in the manure and in the field. And we go back three years to establish a baseline scenario. What are the usual practices on this farm, and what emissions are coming from its usual practices. That’s the starting point.”

Logiag also thoroughly tests that farm’s soil’s organic carbon and figures out the carbon footprint of its milk. On average, Quebec milk producers emit a kilo of Co2 per kilo of milk produced, Nault said.

Certified carbon reduction

That’s where Logiag gets active by having boots on the ground at the dairy farms involved in the program. Agronomes look at each farm and create a transition plan that considers the close links between animals, plants and soils, with a goal to increasing profitability, productivity while reducing the carbon footprint of the milk produced. Most of the 135 farms participating have measured a 15- to 33-per-cent drop in their greenhouse gas emissions.

“Once those reductions are made, we make sure that they’re certified,” Nault said, noting that all reductions in the program are verified by SustainCERT, a European carbon-emissions accounting and verification platform. “This is where each farm’s reductions gain value. And it’s important to protect the farmers and to recognize their efforts once it’s in the books.”

That certification makes the milk from farms in the Dedicated Dairy Farms program particularly attractive to milk processors. So attractive that the cost of the program is paid by them; General Mills was the first processor to sign on, with Costco following suit.

“Companies like that are under tremendous pressure to have a response to the climate crisis, and to answer a genuine request from customers to invest in real climate and carbon-footprint solutions,” Nault said. “Currently, it’s entirely paid by the food processors and the farmers are receiving a compensation for the time as well.”

As Nault notes, dairy producers in the program then have two sources of income: their milk and Co2 reduction.

It’s a system and a dream that Nault hopes will actively address the climate crisis and help the dairy industry get on a path to greater profitability.

“We want to make sure the reductions are real. And I want to make sure that it helps decarbonize the whole value chain,” he said.

“I believe that at the end, if the dairy sector, or agriculture in general, doesn’t do this, then there’s going to be other alternatives that are going to come and answer the needs of the customers and distributors.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Great farmers are not born, they’re made. And that may be the best way to describe how 20-year-old Aidan Velthuis became the confident young dairy producer he is today.

“One of my earliest memories of being introduced to agriculture was pushing in the cow feed with a little snow shovel as a little 4- or 5-year-old kid, and asking my dad to be able to help in the milking parlour,” said the Macdonald Campus student. “I remember standing on a milk crate to be able to reach the cows in the parlour, although I was undoubtedly less effective at my tasks back then.”

Velthuis remains grateful to his dad for patiently showing him the ropes of dairy production. Teaching the next generation has been part of the family legacy since Aidan’s grandparents left The Netherlands in 1955 to settle in Canada. Through hard work and determination, Bert and Ann Velthuis purchased their farm in Osgoode, Ont., about half an hour south of Ottawa. That’s the farm the Velthuis family still operates today.

When Aidan’s father, Paul, and uncle, Steven, took over the farm, expansion was the name of the game. By 2003, the brothers had built a new free-stall barn and grew the herd from 85 milking cows to as high as 250.

“The farm’s grown to decent scale in both cash crop and dairy operations,” Aidan said, humbly describing the 240 cows and 2,000 acres in cropping the family now manages. “We’ve ventured successfully into genetic based breeding, and the production of stud bulls for Semex and Select sires, namely Maple Downs I-GW Atwood, and Boldi V Gymnast.”

A 4-H kid

Young Velthuis clearly knows his stuff, as you might expect from a lifelong 4-H kid who grew up showing cows and hearing about the awards the family’s cattle were winning at the Ontario Summer Show and National Holstein Show.

“The amount of independence and experience gained in the 4-H program has been valuable in so many ventures in my life,” Velthuis said. “Through travelling to judging competitions, and shows across Ontario, 4-H has provided experiences that I will carry with me forever.”

Upon graduating high school, enrolling in Macdonald Campus was a pretty easy choice for Velthuis, who’s now in his third year of college.

“Mac was close enough to home for me to be able to still work on weekends, as well as providing a very well-rounded education when it comes to farm management,” he said. “It’s exceeded my expectations.”

Velthuis’ time at Mac has been educational and successful. Last fall, he was one of five students to be awarded a Warren Grapes Scholarship by the Quebec Farmers’ Association, for agricultural and silvicultural students pursuing higher education. The Warren Grapes fund enjoys a great reputation among McGill students; Velthuis had heard of it multiple times through past recipients and from being encouraged to apply by Mac faculty and staff.

Honoured by award

“Learning that I was chosen as a recipient was a feeling of honour as well as gratitude,” he said. “The Warren Grapes award has been an extremely helpful gift to young farmers in my program, and I cannot express how grateful I feel to be a chosen recipient this year.”

Velthuis plans to move back to the family farm upon graduating. He has a strong family legacy to carry on. And his time away has made him into an articulate young producer very aware of the trials agriculture is facing.

“Farming as a whole faces many challenges in the near future, with rising tensions between Canada and our southern neighbours. Weathering these ever-changing times is bound to produce significant uncertainty within the agriculture industry,” says Velthuis.

Looking to the future

“Farming today also faces environmental challenges, with a need to produce more and more food for a growing global population. It’s imperative to determine the most efficient ways to produce, while being conscious of the environment and ensuring a sustainable set of agricultural practices. That’s crucial to ensuring a future for agriculture as a whole.”

But the Velthuis family will be able to overcome those hurdles better than most. And Aidan’s gratitude to his parents and grandparents for instilling him with a work ethic and founding a farm is boundless.

“My plan is to succeed the home farm. And I am extremely lucky to have a farm to call home, and that is ultimately what I hope to provide in the future for my future children.” 

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Stan Christensen isn’t really interested in the old business model of selling at the lowest possible price to the largest number of customers.

Instead, this beef producer would much rather sell his product at a fair price to a dedicated group of people who value great beef.

“If someone sends me an email saying, ‘I’m interested in your products. Can you send me your prices?’ we’re likely not on the same page,” explained Christensen, who run a farm in Lac Ste. Marie, north of Gatineau. “If price is your main concern, you can get cheaper beef at the supermarket.”

It’s a business philosophy that wasn’t apparent for the 73-year-old veteran of Quebec’s beef sector when he first started in 1980. At that time, Christensen and his wife Cheryl Sage had 36 cattle. Throughout the ’80s, the family grew their commercial cow operation, expanding to a full purebred Red Angus herd.

And then something unexpected happened.

Mad cow crisis changed everything

“As anyone in the beef industry knows, our 9/11 was May 20, 2003, with BSE,” Christensen recalled, referring to the discovery of a single reported case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, on an Albertan farm on that date.

With the regular supply chain in Canadian beef turned upside down overnight, Christensen and Sage began looking at how they could sell beef directly to the consumer.

“We started with a lot of ideas of how that was done,” Christensen explained during a videoconference hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association on March 12. “It was a steep learning curve, because we discovered that most of those ways don’t work.”

It was a time of reflection. And Ferme Sage emerged from it with a way to reinvent its business and become a pillar of its community.

Key decisions made

“We decided the best way to find out how to sell beef direct is to figure out who we are and what we want to do,” Christensen said. “And then can we translate that into creating a product that people will buy into so that they are willing to support us.”

Christensen started by with simple math: how much beef could they have ready for sale on a consistent schedule and how many customers could they reliably sell to? He also looked into market research done in the U.S., which revealed that the most appealing marketing term in American grocery-store advertising was “local.”

That gave him an idea.

“I had been a ski instructor for decades at that point and had a lot of connections with the community around Mont Ste. Marie,” Christensen explained. “Cheryl had a lot of connections through the health industry from working at the CLSC. We looked at all these things and said, ‘Who could we sell to?’ And that’s when we discovered that everybody was looking to help us out.”

Connected with customers

Ferme Sage’s livestock and land management turned out to be just what forward-thinking customers wanted. Christensen grazes his cattle throughout summer and winter, uses no hormones and introduces antibiotics only when treating a sick or injured cow. The farm hasn’t used herbicides or pesticides in more than 30 years, and a member of the family has always sat on the watershed committee that is responsible for the Gatineau River and for conservation around lakes in the region. In 2023, Ferme Sage was the Quebec nominee for the Environmental Stewardship Award.

Those qualities helped Ferme Sage develop a loyal customer base. To promote their direct sales, Stan and Cheryl (and, by this time, sons Eric and Ian) supported local tournaments and charity events.

“After that, it was just word-of-mouth,” Christensen said. “Since around 2014, we’ve been screening clients and the rest is friends, long-time customers — and even some other farmers.”

These days, Ferme Sage also sells breeding stock throughout Quebec and Ontario, takes its own cattle to the Thurso abattoir, and sells vacuum-packed, frozen meat from a small retail shop on the farm. It also supplies the Mont Ste. Marie ski resort, golf course and Restaurant Lachapelle in nearby Kazabazua.

Size isn’t everything

For Christensen, the key to success hasn’t been “bigger means better.” It’s been adjusting his sales to what Ferme Sage can reliably produce and then finding the right customers.

And it turned out they were his friends and neighbours.

“Selling locally, is just a great experience for somebody that wants to connect with their community,” he said. “If every local farm product is sold on the commodity market, nobody gets to know that what they see along the road is something they can actually buy and consume and share the benefits of with their friends.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

It’s common to say that someone “thinks outside the box” when they do things a little differently from everyone else.

But in the case of Sheena Ben-David, a Macdonald Campus student and community organizer, thinking outside the box is just the first step in how she hopes to build a better society through farming.

“My background is in illustration, design and special-effects makeup, and I’ve worked as an art teacher and integration aid,” said the 38-year-old. “So farming wasn’t the obvious path.”

Ben-David is the daughter of immigrants to Canada. Her father is from Israel, her mother from Sicily. While she mostly grew up in Montreal, the family moved to the town of Charlemagne to live with her Italian-Canadian grandparents.

Although Charlemagne is only 30 kilometres away from Montreal, the move introduced Ben-David to a whole new way of life — and a whole new way of thinking about food.

“We had a sizeable backyard garden — pretty typical for Italian immigrants,” she said with a laugh. “I think living there really planted the seed for my love of the outdoors, my obsession with trees and my need for stillness.”

Walking in the garden with her grandfather is Ben-David’s first memory of farming. She would often help him pick fresh ingredients for dinner, marvelling at how he would turn the tomatoes into fresh pasta sauce.

“I grew up hearing stories about food and farming from both sides of my family,” Ben-David explained. “My mom would talk about her grandmother breaking a chicken’s neck in a drawer, then watching it run around headless. My dad remembers raising chickens as a kid and struggling to eat them at dinner because they felt like pets. My paternal grandfather was also a butcher, so food production was always part of our family history in one way or another.”

The COVID-19 pandemic was pivotal for Ben-David. As food prices surged and quality declined, she became aware of vulnerabilities within the supply chain and felt a need to move away from reliance on grocery chains and unsustainable practices.

“What began as an interest in growing my own food for salads and homemade preserves evolved into a deeper drive for food sovereignty, both for myself and my community,” she explained.

But where could an aspiring young producer look for much-needed farm experience?

Ben-David had done one semester at the horticulture program at Centre de Horticole de Laval, but through a conversation with friends and Farm Management and Technology recruitment officer Katrin Dinkel, she learned about the ag education available at Mac Campus.

Older than average student

Within a few months of learning about FMT, she was starting her first day of class, eager to learn, but aware that her background differed from those students who had grown up on the family farm.

“It’s been challenging for sure,” Ben-David admitted. “I’m learning everything from scratch and often feel lost next to younger students who grew up farming. The world that shaped them is one I’m just beginning to understand. Farming runs through their veins, and here I am, just trying to figure out the difference between a disc harrow and a cultivator.”

Nonetheless, Ben-David has found success in the FMT program. She was one of five students to be awarded a Warren Grapes scholarship from the Quebec Farmers’ Association. She also completed an internship at the Mac Campus farm and spent a summer working at Pitt Street Garden, a permaculture and horticulture project in Cornwall, Ont.

Her time at Mac has also helped Ben-David learn more business skills for an innovative business idea that’s become her passion—a non-profit organization she founded called Roots Farm and Retreat.

“After COVID, I felt a pressing urge to become self-sufficient, yet I wanted my efforts to benefit others too,” she said, explaining why she founded the non-profit.

“But breaking into the farming industry is tough, especially without a generational farm to step into. The startup costs alone are massive, and accessing land, equipment and resources as a new farmer can feel like an uphill battle. It’s not just about learning how to grow food; it’s about navigating business, marketing and supply chains, while trying to make it all financially sustainable.”

Inspired to find a pathway to farming for herself and others, Ben-David and a close friend established Roots Farm & Retreat in 2022 by purchasing a 75-acre plot of land near Newington, Ont., north of Cornwall.

Overcoming financial barriers

The operation is an incubator for new farmers, prioritizing BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour), queer and female farmers. The non-profit helps non-traditional aspiring farmers overcome financial barriers by offering 5- to 10-year land rentals so they can gain experience before purchasing their own land.

That’s definitely thinking outside the box, and a radical approach to helping up-and-coming ag producers enter the industry. The reaction from traditional farmers in the community has been equally supportive and, well, a bit baffled.

“The local community has been mostly supportive — though we’ve gotten a few ‘You must be crazy’ looks from some farmers,” Ben-David said. “Overall, they welcome the idea of creating opportunities for small-scale farmers and bringing more diversity to the area. The county has been especially supportive.”

In the winter of 2023, Roots Farm & Retreat acquired a hemp licence, adding another layer to its project of encouraging culturally significant specialty crops that are in demand, but often hard to find. Ben-David hopes to explore the potential of growing hemp for seed, oil and, ideally, CBD production. Alongside hemp, they intend to incorporate gluten-free grains into our crop rotation, enhancing both biodiversity and community offerings.

“We also focus on mental well-being, offering meditation, yoga and breathwork to help combat isolation,” Ben-David explained. “Our workshops will cover canning, preserving and cooking with fresh ingredients, creating a supportive community where experienced farmers mentor newcomers.”

The biggest challenge Ben-David and her team face at Roots Farm & Retreat is the same that all producers face: money and capital for investment.

Growth is slow

The farm desperately needs a tractor, as well as infrastructure support for its renters. While Roots Farm & Retreat has support from Réseau Racines, La Cité College and the FMT program itself, it’s outside-the-box approach often means it’s not eligible for strict funding initiatives and grants.

But Ben-David is undaunted by the hurdles she has to overcome to make Roots Farm & Retreat her full-time job. For this aspiring producer, starting a conversation and building community is just as important as growing crops.

“I think the biggest thing the non-farming public needs to understand is just how much work goes into producing their food. Farming isn’t just planting seeds and watching things grow. It’s long hours, constant problem-solving and working within a system that often feels stacked against small-scale producers,” she said.

“On the flip side, farmers also need to recognize that most people are disconnected from where their food comes from, not because they don’t care, but because the modern food system has made it easy to be. Bridging that gap means more conversations, more education and a little more empathy on both sides.”

To support Roots Farm & Retreat, you can donate to its GoFundMe fundraiser. Visit https://www.rootsfarmretreat.org/en/donation

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The ongoing battle between the CPTAQ and the many businesses that have developed the land that is now occupied by La Sucrerie Bonaventure and Microbrasserie L’Entêté puts the Union des producteurs agricoles in a tough position.

While conceding that many producers, like Alexandre Ladouceur, who owns the operations, have to diversify income sources, the UPA acknowledges the authority of the CPTAQ to protect Quebec’s farmland and maintains that repeated offences are rare.

“Sometimes (infractions) can be due to a lack of knowledge of the law or the rules in place,” said Jessica Blackburn, press relations officer for the UPA. “In some cases, it may be an instance of bad faith.”

For Marcel Denis, president of UPA Sainte-Scholastique–Mirabel, the matter finally rests with the courts and making sure all agricultural producers follow the rules.

“The Ladouceur family are a family I’ve known for 30 years,” Denis told The Advocate. “They’re good producers. But, in the end, it doesn’t matter what I think. You have to have the right permit to do something and develop your farmland. You can’t go above the law.”

As the local UPA representative for the territory that Ladouceur’s companies operate in, Denis says he has had plenty of producers approach him with plans to create similar agri-related businesses to draw customers.

“Producers from the area see the business La Sucrerie is bringing in, and they get ideas,” Denis said. “I had a producer tell me, ‘I got my permit from the City of Mirabel for my own sucrerie.” and I tell them: ‘A permit from the city is not the same thing as a permit from the CPTAQ.’”

Denis, a maple producer himself, admits that, whatever success the businesses are having, La Sucrerie Bonaventure and Microbrasserie L’Entêté are “stretching the elastic” of what “agri-tourism” really is.

“There’s no actual maple production being done there,” Denis said. “I was at the CPTAQ hearing and that’s what they said themselves.

“And when it comes to hosting a rodeo that causes a traffic jam because it’s a huge success, you have to ask yourself: Where is the limit on what is agriculture?”

Ultimately, for Denis and the UPA, the matter comes down to the letter of the law.

“If you don’t have a driver’s licence, you can’t drive. If you don’t have a building permit, you can’t build. And this case is as simple as that.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

In March, the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec ordered the owner of a popular cabane à sucre in Mirabel to cease using a portion of its land “for purposes other than agriculture despite several refusals by the commission to grant applications for authorizations.”

At issue are what the CPTAQ claims are the owners’ non-agricultural operations: a 9-hole golf course, seating for 1,000 customers in the cabane’s dining room, a microbrewery that seats 300, and a rodeo that drew about 18,000 attendees last summer — which all operate on agricultural land the agricultural land zoning authority says should be reserved for agriculture.

Alexandre Ladouceur, the current owner of La Sucrerie Bonaventure, says his businesses are agri-tourism. But the CPTAQ says simply it is not just agriculture.

A long history

The CPTAQ’s long list of grievances with La Sucrerie Bonaventure goes back to the late 1980s.

And it all revolves around the development on lot 1,690,382 of the Quebec cadastral map, where La Sucrerie Bonaventure’s main buildings are located, at 15400 rue Charles.

Back in the 1980s, the land was owned by a sod farm, Gazons Éthier, which argued that soil depletion on the land made its business unsustainable and proposed the development of an 18-hole golf course that would take up 35 hectares. Despite the support of the City of Mirabel, the CPTAQ was not convinced that the land’s soil was depleted and refused the application. The Quebec Court of Appeal upheld that decision.

Nonetheless, by 1993, a golf course and parking lot were operating on the land. The Club de golf Bonaventure greeted visitors with a reception area, even turning an agricultural building constructed in 1990 into a concession stand and golf equipment shop.

The next year, owners of the Club de golf Bonaventure made a second application to the CPTAQ, stating it would “regularize” its golf course by experimenting with different types of grass and lawn production. The CPTAQ, however, argued that the project would use 40 hectares of class 3 agricultural land and could be established on other non-agricultural land within the municipality of Mirabel. Once again, the Court of Appeal upheld the CPTAQ’s refusal.

New owners, same infractions

The ownership of lot 1,690,382 changed a few times during the 2000s, with the Club de golf Bonaventure finally closing for business after repeated requests from the CPTAQ.

Current owner Alexandre Ladouceur started operating La Sucrerie Bonaventure in 2015, one of the many large cabanes à sucres north of Montreal offering horse rides and pea-soup-and-pork brunches around the sugaring season.

But in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ladouceur made the decision to reopen golf facilities on the site.

“It’s not a ‘golf course’, in the sense that there is no member who comes here. There is no one who pays to come and play golf,” explained Ladouceur in an interview with Radio-Canada. “The people who come here pay to buy an agricultural product – which is beer or maple syrup – and then from there, they’re given access to the land.”

Ladouceur made his most recent proposal to the CPTAQ in 2020, hoping to gain authorization to produce beer made from his own barley for his company, “Microbrasserie L’Entêté,” which serves meals to up to 60 customers and offers guided mini-farm tours. The plan also requested for a parking lot that would accommodate 400 cars.

The project would only touch 1.19 hectares of Ladouceur’s land, but the CPTAQ similarly rejected his proposal, citing the protection of highly arable farmland.

Rodeo draws 18,000

Fast-forward to the summer of 2024: La Sucrerie Bonaventure now seats up to 1,000 and its sister company Microbrasserie L’Entêté can accommodate 300.

Under the justification that it is holding a “country party” (and that such events do not require the authorization of the CPTAQ), Ladouceur and his staff promote Rodéo L’Entêté, a two-day gathering featuring dance classes, live music and two evening rodeos. Advertising for the event invites attendees to “discover local agriculture by exploring our agricultural zone.”

The rodeo draws an estimated 18,000 people. The City of Mirabel itself, citing excessive traffic problems caused by the event, makes a complaint to the CPTAQ, citing “excessiveness of activities in this agricultural area.”

In response, the CPTAQ informs Ladouceur in September 2024 that investigations into land-usage offences are being conducted on five of his property lots. On March 21, 2025, the commission sends La Sucrerie Bonaventure its most recent cease-and-desist order.

In part, it states that Ladouceur cease all activities on lot 1,690,382 “for the purposes of catering, meal service, alcohol and microbrewery service, golf, smoking, sales of goods, articles and miscellaneous products, beer production, maple water processing, parking, storage of goods, various objects and materials not intended for agricultural purposes as well as for the purposes of storage and sale of goods, objects and materials not produced on that lot.”

The CPTAQ gives Ladouceur 24 hours to comply.

Orders ‘speak for themselves’

As part of the agricultural law judicial process, the CPTAQ does not comment on current cases. In an email to The Advocate sent on April 8, the commission says the cease-and-desist order “speaks for itself.”

For his part, Ladouceur has already re-applied to the CPTAQ for authorization to host a second edition of the Rodéo L’Entêté this summer.

“We are in there, with the lawyers, to set up a file, to prove that the rodeo (is) more than just a rodeo,” Ladouceur said. “You know, we have horses. We give (riding) lessons. We have a lot of activities that are related to the rodeo.”

As of mid-April, both La Sucrerie Bonaventure and Microbrasserie L’Entêté were still operating. Sugaring season is on, and that means customers from Montreal are driving north to have Easter brunch on the many cabane à sucres in the Laurentians.

According to reporting by Radio-Canada, Ladouceur’s revenue exceeds $1 million annually. The CPTAQ’s fines for contravening regulations can range anywhere from $500 to $72,000.

But for Ladouceur, the issue lies in what is the definition of “agri-tourism” — and of agriculture itself.

“I will fight to the end to prove that what I do is agricultural,” he stated in a media interview. “Ninety-seven per cent of our sales are made on the farm. But if tomorrow morning, you take that away from me, I’ll stop cultivating. I’ll stop being a farmer.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

When is a farm not just a farm? That’s the question the Quebec government is asking itself about an agricultural business in Mirabel that has — at least according to its owners — become a huge success.

Last month, the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec issued an order to popular cabane à sucre La Sucrerie Bonaventure in the Laurentian town north of Montreal to cease using a portion of its land “for purposes other than agriculture despite several refusals by the Commission to grant applications for authorizations.”

At issue are a 9-hole golf course, seating for 1,000 customers in the cabane’s dining room, a microbrewery that seats 300, and a rodeo that drew about 18,000 attendees last summer — all on agricultural land the CPTAQ says should be reserved for agriculture.

Alexandre Ladouceur, the current owner of La Sucrerie Bonaventure, says his businesses are agri-tourism. But the CPTAQ says simply it is not just agriculture. And the local UPA worries that when land-use rules aren’t respected by everyone, rampant abuse can occur.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Sometimes all the good things in life can happen at once. And Matt and Angela Kumlin will be the first to tell you how overwhelming so many blessings can be.

“After university, Matt had started a veterinary practice that saw him checking over 30,000 head a year, and I was working for BASF doing agricultural chem sales,” Angela said, speaking over Zoom from her home in Cochrane, Alberta, 40 kilometres northwest of Calgary.

“I had a great team to learn from, and Matt’s clients were really happy that their vet was a farm boy who knew how to rope. But we started to become a bit disenchanted with our high-speed lifestyle and we had some clues that we didn’t want to continue in that capacity in the ag industry long term.”

Around this time, the couple’s first child, Wade, was born. Soon, that little bundle of joy was followed by brother Bennett and sister Rachel. A lot of good things were happening in the Kumlins’ careers, but could they fit well with their lives?

“At work, I started to question the way that we were recommending products as Band-Aid fixes rather than long-term solutions to agricultural problems,” the 35-year-old said. “Matt would come home with these ideas buzzing in his head about all of the things that he wanted to try in farming. We both really wanted to be back in primary agriculture.”

Started transition conversation

There was a means of escape that the Kumlins hadn’t yet explored. Matt’s family’s ranch — the Lazy J Cattle Co. — in Cochrane had been in the family since 1885. Matt’s father was in his late 60s, and the couple began wondering if moving and taking up farming full time could be a way to pursue their dream and spend more time with their kids.

“We started the conversation with Matt’s parents to see if there was a place for us on the home ranch,” Angela explained. “And it turned out that Matt’s dad was at a good time and place in his life, and he was graciously ready to have someone else take the reins.”

That was a promising start, but Matt and Angela wanted to do something different with the family ranch.

They’d been to a “Ranching for Profit” course together and were inspired by the idea of working with nature and testing out theories of regenerative agriculture on their own land. Angela had heard about the “visioning” process for developing strategic plans used by non-profit organizations affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Affairs International, an international umbrella group non-profit organizations.

Sharing your ideas, hopes

“The way that the first step of visioning works is that anyone who is a stakeholder in the business gets to write their ideas and hopes on sticky notes,” Angela explained at a QFA videoconference held on Feb. 12. “You’re supposed to be really selfish at this point, just asking yourself: ‘What do I want this business or my life to look like in five years, in an ideal world without constraints?’”

In a visioning process, participants begin grouping their sticky notes according to similarities. Eventually, common ground emerges and group members start formulating shared goals.

“No one’s allowed to be critical at that point,” Angela said. “You go and sleep on it. The next morning when you show up you can put your critical-thinking cap on.”

What happens in a visioning process when participants disagree?

Well, group members have a conversation about it. In the Kumlins’ case, that happened early on when the goals and concerns of Angela and her in-laws seemed to be total opposites.

Issues are discussed

“One of the members of our group wrote down that they were worried how all the changes we were making on the ranch would be viewed by the community,” Angela said, laughing as she remembered the instance.

“Matt and I had written on one of our early sticky notes: ‘We don’t care what the neighbours think!’ That led us to some really interesting conversations where we asked, ‘Is this a company decision, or a family decision, or a decision about what’s best for our land itself?’”

Since their first farm transfer visioning, the Kumlins’ have gone through several visioning sessions — about their family life, the way they use and care for their land, and what the Lazy J Cattle Co. is all about. The language they use in describing their shared vision for their cattle company is a far cry from the mission statements of corporations:

“Lazy J Cattle Company Ltd is wildly profitable,” it reads. “The business is well-run and it is fun to work here. We have ample quality family time, we follow our mission, and we learn and try new things. We maximize our forage resources, yet we utilize more than grass.”

For Angela and Matt, the exercise of visioning has been revolutionary — for both their farm and their lives. While Angela admits that many can be skeptical when hearing the word “visioning,” she also points out that the results of having a vision are something we see and admire in our communities every day.

 “Vision is something you can’t actually see. It’s a figment of our imagination. But it guides us. It’s like an iceberg: as soon as you start talking about it, people can see the tip. And then when you start accomplishing things, people say: ‘Wow! Looks at all you’re accomplishing!’ But you know it’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s lots more under the water. And, gradually, the more you talk and share your vision, more of it rises above the surface.”

To read about the Institute of Cultural Affairs International’s guidelines for visioning and strategic planning visit: https://www.ica-international.org/top-facilitation/

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

One of the great benefits of growing a family farm is that it can set the next generation up in business and in life. And for 19-year-old Sonia Auger, the farm life – and the business side of it – suits her to a tee.

“Something I really like about farming is the time I get to spend with my parents,” Auger said. “We might be in the barn looking at some aspect of the enterprise and then we can discuss it again at breakfast to find solutions.”

And help from the family is needed at the Augers’ dairy operation, where Sonia grew up. Nestled in the small town of Ste. Françoise, about 50 kilometres north of Victoriaville, the Augers milk about 115 cows. Along with raising all their heifers and cash cropping on the side, the family mainly grows feed for the dairy herd on a total of 250 hectares of land.

It’s a tall order. And Sonia has been helping since as long as she can remember.

“I’ve been doing a lot of little jobs since I was a kid,” Auger said. “I enjoyed going to work with my parents — and felt like I was really helpful at that time! And over the years, I’ve been assigned to more important responsibilities than just feeding the cats and scraping the stalls.”

These days, Auger is the family point-person for calf feeding and keeping health reports. She also takes on much of the field work during the spring and fall rush periods, along with managing the summer hay harvest.

Part of her long-term plan

Auger knows that she wants to spend her life on the farm. And she also knows that that means keeping up with technological and production changes in the world of farming. That’s why she enrolled in Macdonald Campus’ Farm Management and Technology program (FMT) after high school.

“Being on the farm helps me create a strong passion for farming and the idea of spending the rest of my life in the agricultural sector is what pushed me to apply for the FMT,” Auger explained.

Before applying to Mac, Auger spent a month in Victoria, B.C., at an intensive English-as-a-second-language school. The experience was so rewarding, it made her hungry for more.

“After that, I decided I wanted to pursue my studies after high school in English, learning something I am passionate about,” she said. 

When Auger started at Mac in 2023, being a francophone student had its challenges. But she overcame the hurdles.

Overcame language barrier

“It was hard for the first three weeks to get used to learn in English,” Auger said. “Some challenges were about communication — how to interact well with people when you don’t fullyunderstand what’s been said or not being able to find the right words. But after a couple of mistakes and a couple of tries, you get used to it and the language is not a problem any more.”

In fact, learning in an English-speaking academic environment was so much not a problem for Auger that she was awarded a Warren Grapes scholarship at the QFA’s 2024 annual general meeting — an accomplishment that surprised her and left her very thankful.

“I was mainly grateful to all the people — the teachers, family and neighbours — around me who support me every day. Not only in my studies, but also in my projects and ambitions,” Auger said.

Those projects and ambitions are considerable. After graduation, Auger hopes to continue her education at McGill by going into Agro-environmental Sciences so that she can help other agricultural producers in business and production management.

Looking to the future

“What I think about farming today is not what people were thinking about farming years ago,” she said.

“I think more about planning ahead and trying to understand the population trends and conflicts around the world, so that farmers can find opportunities to base their production upon. One of the biggest challenges about global farming today is the changes in demand and crop needs or animal products needs because of the growing population in the cities. Farmers will have to adjust their rotations and their future plans to fulfill the needs of those people.”

And her ambition of one day returning to the family farm?

Auger’s mother and father, Guillaume Auger and Monika Fitze, are fully in support of their daughter gathering experience off the farm so that she can one day operate the business the way she wants — and keep the family farm going strong.

“My family is really open-minded. We all know it’s important to have experiences away from the home farm,” Auger said. “I think, and my family thinks, that this path I’m on will help me bring the farm to the next level of sustainability and profitability one day.” 

The Advocate

The ever-industrious Office québécois de la langue française has published a new vocabulary guide to equip consumers and the Quebec food industry with French-language terms and words related to food preservation.

The guide — entitled “Des denrées bien gardées: Vocabulaire de la conservation des aliments,” which awkwardly translates to “Well-Kept Food: Vocabulary of Food Conservation” — includes 90 key terms of new or recent French-language coinages often used in food processing, nutritional information labels and home food preservation and fermentation.

As the guide explains: “From external parameters to treatments carried out on the food itself, many strategies are put in place to ensure that foods retain their safety as well as their organoleptic and nutritional properties.” 

Of course, that explanation is a translation of what the guide says. And for those who speak plain English, “organoleptic” refers to “relating to qualities of a substance that stimulate the sense organs, such as odour, colour, taste and texture of a food.”

“Food preservation techniques are varied and have become more refined over time,” reads the guide’s brief introduction, without pausing to add that this process of refinement has presumably occurred in an English-only environment.

The guide attempts to insert a little francization.

The curious can consult the 40-page guide at the OQLF’s website. While many of the translations are straightforward: “food additive” is rendered as “additif alimentaire” and “enzyme” is wisely translated as “enzyme.”

Other terms show great consideration for the variations of the French and English language, while others are touchingly poetic.

For instance “smart packaging,” used in English to describe packaging designed to collect and display data on the condition of its contents, becomes more noble in the OQLF’s preferred translation of “emballage intelligent.”

And the English word “smoking”— in this case meant to describe preparing and curing meat by exposing it to wood smoke — gets no less than three expressions to help guide users avoid making any dreaded anglicisme. It suggests “fumage,” “fumaison” and the delightfully fanciful “boucanage.”

Other terms will no doubt educate English-speaking users about their own language. The guide uses the term “espace de tête” to describe the empty part of a package not occupied by its chief contents — like the air in potato chip bags or the very top of the neck on a bottle of Coke —which it states is a translation of the English word “ullage.”

In its statement accompanying the publication of the Des denrées bien gardées guide, the OQLF explains the reasoning behind producing its vocabulary guides.

 “The (OQLF) produces new vocabularies each year to increase the availability of terminology in French linked to key and emerging economic sectors, where the terminological offer is limited and where needs are growing. In this way, it contributes to making French the standard and usual language of work.”

The food preservation vocabulary was produced in collaboration with specialists from Quebec’s Ministry of Agriculture, the Institute on Nutrition and Functional Foods of Université Laval and the Sectoral Committee for Labour in Food Processing. In 2023-2024, the OQLF produced six such vocabularies – on quantum computing, trucking, the circular economy, water treatment, toxicology and physiotherapy.

According to the OQLF’s annual report, the public institution now has 416 employees, a marked increase since its previous annual report, which cited 345 staffers. The language watchdog has a budget of nearly $42 million, a $7-million year-over-year increase. Last year, it spent $2.6 million on communications and about $1.6 million on research.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The Canadian and Quebec governments have announced $35.3 million in funding to support agricultural producers who adopt more sustainable farming practices.

“By choosing to support our farm businesses with flexible assistance that is tailored to their reality, we are ensuring their long-term engagement,” said Quebec Minister of Agriculture André Lamontagne at a press conference at Edriphaniel dairy farm in Lotbinière on Feb. 17. “This is a key action on your government’s part to sustain our collective food supply.”

Partly funded through the federal Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, the investment ushers in the fourth enrolment period of the Rétribution agroenvironnementale (Rewarding of Agri-Environmental Practices), an initiative set up to “recognize the efforts made by farm businesses to improve their practices and generate significant environmental gains,” according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Up to 1,200 new farm businesses will be eligible for support under the new funding instalment. The total direct aid to businesses, part of the flagship measure of the Sustainable Agriculture Plan 2020-2030, will reach $122 million.

Producers are invited to submit projects that will increase the sustainability and environmental-friendliness of their farming practices. Plans most likely to improve off-season soil protection, reduction of herbicide use, improved fertilizer management, crop diversification and the implementation of biodiversity-friendly landscaping will be favoured.

The initiative — and the entire Sustainable Agriculture Plan — is part of the federal, provincial and territorial governments’ goal to reduce agriculture’s effects on climate change, specifically within the next decade.

“Farmers are often the first to feel the effects of climate change, and despite this challenge, they work tirelessly to feed Canada and the world,” said federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay.

“This funding is another example of our ongoing partnership with the provinces and territories to help our hardworking farmers make their practices more sustainable, while improving the performance and resilience of their businesses.”

Since the Rétribution agroenvironnementale started in Quebec in 2022, around 3,200 farm businesses have adopted more sustainable practices on almost 520,000 hectares of land. That represents 40 per cent of the province’s annual crop area.

Businesses submitting projects will be asked to take their soil protection practices out of season further by using root crops and cutting back on mineral nitrogen fertilizer use.

Projects must take place over the next two growing seasons (2025 and 2026). Each farm business could be eligible for $50,000 in funding.

Once again with funding of this type, Quebec is asking farm business managers to act fast. The enrolment period began March 5 and lasts until March 31 or until funds are exhausted.

Visit https://www.fadq.qc.ca/initiative-ministerielle-retribution-agroenvironnementale/description to read more about the initiative, and click on “ADMISSIBILITÉ” in the left-hand column to see if your farm is eligible.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

“I’m not a scientist. I’m just a cowboy who makes some observations,” said Devin Robertson. “My goal is to find a better way to feed the cattle.”

Feeding cattle is what Robertson does best on his ranch in Last Mountain Lake, Sask. Robertson Ranch, located 70 kilometres northwest of Regina, was operated by Devin’s grandfather until he died in 1995. Robertson recalls the tillage used on the farm from working it day-in, day-out as a teenager.

“Oh, I remember it,” Robertson said. “That was the way things were done. But out here, it’s short-grass prairie. You can look at the species growing along the edge of Last Mountain Lake and not be able to count how many species there are. And it’s been here since the buffalo.”

That native soil fertility made Robertson reflect on how to best retain the richness of his soil and get away from tillage. But in the late 1990s, finding practical information on rotational grazing and regenerative agriculture wasn’t as easy as it is now.

“This is all before YouTube, when you couldn’t sit down and learn this stuff from a computer,” Robertson said.

“But I had rented some land from a local landlord we’ll call ‘Cowboy Bill.’ He owned 300 housing units but had somehow read a book by Allen Savory and wanted to try his theories out on his pastureland. I was the only guy crazy enough to bring my cows to him.”

Savory was a Zimbabwean livestock farmer and ecologist.

Inspiration can come from surprising places.

While Robertson found that Cowboy Bill wasn’t overly concerned with the health of Robertson’s cattle, he was keen on the pasture health brought about by rotational grazing.

What’s more, Cowboy Bill’s hair-brained foray into agriculture had somehow put him in touch with a real luminary of livestock farming: mob grazing and stocking density pioneer Neil Dennis, now well-known from the documentary Soil Carbon Cowboy.

“He was running steers in high-density and he had grass like nothing you’d ever seen,” Robertson said, referring to Dennis’ method of moving cattle daily and having nearly constant availability of hay as supplemental forage or as fertilizer.

Robertson told his story during a videoconference Jan. 15 hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association. After being inspired by Dennis’s practices, he began experimenting with cover crops, purchasing multi-species green feed from Covers & Co. that combined warm- and cold-season grasses, legumes, sunflowers and more to provide his herd with a healthy, balanced feed and improve soil health.

“I’m not a rep or a salesman for any company, but you can just tell that the cows are healthier,” Robertson explained. “The runtier calves did well. The bigger calves got bigger, they’re hair was shiny, they’d walk by the lick tanks not craving anything. It was a complete ration and the feed was doing all the work.”

Robertson estimates his cost per head per day feeding corn is at $1.60. While his costs grazing cover crops are up to $2.70 a day, he feels the added cost is well worth the health benefits it brings out in his cattle.

“But it does more for your soil underneath, and your animals do better on a diverse species,” he explained. “I have no scientific fact for that other than my eyeballs and watching my animals grow for 20 or 30 years.”

For Robertson, the justification for better grazing through cover crops and rotational pasturing comes from common sense. Fertility is in the soil, and the producers’ job is to preserve it and pass it along to the herd — and have the herd return the fertility to the soil.

“If you can keep moisture in the soil, you grow a better crop. It’s not rocket science. It’s just life. It just works. So why wouldn’t you have a bigger diversity of species working for you?”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

An interesting thing started happening at agricultural colleges around a decade ago: students who didn’t grow up on a farm began looking at farming as a viable career.

Call it a spin-off of the “buy local” movement, a brief trend, or the surprising development of farming becoming “hip,” the fact remains that agriculture is attracting new recruits from outside its usual pool of farm-raised kids.

For prospective producers like 18-year-old Alice Charlebois, going into agriculture is all about following her heart.

“My grandparents used to have a small dairy farm, but they sold everything early on,” Charlebois said. “Then, they went on to grow vegetables in a greenhouse, but now they only have a sugar shack.”

Grandparents farmed

Growing up in Coteau du Lac in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges region, Charlebois and her family would often help in harvesting and boiling down the sap from her grandparents’ maple syrup operation. That was the extent of her farm experience until she got a part-time job at Jardin chez Julie et Lova, a local organic vegetable farm.

“All throughout high school I was working there,” she explained. “I’d work from spring to fall, but never thinking too much of it. Sure, I liked it a lot, but it was not really fulfilling all my needs.”

However, a high school acquaintance had gone to Macdonald Campus in nearby Ste. Anne de Bellevue and was now working at a local dairy farm. From what Charlebois heard about Mac’s Farm Management and Technology program, it seemed like a fast-track to becoming an agricultural producer. Hedging her bets, Charlebois applied to both Mac’s FMT program and a CEGEP program in animal health technology, knowing that admissions to both were competitive.

“But I got accepted in both programs!” Charlebois said. “So I had to choose!”

Learning English part of deal

Ultimately, Macdonald won out because it was closer to home, but also because Charlebois – raised in a francophone household – bravely wanted to improve her English.

“I personally believe that being well-spoken in English is important,” Charlebois says in eloquent English. “Just in terms of being understood, but also because it is a language that most people know because of its easiness to learn.”

Improving her second language has gone well, with only a little bit of awkwardness and trepidation as Charlebois plunged herself into an English-language learning environment.

“I certainly hope that my English has gotten better after studying here,” she said. “Some of the challenges would probably be trying to express myself at the beginning of the school year when I didn’t know all the words that I wanted to say.”

Attracted to niche market

And since starting in 2023 at Mac, Charlebois’ educational aspirations have been very much fulfilled by the FMT program. During her time at Jardin chez Julie et Lova, the owners expanded into sheep production. That change inspired Charlebois to consider moving into the niche market herself and Mac afforded her great learning opportunities. In the summer of 2024, she was able to work at The Northern Sheep Company in Lumsden, Saskatchewan, as part of her internship in the FMT program.

“I enjoyed every bit of time that I spent working there,” Charlebois said. “It’s what really confirmed my interest in lamb production.”

And improving her English?

Well, a summer in Saskatchewan and a year in an English-language university has made Charlebois very adept at expressing her thoughts on modern agriculture in her second language.

“I think the biggest challenge in global farming today is the bad image that agriculture has on most city people. They don’t know where their food comes from, or all the labour involved. They can be so detached from the reality of it all that, when the price of one thing goes up, they want to find a cheaper alternative that is eventually worse for the environment and for the local economy.”

Undaunted by challenges

Charlebois knows that, coming from a non-farming background, she has challenges ahead. While she would like to have a sheep operation of her own, start-up capital and land are hard to come by. As a back-up plan, she plans to pursue her studies after FMT with a goal to becoming an agronomist.

“I know that the price of everything it high and doing a start-up with little to no money is impossible,” she explained. “So I’d like to focus on the animal side of agronomy.”

But still, the lure of being a full-time agricultural producer looms large even for this “non-farming background” farmer. And with the determination Charlebois has, it’s quite likely she’ll succeed.

“Because of the increase of immigration in Quebec, the demand for lamb has increased — but the supply hasn’t met the demand, so most lamb meat is imported from Australia and New Zealand. My hopes are that the demand still increases so that we can produce more lamb to feed people. For me, working with sheep is more enjoyable and safer than working with cattle. Plus, you get cutes little lambs!”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Ann Louise Carson may be only the fourth woman ever inducted into Quebec’s agricultural hall of fame, but don’t tell the long-time Townshipper and agricultural executive that her gender held her back.

“It never, never, never affected me throughout my career,” said Carson, who was one of four individuals named to the Temple de la renommée de l’agriculture du Québec last fall.

Her many job titles have taken her from government to private industry to non-profits.

“Were there people cackling in the background when I was hired? Maybe. But if they did, I didn’t care.”

It’s that kind of confidence that has allowed Carson to forge her own path in the agriculture industry.

Raised on the family dairy farm in Durham-Sud, northeast of Sherbrooke, she grew up the only daughter of Ross Carson and Andrée Côté. Having an anglophone father and francophone mother would serve her well in life.

Start on Township farm

Growing up on a farm in the Townships meant long hours, hard work and plenty of 4-H Club activities.

“Growing up on the farm, there was no feeding half the cows or feeding half the calves,” Carson said as she explained her work ethic. “You simply got it done. And 4-H added to that, with leadership help and working for the team.”

Carson was the third generation of her family to attend Macdonald College. Her grandmother had trained as a teacher at the college in 1916. The campus also housed the headquarters of the 4-H offshoot – Quebec Young Farmers. It was there that Carson got her first job upon graduation in 1981.

Two years later, the ever-restless Carson became communications director for the Townshippers’ Association where, in 1985, she was noticed by Quebec Agriculture Minister Michel Pagé, who hired her as his press secretary.

Worked for provincial ag minister

“That was an exciting time in Quebec,” Carson said. “The province had been under a different government for a decade and Robert Bourassa was in his second term. It felt like we could really do something.”

After growing up in farming, seeing the political side of agricultural policy framework was fascinating for Carson. And it bolstered her career as other potential employers took notice.

“That led to people seeing me because I was hanging around with the ‘tops.’ When you’re in government, you work with the top people,” Carson explained. “But five years in a minister’s office is enough. You learn so much, but your head is down and you just work.”

When Pagé was transferred from agriculture to education, Carson handed in her resignation, having no desire to work outside of agriculture.

“He said, ‘Of course, you’re going to come to the Ministry of Education’,” Carson recalled. “I said, ‘Nope. I’m in politics because I’m interested in agricultural politics.’”

Undaunted about the future, Carson did what she often did when between jobs: she travelled. The trips allowed her time to think about the future and satisfy her restless curiosity.

“That’s what I would do, I would just ‘jump’,” she said. “I think that time I went to the South Pacific with my knapsack, travelled for a month or two, and came back to find a job.”

Corporate opportunities

In 1991, Carson was hired by embryo transfer specialists Boviteq to be the company’s CEO. She was only 31 at the time.

Carson spent the next seven years criss-crossing the globe in managing Boviteq’s embryo transfer and sexed semen production, guiding the company through a changing industry toward profitability.

At the end of her tenure, she envisioned a successful company merger that combined Boviteq with Semex. The only problem was that it also merged her out of a job.

“I knew I was doing that. Merging the companies meant there would be a lot of redundant jobs,” Carson said. “It wasn’t only my job that was going to disappear, it was one of many. But today, Semex is doing quite well as a company.”

Upper-management positions followed at both dairy excellence centre Valacta and dairy genetic expert Eastern Breeders. But it was in 2012 at Holstein Canada where Carson really began making headlines again.

First woman head of Holstein Canada

“I was the first woman CEO to be hired at Holstein Canada in its 140-year history,” she said. “And the first Quebecer!”

Carson made Holstein Canada a truly bilingual organization, reflecting her upbringing.

“That’s what it needs to be, to truly be effective,” Carson said. “But I always moved to where the job was — much to my family’s chagrin — and after five years of working at Holstein Canada in Brantford, I wanted to come home to the Townships. It was a lovely five years, but I said goodbye.”

Now in retirement, Carson has time to enjoy the finer things in life: travel, the farms of the Townships, and the accolades like being named to the hall of fame and, on Feb. 16, receiving the King Charles III Coronation Medal. Created in 2023, the award is given to Canadians who have been deemed to have made a significant contribution to Canada or to a province or region of the country.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Quebec lamb producers received a second compensation advance for the 2024 insurance year in late January as part of the Agricultural Income Stabilization Insurance Program (ASRA).

This advance amounts collectively to $3.3 million, which represents a net amount of $11.18 per lamb and $0.2577/kg of lamb sold. This payment is ASRA’s net amount paid to lamb producers for 2024 so far this year.

It’s a trying time for lamb producers in Canada — and Quebec in particular. Foreign imports, chiefly from New Zealand and Australia, make up 48 per cent of lamb in Quebec grocery stores. In order to stay competitive, Quebec lamb has to be negotiated at prices lower than the cost of production.

ASRA pays out to producers when the average selling price of a product is less than the adjusted stabilized income, which is based on the average cost of production of a given sector, such as lamb, slaughter cattle, with oats, wheat, barley, among others.

“Because even with (the current) high prices, we don’t cover our production costs,” said Jimmy Lapointe, president of Éleveurs d’ovins du Québec. “The proof is that ASRA was still triggered to the tune of $120 per lamb in 2023.”

Les Éleveurs d’ovins du Québec and La Financière were in extensive talks last fall regarding the cost of production calculation.

To calculate that cost of production, La Financière relies on data and analyses from the Centre d’études sur les coûts de production en agriculture (CECPA). A study released by CECPA last May caused concern among small-scale lamb producers who felt data from large-scale operations was tipping the balance out of their favour.

“We knew that the new study would have an impact, but it fell in our face last May. It triggered (ASRA), but very little compared to what we expected,” Lapointe told French-language weekly La Terre de chez nous.

While the present high prices for lambs address the cost-of-production imbalance somewhat, many producers are short of cash, facing liquidity problems that the advance payout from La Financière hopes to fix.

At the Éleveurs d’ovins du Québec’s annual meeting in November, members passed a resolution to set up a system for awarding heavy lamb sales contracts based on the same historical volumes of the past few years. Current Quebec production of heavy lambs exceeds market demand — and producers are concerned about a price drop.

“That’s good news in itself, because it means that our (sales system for heavy lamb) is working well,” said Lapointe, acknowledging that the sales system should be wary about oversupplying the market.

“Thanks to its ASRA program, La Financière agricole supports agricultural companies in the face of economic fluctuations and variations in production costs,” said La Financière agricole du Québec president Ernest Desrosiers.

“This second compensation advance for 2024 demonstrates the organization’s continued commitment to supporting and sustaining the agricultural sector.”

There are currently 709 sheep production companies registered in Quebec, making up a production volume of 4,000 tonnes. Monetary revenues for meat sales run to $51.2 million.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

When it comes to being a successful agricultural producer, most farmers learn the basics of production from a very young age.

They watch dad or mom tending the livestock, harvesting the cash crop and caring for the land from as early as they can remember. Many choose to go to an agricultural college to learn the finer points of farm management. By the time they return to the family farm, they know how to produce.

But making a living and managing profit margins is another skill set. And often, financial planning and money management are areas where there is much less training.

Karine Vasseur learned from experience that financial planning can deeply affect a family farm.

Growing up in St. Sébastien, just north of Lake Champlain, Vasseur comes from generations of agricultural producers. But when her parents were both forced to seek off-farm income and give up farming, the importance of financial planning was brought home.

“I went on to study finances and wanted to become a financial planner,” Vasseur explained. “And I always wanted to work with the farmers more than anything.”

For the past 10 years, Vasseur has been able to live that dream in her role as a financial planner with IG Wealth Management.

During a videoconference co-hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association and Les Agricultrices du Québec last month, she explained that financial planning on the farm starts with asking yourself difficult questions – and giving honest answers.

“The first step is asking ‘What are my goals?’” Vasseur said. “How much income or savings will you need to achieve those goals? And how much time do you have to earn income before you need it?”

For Vasseur, who lives in Stanbridge in the Eastern Townships, clients commonly ask how to build and strengthen their retirement plan as a starting point to financial planning.

“If we’re talking about retirement, then we have to know where your retirement paycheque will come from,” Vasseur explained. “So do you have RSPs or RRIFs (Registered Retirement Income Funds from Épargne Placements Québec)? Do you have investment income? Will you get Old Age Security? Probably everybody in this videoconference will get OAS or CPP or QPP.”

Likely the biggest question in any agricultural producer’s career is the decision to pass the farm on to the next generation or sell the farm. This, she explained, is where estate planning comes in.

“If your children are not interested in taking over the farm, those assets can be your primary retirement income. But that’s not what we see in most families.”

What is a frequent occurrence in farming families is what Vasseur describes as a difference in work/life balance between generations. Frequently, the older generation is prepared to put in more hours of labour for less income than the younger generation is. When the primary producer gets sick or passes away, the burden for the incoming generation can be too much.

“That’s when you need to consider: ‘If I couldn’t work, how many people would be needed to replace me? If I get a critical illness, how much would I need to pay someone to do my share of the workload – and how much would it all cost?”

That’s why Vasseur always highlights the importance of insurance in any financial plan for a farm.

“Insurance helps you manage risk and guard against the unexpected. And that’s something you need to do at every stage of life,” Vasseur said. “As you continue to build your financial base, you need insurance to help protect the assets you’ve saved.

“For instance, long-term-care insurance can help provide needed care so you don’t have to deplete your financial capital.”

For Vasseur, the most important part of financial planning is coming to the process without fear. The future will always arrive, and not having any plan should be the scary part.

“A financial planner is going to look toward the future. We’re going to project your finances and ask, ‘OK, if we just keep doing the same thing, are we going to get where we want to be? And if not, well, then we’re going to make some changes along the way to make sure that we’re going to achieve your goals in the future.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Growing up in Montreal’s Italian district of St. Léonard may not have been what instilled Massimo Malorni with a love of farming. But the 22-year-old’s family heritage provided him with a deep connection to agriculture, one that transcends boundaries, traditions and nations.

“My earliest memory of agriculture is harvesting tomatoes as a toddler on my grandparents’ farm in Italy,” Malorni said. “After picking the ripe tomatoes, I would watch in awe as my grandparents transformed them into homemade tomato sauce.”

Malorni’s family hails from the small town of Montorio Nei Frentani in the Molise region, about 200 kilometres north of Naples in southern Italy. There, his cousins still run a fourth-generation organic olive oil farm called Olio Frentana, where the Gentilly variety of olives are cold-pressed following the October harvest.

Young Massimo spent his summers on Olio Frentana, spending countless hours learning about traditional agriculture. It was an experience he describes as “profoundly transformative.”

Early appreciation

“That experience taught me the importance of hard work, resourcefulness and the joy of turning raw ingredients into something meaningful,” he explained. “This early exposure gave me an appreciation for the process of turning raw ingredients into something meaningful and inspired my love for farming.”

Much more than instilling Malorni with a love of agriculture, helping his grandparents harvest grapes or feeding livestock gave him a philosophical outlook on tradition and innovation – and how to balance those qualities in modern-day farming practices.

“The farm was small but self-sufficient, and its reliance on traditional methods showed me the importance of preserving heritage while also recognizing the need for innovation,” Malorni said. “These experiences laid the foundation for my future ambitions in agriculture.”

Strong science, business foundation

Those ambitions led him to Macdonald Campus, where he enrolled in the Farm Management and Technology program in 2023. Looking for an education that could provide him with a strong foundation in both the science and business of agriculture, Malorni hit the jackpot at FMT, learning the intricacies of crop management, livestock care and soil science.

So far his time at Mac has been eventful: in the summer of 2024, Malorni spent three months working on Hofstra Farms, a dairy farm in Millet, Alta., and in the fall he was one of six Mac students to be awarded a Warren Grapes Scholarship from the Quebec Farmers’ Association.

“When I found out I had won, I felt incredibly honoured and grateful,” Malorni said. “Receiving this scholarship not only validated my hard work and passion for agriculture but also motivated me to continue pursuing my goals with even greater determination.”

Aiming to start an operation

Currently, Malorni is focusing on his education as much as possible. In the long term, he wants to start his own farm in Canada, combining traditional methods with innovative practices, creating a sustainable farm that contributes positively to both the environment and the local community.

“One of my primary motives for entering the agricultural industry is to be part of the solution to the growing challenges we face as a global community,” he explained. “I’m particularly interested in how we can develop more sustainable farming methods that produce high-quality food while minimizing environmental impact.”

That balance between tradition and innovation, sound practices and environmental concern puts Malorni right at the heart of honouring the farming he observed on his grandparents’ farm in Italy while moving forward with cutting-edge techniques.

“The future of agriculture, in my view, lies in collaboration between tradition and innovation, between small farms and global markets. I hope to carry the values instilled in me by my grandparents while embracing new technologies like vertical farming and hydroponics. Agriculture is at a pivotal moment, and I am eager to be part of its transformation toward a more sustainable and equitable future.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

When it comes to being a successful agricultural producer, most farmers learn the basics of production from a very young age.

They watch dad or mom tending the livestock, harvesting the cash crop and caring for the land from as early as they can remember. Many choose to go to an agricultural college to learn the finer points of farm management. By the time they return to the family farm, they know how to produce.

But making a living and managing profit margins is another skill set. And often, financial planning and money management are areas where there is much less training.

Karine Vasseur learned from experience that financial planning can deeply affect a family farm.

Growing up in St. Sébastien, just north of Lake Champlain, Vasseur comes from generations of agricultural producers. But when her parents were both forced to seek off-farm income and give up farming, the importance of financial planning was brought home.

“I went on to study finances and wanted to become a financial planner,” Vasseur explained. “And I always wanted to work with the farmers more than anything.”

For the past 10 years, Vasseur has been able to live that dream in her role as a financial planner with IG Wealth Management.

During a videoconference co-hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association and Les Agricultrices du Québec last month, she explained that financial planning on the farm starts with asking yourself difficult questions – and giving honest answers.

“The first step is asking ‘What are my goals?’” Vasseur said. “How much income or savings will you need to achieve those goals? And how much time do you have to earn income before you need it?”

For Vasseur, who lives in Stanbridge in the Eastern Townships, clients commonly ask how to build and strengthen their retirement plan as a starting point to financial planning.

“If we’re talking about retirement, then we have to know where your retirement paycheque will come from,” Vasseur explained. “So do you have RSPs or RRIFs (Registered Retirement Income Funds from Épargne Placements Québec)? Do you have investment income? Will you get Old Age Security? Probably everybody in this videoconference will get OAS or CPP or QPP.”

Likely the biggest question in any agricultural producer’s career is the decision to pass the farm on to the next generation or sell the farm. This, she explained, is where estate planning comes in.

“If your children are not interested in taking over the farm, those assets can be your primary retirement income. But that’s not what we see in most families.”

What is a frequent occurrence in farming families is what Vasseur describes as a difference in work/life balance between generations. Frequently, the older generation is prepared to put in more hours of labour for less income than the younger generation is. When the primary producer gets sick or passes away, the burden for the incoming generation can be too much.

“That’s when you need to consider: ‘If I couldn’t work, how many people would be needed to replace me? If I get a critical illness, how much would I need to pay someone to do my share of the workload – and how much would it all cost?”

That’s why Vasseur always highlights the importance of insurance in any financial plan for a farm.

“Insurance helps you manage risk and guard against the unexpected. And that’s something you need to do at every stage of life,” Vasseur said. “As you continue to build your financial base, you need insurance to help protect the assets you’ve saved.

“For instance, long-term-care insurance can help provide needed care so you don’t have to deplete your financial capital.”

For Vasseur, the most important part of financial planning is coming to the process without fear. The future will always arrive, and not having any plan should be the scary part.

“A financial planner is going to look toward the future. We’re going to project your finances and ask, ‘OK, if we just keep doing the same thing, are we going to get where we want to be? And if not, well, then we’re going to make some changes along the way to make sure that we’re going to achieve your goals in the future.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation (MAPAQ) has promised new financial assistance for the purchase of new equipment for producers and companies in beekeeping and plant production.

Quebec estimates that up to 550 projects could be financed with the new funds. The money is being provided in the context of changing conditions for bee and plant producers due to climate change, which brings challenges to both sectors but also opportunities as the longer growing season allows for greater production.

“Increasing productivity in the agricultural sector is a priority for this government,” said Quebec Minister of Agriculture André Lamontagne. “I’m pleased with this support, which will allow companies specializing in plant and beekeeping production to modernize their equipment and increase their competitiveness.”

The province wants producers to fully modernize both sectors of production, and projects approved must involve the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment. Apiculturists will increase their chances of successfully applying by outlining projects that will increase their beekeeping stock, whether by increasing the survival rate of bees or by purchasing additional hives.

Agriculture equipment prices have soared post-pandemic, with supply issues raising prices beyond already-high inflation. Beekeepers also suffered heavy losses in bee populations last winter. La Financière agricole du Québec has reported record-high claims in the province of over $3 million.

Special bonus for “outlying” regions

“With this announcement, we are also giving an additional boost to companies located in remote regions,” said Lamontagne in an official announcement on November 24. “The economy of all regions of Quebec will benefit.”

Quebec will make $20 million available, with a 15 per cent bonus for producers in “outlying regions”, which MAPAQ defines in this case as Abitibi-Témiscamingue-Northern Quebec, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Côte-Nord, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Outaouais, and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. Funding will come over the span of three years: an initial amount of $14 million will be paid in 2024-2025 and another $6 million in 2025-2026.

So what can the new envelope of $20 million be used for? The funding will chiefly benefit agribusinesses in Quebec that have ambitious innovation plans that involve the purchase of new equipment and can back up their project with a solid business plan.

MAPAQ says that the first part of the “Productivité végétale” initiative gave out $96 million dollars to over 4,300 projects from 2018 until 2023.

In those cases, funds were allocated to everything from nearly a quarter of a million dollars to Université Laval for conducting research on storage and overwintering for queen honeybees to $40,000 for creating a guidebook on the commercial harvesting of wild plants. Another Quebec company received over $80,000 to make improvements to it soilless strawberry cultivation system.

This time around, Quebec’s funding initiative is much more pointed, hoping to provide an economic stimulus in the purchase of new equipment and to put plant producers and beekeepers in a position to whether climate change and a shifting economy in the future.

First come, first served

Like many of Quebec’s agriculture funding programs in recent years, money is offered on a “first come, first served” basis. Applications will be assessed by a jury, but the initiative lasts until the deadline or until the money runs out.

That means Quebec agribusinesses will benefit by getting a strong application in early.

There are two sets of deadlines for the Productivité végétale initiative: producers from outlying regions will be able to submit their projects from December 10, 2024 to February 7, 2024 — or until the funds are exhausted. 

Producers from a “central region” will be able to submit their application from January 7 to February 7, 2025 (or until the available funds are exhausted.) Quebec considers these regions central: Capitale-Nationale, Centre-du-Québec, Chaudière-Appalaches, Estrie, Montréal-Laval-Lanaudière, Laurentides, Mauricie,  and Montérégie.

For more information or to apply, Google “initiative ministérielle productivité végétale” or visit:

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

La Financière agricole du Québec has unveiled its 2023-2024 balance sheet, showing that the provincial farm insurance agency provided nearly $1.23 billion in loan guarantees to Quebec farmers in the last fiscal year.

Much of that money was granted to dairy and commercial crop companies ($734.1 million) and forestry producers ($9 million). The FADQ cites climate change and inflation as the big reasons why Quebec producers and agri-food companies needed to appeal to their provincial agricultural risk management agency.

“Faced with difficult climatic conditions and the inflationary economic context, La Financière agricole has demonstrated its support for agricultural producers through its agility, support and ability to adapt its programs,” said FADQ president and CEO Ernest Desrosiers.

That $1.23 billion also comprises 2,305 projects under the FADQ’s Sustainable Growth Investment Program (Programme Investissement Croissance Durable), an envelope of funding for agricultural entrepreneurs undertaking productive and sustainable investment projects.

“Our organization continues its mission for sustainable agriculture,” Desrosiers said. “For Quebec ag companies, we’re a strategic partner through our unique offer in terms of risk management and financing.”

In its efforts to support the next generation of Quebec farmers, the agency awarded 501 grants in 2023-2024, totalling $11.4 million. In its “Young Entrepreneurs” program, FADQ committed amounts of $3 million for 189 projects.

FADQ’s yearly report also showed it paid $820 million into insurance and income protection programs. Crop insurance programs (ASREC) paid $196 million in compensation, including nearly $66 million to companies producing cereals, grain corn and protein crops. For the Agricultural Income Stabilization Insurance (ASRA), compensations represented $382 million, with 6,181 people, especially for hog farms as Quebec’s pork industry continues to suffer from plant closures and instability caused from recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ”Agri” programs — Agri-stability, Agri-Québec and Agri-investment — paid out $243 million to Quebec producers and agribusinesses.

Business Risk Management pay-outs

• Agri-stability
  • 13,183 participants
  • Payments of $66 million
• Agri-Quebec Plus
  • 10,458 participants
  • Payments of $6.3 million
• Agri-investment
  • 17,695 participants
  • Government contributions of $40 million
• Agri-Québec (year of participation 2022)
  • 14,786 participants
  • Government contributions of $130 million

Mac grad aims to continue and grow the family farm

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

For Connor Velthuis, growing up on the family farm in small-town Ontario was all about tractor rides and tagging along with dad.

“My very first memory on the farm is sitting in the tractor with dad, pulling the forage harvester,” the 21-year-old recalled. “I held my hands over my ears the entire time because I was afraid of the very loud metal-detector alarm coming on at any time. That would be the highlight of my week!”

The Velthuis farm in Osgoode, now part of the rural south end of the city of Ottawa, started long before Connor came on the scene. His grandparents founded it in 1959, shortly after their emigration from The Netherlands. They started a dairy and crop operation and raised nine children of which two remained on the farm – Connor’s father, Paul, and his uncle, Steven.

Connor joined his local 4-H Club at age 9 and never looked back. Over the years, he has been active in the crop club and dairy clubs and become a senior member.

“I’ve evolved from being the youngest to the oldest member in the club,” he said. “Having been on both sides over the years has led me to have a greater understanding of the teaching and learning processes — and that can be applied to anything in life.”

Diversified operation

Velthuis Farms Limited operates on an expanse of 2,000 acres these days, cropping corn, wheat, soybeans and alfalfa for feed and sale, and milking a herd of 230. But it was a recent venture into speciality beef that has brought Steven and Paul Velthuis’s farm more attention and profit: Wagyu beef, known for its marbling, fine texture and high price.

“The first time I heard of ‘Wagyu’ was when I came home from school one day and saw this big black cow in a pen, and I had no idea what it was,” Connor said. “From there we built our herd and started selling to customers. And it’s only grown ever since.”

Connor’s uncle Steven purchased a cow-calf pair of Wagyu animals in Vermont before the COVID-19 pandemic, when Connor was just enrolled in Macdonald Campus’s Farm Management and Technology program. The family did some flush work with their Wagyu heifer and put embryos into recipients to get their herd on the ground quickly. Now, they have a 50-head Wagyu herd that are DNA-registered with Wagyu associations in Australia and the U.S. to prove their authenticity.

“It was something different to try,” Connor explained. “With the popularity of beef-on-dairy breeding in the industry, we figured we might as well try this with purebred Wagyu and see the process to the end.”

Direct to consumers

Now, Velthuis Farms sells Wagyu beef directly to the consumer and to high-end restaurants and sports bars.

“The first years were essentially word of mouth,” Connor said. “We started going to the Ottawa Farmers’ Market in the spring to get our name out there directly to consumers and that bolstered sales greatly. Now, we have several repeat customers from as far away as Toronto.”

It’s a niche market that has done well for the Velthuis family. Paul, Steven, Connor and Connor’s cousin, Brendan, tend to the herd and are in touch with other Wagyu producers in the province. They estimate that the number of Wagyu beef operations in Ontario is in the low double digits.

And it’s likely to remain a niche product. In 1997, Japan declared Wagyu cattle a national treasure and no longer permits live cattle or their DNA to be exported, making Velthuis Farms a sizeable player in a somewhat protected market.

For Connor, knowing that there’s a stable and diverse farm operation at home means his future is secure. Since graduating from Mac in the spring of 2024, he has returned to Osgoode full time, taking on tasks related to dairy, the family’s cash cropping – and Wagyu beef.

“Having a say in what’s next is a great feeling to have,” he said. “And knowing that I have a great relationship with the prior generations and with my own third generation — that’s a truly great feeling.”

Cutline:

Connor Velthuis showed a heifer from the family farm in the Spring Yearling class at the Royal Winter Fair in 2023.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

A recent report from the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation du Québec reveals that the number of dairy cows in the province has decreased drastically in the past 40 years.

But the same report also shows that Quebec dairy producers have more than made up for it with their efficiency — producing more milk with smaller herds.

Using figures from Statistics Canada, MAPAQ states that “in the province of Quebec, the total number of dairy cows has fallen by 50 per cent, from 710,000 head in 1981 to 353,000 head in 2022.”

However, figures show that the province’s dairy industry is doing more with less.

“At the same time,” MAPAQ writes, “milk production increased by 21 per cent, from 29 million hectolitres (Mhl) in 1981 to 35 Mhl in 2022.”

Taken together, those numbers reveal that the average Quebec dairy cow is producing 140 per cent more milk in 2022 compared with 1981.

MAPAQ’s report also show that Quebec is leading the country’s dairy production in key areas. The province produces 50 per cent of Canada’s cheese and accounts for 75 per cent of the quantity of yogurt produced in the country.

Milk down, yogurt up

The report reveals some marked changes in consumer habits regarding dairy over the past 40 years.

Overall, consumption of dairy products has fallen by 14 per cent since 1981. That trend is largely driven by a decrease in actual milk consumption: whereas the average Quebecer consumed 55 litres of milk in 1981, and provincial per capita consumption peaked in 1987 at 63 litres annually, the figure now hovers at 30 litres per person. All in all, those numbers represent a decrease of 45 per cent.

Quebecers are also buying and eating less butter.

“From 1981 to 2007, per capita consumption of butter decreased from 4.34 kg to 2.59 kg, the lowest level recorded during the period,” MAPAQ’s report states. “A rise was observed from 2008 to peak at 3.71 kg in 2021.”

Such a drop in milk and butter consumption would have been catastrophic for Quebec’s dairy industry where it not for the great gains made in marketing yogurt and specialty cheeses.

Driven by health food trends and the promotion of yogurt’s probiotic benefits, MAPAQ notes that the consumption of yogurt has increased fivefold in 40 years. Annual yogurt consumption rose from 1.64 litres per person (retail weight) in 1981 to 8.89 litres in 2022. In 2015, annual consumption peaked at 10.99 litres, a level considered by Quebec manufacturers to be a plateau that is holding steady.

Interestingly, 2008 marked the year that yogurt consumption surpassed that of ice cream in the province. Quebecers are now eating far less ice cream than they used to: intake of the frozen dairy dessert has fallen by more than 60 per cent in 40 years, from 12.57 litres to 4.51 litres per year per person.

Specialty cheese capital

Quebec’s status as Canada’s leading cheese producer has meant that it has benefitted greatly from the marketing of specialty cheeses (including mozzarella, but excluding cheddar and processed cheeses).

Per capita cheese consumption across all categories increased by nearly 53 per cent, but specialty or “fancy” and “luxury” cheeses enjoyed huge gains, with annual per-capita consumption rising from 3.03 kg in 1981 to 8.65 kg in 2022.

“These cheeses now represent more than half (58 per cent) of the total volume of cheese consumed per person, compared to less than a third (31 per cent) in 1981,” MAPAQ states.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Environment Canada has launched a new federal agency that will protect Canada’s water from pollution and the damaging effects of industrial and agricultural activities, said Steven Guilbeault, federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

“Droughts, floods (and) pollution from farming and industrial activities have significant impacts on water quality — impacts that are very serious and costly,” said Guilbeault at a press conference in Winnipeg on Oct. 16.

The Canada Water Agency (CWA) will implement Canada’s Freshwater Action Plan, which was announced as part of the 2017 federal budget. The plan is aimed at improving freshwater management through efforts to improve the water quality of the Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg, the Fraser River and other waterways of “national significance” throughout Canada.

“The agency will help the Government of Canada better address current water challenges and those of the future,” Guilbeault told a crowd of reporters and the public in downtown Winnipeg, where the agency will be based.

“We need to be prepared for what comes in the future, we need to recognize that water is becoming more scarce and more precious. We have a responsibility to protect the waters we have.”

Despite Guilbeault’s comments that agricultural pollution has a significant impact on water quality, the creation of a stand-alone agency to manage Canada’s freshwater has been a recommendation of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) for years.

CFA president Keith Currie said the federation felt a pan-Canadian regulatory agency was vital given the importance of water for food production and adverse weather conditions driven by climate change affecting farming.

“(We) knew it was imperative that the government coordinate water-related issues across provinces, industries and conservation authorities to best manage water to keep it safe, clean and available for future generations,” said Currie, a sweet corn and hay producer from Collingwood, Ont.

“Water is one of the most essential inputs when it comes to food production, whether that be growing crops or keeping animals hydrated.”

At the moment, Currie says he can’t be sure how the creation of the CWA will impact the practices of agricultural producers in Canada. The federal government’s official release on the agency does not mention agriculture, and Guilbeault did not mention collaboration with agricultural groups at his announcement in Winnipeg.

Nonetheless, Currie says the CFA is hopeful that Ottawa will see agriculture as an ally.

“We will be working with the water agency on behalf of Canadian farmers to ensure that our sector’s needs are represented,” Currie said. “We also hope to see agriculture as a priority sector for water resources when competing with other industries.”

The CWA is funded with $85.1 million set aside from the 2023 federal budget. Ottawa has also pledged $650 million to enable the agency to offer grants supporting projects focused on restoring and protecting water resources.

Aim of Canada Water Agency

The Canada Water Agency’s current initiatives are:

– to restore and protect water quality and the health of aquatic ecosystems

– to advance science, monitoring (including community-based monitoring) and the application of Indigenous knowledge in cooperation with Indigenous peoples to support decision-making and effective action 

– to improve collaboration with Indigenous partners, provinces and territories, and stakeholders 

– to mobilize knowledge and reporting to measure progress towards results

– to improve climate change resiliency through on-the-ground action

The CWA will be headquartered in Winnipeg, including five regional offices throughout Canada and comprise 220 employees when fully staffed.

Cutline:

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault (right) announced the creation of the Canada Water Agency in Winnipeg on Oct. 16 with Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

You could say that from an early age, Andrew Dirven had his priorities straight when it came to farming.

“One day I came home from school and saw that my family was harvesting,” the 21-year-old grain producer recalls. “So I ran inside and told my father that I did all my homework on the bus — which I definitely hadn’t done — just so I could ride in the tractor with my grandfather. I loved every second of sitting in that tractor, until the next morning when I actually had to do my homework on the bus!”

From that young age, Dirven realized that his third-generation family farm in Bainsville, Ont., was something special. And there weren’t many other careers he considered pursuing.

“It was an amazing childhood growing up on the farm,” Dirven said. “I was always fascinated with tractors and combines. And that fascination is still with me. Working alongside my family as a child developed a special bond. Being passionate farmers brought us together.”

The story of the Dirvens’ farm begins in 1977, when Andrew’s grandparents, Peter and Betty Dirven, decided to sell their farm in The Netherlands and relocate to Canada. It wasn’t long before their son, Nick, took an interest in the family business and started a multi-generational grain and cash cropping operation.

Today, the family — along with lots of help from Andrew — produces corn, soybeans and wheat under the name Spendrew Farms.

Located a mere seven kilometres from the Quebec border, it wasn’t difficult for Driven to realize that Macdonald Campus in Ste. Anne de Bellevue was a great, nearby place to receive an agriculture education.

“Mainly, I wanted to go there just because of my passion for agriculture. But after I started, I realized networking was just as important,” he explained.

“Over my three years at Mac, I met a lot of people with the same interests as me, and a lot of those people have become my closest friends.”

Dirven enrolled in the Farm Management and Technology (FMT) program in the fall of 2021, discovering the finer points of soil science, cash cropping and agricultural economics.

“Cash cropping is a very dependant industry on the markets. Our grain prices fluctuate depending on supply and demand around the world,” he said. “There isn’t a lot of security or guarantee to what prices we’ll receive. Although our farm works hard on marketing by making futures contracts, setting targets and other marketing strategies, it still puts a lot of dependency on what’s going on globally.”

That’s what gave Dirven the thought of diversifying. Instead of relying on grain prices to determine the revenue of Spendrew Farms, there was money to be made providing services instead of just selling commodities.

“Since 2023, we’ve been offering custom harvesting and custom spraying,” Dirven said, referring to two tasks he has taken on himself. “I believe in the importance of diversification, having alternative income sources to allow our farm to have more security.” 

With initiatives like those, Dirven is definitely working more than full time on the family farm. Along with spraying and harvesting, equipment maintenance is also his duty at Spendrew. He knows that one day, he’ll be able to take over management of the whole farm — and is more than grateful for the fact that he was born into a family farm so he could pursue his dream.

“I wish for my future generation and other future members in the agriculture industry to have the same opportunities as I had,” Dirven said. “Opportunities to purchase land will be the biggest challenge for young farmers. With land being an appreciating asset, it’ll continue to be more expensive for the next generation. Not only will receiving approval for a mortgage to purchase the land be a challenge, but as well as being able to cash flow the payments.”

That’s part of the reason that family — and family farming — play such an enormous role in Dirven’s life and journey in the industry. For him, family working together is a strength that has to be experienced to be understood.

“Just growing up and watching my family work hard day and night together — to either complete harvest, or try to get the last field planted before the rain, or whatever the task might have been — it’s a level of passion that most people wouldn’t understand unless they lived it.” 

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

A new study shows that the vast majority of female farmers in Quebec – 90 per cent – suffer from high levels of stress as they struggle to balance farm tasks, family life and farm management.

“Women in agriculture hold an average of 5.1 positions in the business,” explained Valérie Fortier, president of Agricultrices Québec.

“The five main tasks are management and administration — such as strategic planning, business management, finance and accounting — tasks related to agricultural production, purchasing and supply, and human resources.”

In other words, female agricultural producers feel forced to spread themselves too thin over the many areas of farm production. The study, conducted by Léger, was carried out on behalf of the Fédération des agricultrices du Québec, a specialized federation of the Union des producteurs agricoles. The association was founded in 1987 to highlight concerns of female producers in the province.

“The results of the survey confirm what our members have been telling us for several years,” said Fortier, herself a dairy producer from Saint-Valère in Centre-du-Québec.

“The situation is worrying and concerns all of us, considering the fundamental and structuring role that women play in the agricultural sector in Quebec.”

Province-wide, 27 per cent of farm businesses are owned or co-owned by women. While female producers have made great gains in recent decades, figures show they also bear more than their fair share of the workload, particularly when it comes to paper work and financial management.

“Managing multiple tasks is the top source of stress that respondents report experiencing on a daily basis,” Fortier said.

In fact, 63 per cent of respondents said that multi-tasking and balancing roles was a key source of mental stress.

Other sources of stress include pressure for productivity (46%), financial problems (43%), family responsibilities (41%) and weather conditions (40%).

The situation can be even more challenging for young female producers (between the ages of 18 and 34), who are often juggling the work of supervising children while also managing farm labour.

“For younger women farmers, balancing domestic and professional tasks and reconciling work and personal life are the most important challenges,” Fortier said.

“Women farmers who have children in their household reported that the main challenges are balancing domestic and professional tasks, reconciling work and personal life, and salary conditions.”

Chief among the stressors and tasks often foisted upon female farmers are what sociologists call “invisible work”— work done within the family that may include household chores and personal care, labour performed for a family business, or caregiving for the older generation.

In November, the Les Agricultrices will launch a tool to quantify invisible work in agriculture. The data collected will be used to obtain gendered information on invisible work, to document the phenomenon and raise awareness among agricultural producers.

“Our programming at Les Agricultrices is a response to the mental stress-load issues experienced by women farmers that were identified in Léger’s study,” Fortier explained.

This year, the federation is offering members up to seven hours of free consultations with experts, including notaries, tax specialists, lawyers, agricultural management consultants, marketing-communications advisers and financial planners. Fifteen workshops on various themes along with entrepreneurial mentoring, personalized support and networking are also planned.

To find out more about what help is available from the Fédération des agricultrices du Québec, visit tellementplus.ca

Caption:

Valérie Fortier, a dairy producer from Saint-Valère and president of the Fédération des agricultrices du Québec, knows the type of stress women farmers are feeling. A new study reveals that female producers are carrying a very high stress load from managing multiple roles on the farm.

Credit:

Agricultrices Québec

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Ross MacDonald doesn’t necessarily believe that success is all about business savvy and making the right decisions. For the south Saskatchewan rancher, luck and timing are factors, too.

And MacDonald will be the first one to tell you his success is a prime example of that.

“The largest single determinant in business success is timing,” said MacDonald, who grazes beef cattle, a Hereford base herd crossed with Angus genetics.

“If you just sit back and wait for the timing to click, you might not recognize it. But the thing is you have to be searching, MacDonald said. “Things might not always click, but if you’re not searching, you’re not gonna find it.”

The timing first ‘clicked’ for MacDonald growing up the son of lawyers in Lake Alma, Sask. – just 20 kilometres from the Montana border. Many of his parents’ clients were local agricultural producers, and meeting them instilled him with a respect for ranching and grasslands.

MacDonald learned to rope and ride as a teenager and took an animal science degree at the University of Saskatchewan. Upon graduation, the research and teaching being done at Montana State University influenced him as a young grad student.

Broadened his horizon

“In Montana, I got exposed to some very different thinking than I grew up with in terms of agricultural production systems and low-input cow systems,” MacDonald explained. “It really planted a seed of creativity within me. It sort of became my goal to try and capture a piece of grass of my own.”

The timing was right in the early 2000s, when grassland prices were at low-value prices in Saskatchewan. To build his land base, MacDonald was able to parlay small purchases of land with conservation easements and grazing leases with the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Ducks Unlimited Canada. Today, he grazes his herd on about 5,000 acres of prairie grassland.

“I’m pretty risk-averse when it comes to huge financial risks,” MacDonald told participants of a QFA videoconference held Oct. 2. “But I’m not too risk-averse on relationships when it comes to non-typical agricultural relationships, whether that’s with conservation organizations or trying to get further up a supply chain.”

Enter A&W

Having conversations further up the supply chain is what made the timing and the luck really click in MacDonald’s career. When fast-food chain A&W started its “Raised Without” program in 2013, marketing beef raised without artificial hormones or steroids, MacDonald realized that the company’s commitment dovetailed nicely with his production practices.

More, he suspected that the company he was selling his cattle to — Spring Creek Ranch of Vegreville, Alta. — was one of the suppliers for A&W.

“I went to a local producers’ meeting where one of the vice-presidents of A&W was taking questions from ranchers — a lot of whom were really upset by the Raised Without program,” MacDonald explained. “And I said to (the VP), ‘I’m a small ranch that sells into your supply chain, I think there could be a lot more to this story of ‘Raised Without’.”

That encounter developed into a relationship with A&W that has lasted years. MacDonald and his wife Christine Peters began discussing their production with executives at the restaurant chain, ultimately appearing in their commercials and being featured in a series of short documentaries about Canadian ranchers.

And it expanded from there

“During one of our conversations, they said to me, ‘How do you feel about grass-fed?’” MacDonald said.

“I said: ‘Well, really, that’s where the logic of my production system is going, but we don’t have a commercially viable market in Western Canada for grass-fed.’”

That’s how MacDonald contributed to A&W’s decision, in 2020, to use all grass-fed and grass-finished beef. He didn’t tailor his production practices to suit their market — he was searching for opportunity and the timing just clicked.

“Each of those big events in my life has been the result of searching for it,” MacDonald said as he reflected back on his trajectory in the business.  “So when the opportunity arose, I was ready for it. Sure, it also came with an education, a steep learning curve, and a cost. But it has been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a tremendous amount.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Maple Star Farm in St. Felix de Kingsey is definitely what you’d call a family farm.

“My brother takes care of the equipment and machinery maintenance; my sister, Trinity, takes care of the social media and sale advertisement of the farm,” explained 20-year-old Ruby Mastine.

“My father does a little bit of everything when it comes to the barns and fields, and my mother helps in the barns for the sheep as much as she can. Everyone has their own role in the business.”

The Mastines come by their dedication to family farming naturally. Ruby is part of the fifth generation to farm the land in St. Felix de Kingsey, just 60 kilometres north of Sherbrooke. What started out long ago as a dairy operation and sugar bush expanded to sheep production with Ruby’s grandparents in the 1960s. Today, parents David Mastine and Erika Brock own and manage the farm, selling lambs for meat all year long and winning multiple awards for their herd and livestock genetics.

For Ruby, sheep rearing has always been a part of growing up.

“One of the first farm memories I have is swinging in a swing that was hung in the barn for us kids while I watch my father feeding the sheep,” Ruby said.

“Seeing all of the ewes running to get their grain while their babies were running and playing up and down the straw bedding. My grandmother, Blanche, always said that if the lambs were playing, that meant they’re healthy. To this day I love seeing them run around, and that quote has always helped me spot when something was wrong.”

Ruby was a member of the Richmond 4-H Club for years, showing sheep, beef, participating in exchanges and even doing some square dancing. After high school graduation, she was uncertain if she wanted to take over the home farm or get a job doing something else in the agricultural sector.  

But she knew that enrolling in Macdonald Campus’ Farm Management and Technology (FMT) program would give her a head start on either path.

“Either way, I knew that the program would help me in the future with either choice,” she said. “I had several family members attend FMT before me, and they showed me the knowledge, friendships and opportunities that they received through it.”

Upon graduating in the spring of 2023, Ruby began working as a feed rep for Moulée Vallée Feeds in Richmond.

“So I ended up doing both,” she said. “Working on the home farm and getting a job elsewhere!”

Maple Star Farm boasts impressive numbers and achievements by any measure: 350 ewes (300 crossbreds and 50 purebred Suffolks) and many of them award-winners. The family won champion Suffolk ewe with a junior ewe lamb at the All Canada Sheep Classic this summer, also racking up three first-place showings in the four categories they entered.

Maple Star also won top terminal breed flock in Canada on the national genetic evaluation program in 2021. In 2022, the family sold the highest-bid Suffolk ram in all of Canada.

Recently, at the new generation’s initiative, the farm has expanded into beef production. In 2017, Ruby and brother Callum decided to purchase two Herefords from their cousins. Seven years later, they’re up to seven cow/calf pairs of purebred Simmentals and Herefords, and the project has made the siblings hopeful about expanding.

“For now, they are an enjoyable hobby,” Ruby said. “However, I would like to one day expand to a larger production of beef to diversify the farm more.”

Through all the hard work and deserved accolades, Ruby Mastine is a confident and determined producer, able to eloquently articulate the challenges of farming for the new generation.

“The weather has always been a farmer’s worst enemy, and it gets worse every single year,” she said.

“With the excessive amount of rain we received last year in Quebec, it made 2023 and 2024 very difficult,” she said. “Expenses have increased immensely since the pandemic, and now they’re doubling over the years due to weather.

“This is a part of farming that the world does not see: it takes a long time to recover after one bad spring/summer, one bad season costs you a lot for the next year. This pushes producers to have to sell sometimes. How are we going to feed the world by 2050 with these weather and economic issues that producers are facing?”

Cutline:

Ruby Mastine of St. Felix de Kingsey in the Eastern Townships has grown up in a successful sheep-producing family. In 2017, she and her brother decided to add Simmentals and Herefords to their family’s fifth-generation farm.

Credit:

Courtesy Ruby Mastine

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The Quebec government has announced it will provide $1 million to fund technological innovation in horticulture in a move it hopes will help agricultural producers address issues of climate change, environmental practices and labour scarcity.

The Ministre de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation (MAPAQ) made the announcement late last month, stating that it hopes to offer producers in the market gardening, greenhouse, apple, potato, and strawberry and raspberry sectors “concrete technological solutions,” like robotic machinery, automated tools or intelligent sensors.

“More than ever, research and development of technologies must be systematized in agriculture to increase the robotization and automation of fruit and vegetable production in Quebec,” said Agiculture Minister André Lamontagne. “These are foundations on which prosperous and competitive companies will develop, for a sustainable and modern agri-food sector and greater food autonomy.”

The Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec, the province’smarket gardeners group, welcomed the announcement, saying the funding will address key issues in Quebec horticulture and prepare the sector for a future where labour shortages are increasingly acute and automation is seen as the best solution.

Automation is key

“Mechanization, robotization and automation remain little integrated in horticultural farms,” said Catherine Lefebvre, president of APMQ. “Companies still rely heavily on the workforce, which accounts for up to 50 per cent of their total costs.”

The APMQ will receive a sum of $760,000 to evaluate technologies aimed at increasing the automation of horticulture production and optimizing the use of pesticides and inputs.

Each horticulture sector – market gardening, greenhouse, apple, potato, and strawberry and raspberry production – will select and test a new technology identified by producer associations as most likely meeting that sector’s needs.

For Quebec market gardeners, that new technology is the Ecorobotix ARA precision sprayer, considered today to be the most precise in the industry.

Already in development and use for 20 years, the Ecorobotix ARA is a semi-autonomous sprayer that allows for a finely-targeted application of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides or fertilizers. The operation of the sprayer is based on algorithms specific to each crop, can be operated remotely, and is able to operate in strong wind conditions thanks to a protective curtain system.

Equipment will be loaned

The province’s greenhouse, apple, potato, and strawberry and raspberry sectors are yet to identify the respective technologies that they will test out through the new program. The $1 million in funding is intended to finance the creation of an evaluation protocol and the implementation of the evaluations in the field. Equipment will be loaned out during the trial and evaluation periods, not purchased.

The project is being carried out between the horticulture producer associations along with the Réseau d’expertise en innovation horticole (a centre of expertise founded to democratize and speed up the adoption of horticulture technologies) and Quebec non-profit La Zone AgTech.

“In the past, there has been no overall vision to develop a strategy for adopting new technologies and to build bridges with technology transfer centres and developers,” Lefebvre said, citing this as a reason the Quebec horticulture industry needs to foster greater use of new technologies to meet its challenges.  “This is where the (Réseau d’expertise en innovation horticole) can act.” 

Quebec’s market gardening and fruit sector includes more than 4,700 producers. In 2023, the sector  generated revenues of nearly $1.47 billion.

Cutline:
Five of Quebec’s horticulture sectors have been given the chance to test out new technologies that will help their production thanks to new funding. The Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec will be testing out the Ecorobotix ARA precision sprayer, a semi-autonomous sprayer that can be run in remote locations with no Internet signal.

Credit:
Courtesy Ecorobotix

Andrew McClelland

The Advocate

Staff at Macdonald Campus’ Farm Management and Technology program say their fall enrolment numbers are down slightly from last year, but that it’s still too early to determine if it’s a direct impact of Bill 96.

“Have our numbers gone down? Yes. This year, only 31 (students) instead of around 40 showed up on Day 1,” said Pascal Thériault, director of the FMT program. “How much of it is due to government policy? Hard to say.”

When the Quebec government introduced Bill 96, its update to the Charter of the French Language, it stipulated that students attending English CEGEPs would have to take five courses in French.

While FMT is run by McGill University’s Macdonald Campus, the program is considered a CEGEP-level offering. As such, explains Thériault, FMT is not affected by the controversial tuition hikes for out-of-province students in Quebec universities.

But the program is affected by Bill 96’s introduction of more French-language courses in English CEGEPs.

“The new language regulations might have had an impact and scared away a few students, but it is hard to put a number on it because our student numbers tend to vary from year to year,” Thériault said. “We had to turn away about six Ontario students whose French level would not have made it possible for them to meet the necessary French requirements.”

Bill 96’s new changes do not require that students have a certificate to attend an English institution. But they do impose a quota on the number of non-certificate holders. FMT is excluded from the quota as its students are considered McGill students.

“FMT is funded to train future Quebec farmers who are native English speakers,” Thériault said. “Our recruitment efforts have always been geared toward that clientele, whereas francophones attending the program have been a minority that is always welcome since we do value diversity it all its forms.”

Tuition hikes cause uncertainty

The other issue causing uncertainty at McGill’s Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is Quebec’s announcement of tuition hikes for out-of-province students.

When the Quebec government initially announced the tuition hike, it proposed an increase from $8,992 to approximately $17,000, causing an outcry from both the province’s English-speaking community and prospective students from the rest of Canada.

That increase has since been lowered to a minimum rate of $12,000, but with a catch: out-of-province students will need to be able to demonstrate a level-five oral proficiency (an ability to carry on a basic conversation) by the time they graduate.

The decision sent shockwaves through McGill’s recruiting department, says Valérie Orsat, acting dean for Macdonald Campus.

“The number of applications from Ontario significantly dipped,” Orsat said. “We had to reduce our recruiting activities in Ontario, as the feedback from their high schools was not positive: ‘If Quebec does not want us, we shall not apply.’”

Nonetheless, McGill’s Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is seeing a healthy enrolment. Admissions from Canadian high schools in the department are the same as last year’s.

“Overall, our incoming numbers for this fall for our B.Sc. or B.Eng. programs are similar to last year’s numbers,” Orsat said. “Although our applications from the rest of Canada were significantly lower than last year’s.”  

Everywhere in Canada, enrolment in agricultural programs at the post-secondary level is struggling. The fact that Mac has been able to maintain high enrolment numbers is exceptional.

“There is a general trend in ag colleges in Canada where numbers are not on the rise,” Thériault said. “That’s a concern, as I believe we must attract more people to the ag sector.”

Decreasing enrolment in agriculture education is a worrying sign for a variety of reasons, Thériault said.

“Training future farmers is one thing, but the FMT program also trains agricultural technologists who help farmers to make our agricultural sector more resilient, better prepared for climate change and to help them meet social expectations on issues such as pollution, pesticide use and animal welfare. There will be more and more need to offer support for those farmers in the future.”

Cutline:

FMT students at Macdonald Campus receive hands-on training.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The federal government announced earlier this month that it is taking measures to crack down on what it calls “misuse and fraud within the system” of the temporary foreign worker program.

That could mean serious changes in Canadian agriculture: in 2023, just over 70,000 temporary foreign workers were employed in primary agriculture industries in Canada, and just over 45,000 worked in related food and beverage manufacturing industries.

While not singling out agriculture, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages Randy Boissonnault spoke out on Aug. 6 against employers taking advantage of the program.

“Abuse and misuse of the (temporary foreign worker) program must end,” Boissonnault said. “The health and safety of temporary foreign workers in Canada is a responsibility I take very seriously. Bad actors are taking advantage of people and compromising the program for legitimate businesses.”

Changes and possible changes

The biggest change will be the government enforcing a rule that sets a 20-per-cent cap for low-wage temporary foreign workers. That would mean that low-wage workers that applied through the temporary foreign worker program could make up no more than 20 per cent of a Canadian business’ workforce.

So far, that cap does not apply to agriculture. But should Ottawa choose to be more stringent, it could have drastic impact for many Quebec and Canadian farm businesses, many of which rely on workforces made up of foreign workers to pick fruits and vegetables.

The cap also applies to workers enrolled in what is called the “dual intent sub-stream,” which applies to temporary foreign workers who intend to apply for permanent residency. While workers hoping to use their work period in Canada as a springboard for permanent residency wouldn’t be limited, their employers would be subject to stricter guidelines.

Employment and Social Development Canada says the temporary foreign worker program is designed “as a last resort for employers to fill jobs for which qualified Canadians are not available.”

Under the program guidelines, an employer must pay for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for approval, demonstrating there is a need for a foreign worker to fill a position for which no Canadian worker or permanent resident is available. Boissonnault says that fee might increase so that further checks and investigations could be made.

Ottawa also says it’s looking to implement future changes regarding employer eligibility. An employer applying to the program would have to have a minimum number of years of business operations or make its history of lay-offs known.

Boissonnault’s announcement on Aug. 6 could be in reaction to a UN report that denounces the temporary foreign worker program as a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.”

That report followed a fact-finding mission conducted by UN observers in Ottawa, Moncton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver last year and was tabled on July 22.

“The temporary foreign worker program serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights,” the UN report states.

Protecting workers

All effected and proposed regulation changes to the temporary foreign worker program are intended to protect a potentially vulnerable labour force. Employment and Social Development Canada notes that fines for infractions against the program increased by a marked 36 per cent. 

Statistics Canada says that between 2005 and 2020, the number of temporary foreign workers in Canadian crop production, animal production and aquaculture sectors more than tripled.

However, few of those workers succeed in gaining permanent residency. Figures show that after five years of work in Canadian agriculture only slightly more than 10 per cent of temporary foreign workers obtain permanent residency. After 10 years since workers were first employed in the sector, the cumulative transition rate reaches only 16.8 per cent.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Canada’s agiculture ministers announced the introduction of a grocery store code of conduct, improvements to the AgriRecovery program and a levelling of the playing field between local and imported products at a meeting in Whitehorse this summer.

The annual summer gathering of federal, provincial and territorial agiculture ministers allows the country’s top agriculture decision-makers to come together and, hopefully, harmonize regulations and programs across all levels of government.

This year’s meeting, held from July 17-19 in the Yukon capital, yielded the announcement of $1.2 million towards the creation of a “Grocery Code Adjudication Office.”

This grocery store code of conduct will operate as a non-profit organization funded by dues collected from grocery supply-chain stakeholders. The Grocery Code Adjudication Office will act as a referee and publicly report violations of the code.

“This will definitely bring more predictability, transparency and fairness among the (supply) chain, and a mechanism to resolve conflict,” stated Quebec Agriculture Minister André Lamontagne, who has been instrumental in bringing about the creation of the code in the wake of food price increases.

At the meeting, ministers announced that Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart and Costco had agreed to abide by the code, which should come into effect in June 2025. Sobeys operates IGA stores in Quebec.

Level playing field

Lamontagne also advocated for harmonized regulations between local and imported products, saying Quebec products have to compete with American and other imports while living up to more stringent environmental and health regulations.

“Our agricultural and processing businesses are facing more and more constraints and are constantly making efforts to meet environmental and social requirements,” said Lamontagne, adding that he is pleased with the commitment of his fellow ministers of agriculture to support Quebec’s request to explore ways to ensure that imports meet standards equivalent to those that apply to local products.  

Risk programs

Lamontagne and other provincial agriculture ministers also made recommendations to improve AgriRecovery, the federal and provincial governments’ aid framework designed to help producers get back on track after adverse weather and crop failure.

Ministers stated that within the context of climate change, AgriRecovery needs to be made to work faster and take into account that different types of production need different types of support.

“We don’t think it’s productive across the country to have a program have to fire up and be specialized each time,” said John Streicker, minister responsible for agriculture for the Yukon. “We’re looking for something to be more predictable across the board.”

Lamontagne also said he was pleased with an action plan submitted by the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group on Pesticide Management, stating that he is in favour of weaning Quebec producers off synthetic pesticides and promoting alternative methods of pest management.

The 2025 annual meeting of ag ministers will be held in Manitoba and chaired by Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Work has begun on the Quebec government’s project to build more than 100 new cellphone towers in regions of the province that have poor reception or no signal at all, representing an investment of $170 million.

Premier François Legault made the announcement earlier this summer, noting that the first phase of the CAQ’s high-speed connectivity plan built 79 cellphone towers by the spring of 2024.

“I am very proud of the work accomplished so far to improve cellular coverage and I am delighted to be able to offer all residents, no matter where they are, a quality of life that lives up to what we have the right to expect in Quebec,” said Legault in an official release.

The plan seeks to address the danger of not having cellular reception in some of Quebec’s most remote areas, including a lack of reception for 9-1-1 and other emergency services.

On the North Shore, portions of routes 138 and 389 are still beyond the reach of any cellular network.

In 2022, a 22-year-old woman from the Minganie MRC (north of Anticosti) discovered she was outside any zone of cellphone reception following a near-fatal car accident. The incident highlighted the need for a speedy construction of new cellphone towers across the province.

“In 2024, it is unthinkable not to have a cellular network across the entire territory of Quebec,” said Legault in an announcement made on June 28. “It is a matter of the safety of citizens and visitors, but also of the dynamism and economic development of the region.”

In 2022, the provincial government mapped out what it called “cellular deserts” in Quebec, determining that anywhere from 400 to 700 antennas would be needed to eliminate these dead zones.

Under phase 1 of Quebec’s high-speed ​​internet and special connectivity plan, 84 new cellphone towers were projected to be built. The government’s latest announcement adds an additional 100 towers to the overall project plan, and will extend coverage in the regions of Bas-Saint-Laurent, Mauricie, Estrie, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Côte-Nord, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Chaudière-Appalaches, Laurentides and Centre-du-Québec.

“The regions that will benefit from this new infrastructure will quickly see the difference,” said Gilles Bélanger, MNA for Orford and parliamentary assistant for high-speed Internet and special connectivity projects. “Where their citizens could feel isolated, we are improving daily communications. For both leisure and work, this extended cellular coverage will make life easier for those in the areas concerned.”

The vast majority of the cellphone towers will be constructed by Videotron, Sogetel Mobilité, and TELUS. Quebec says construction is expected to be completed by 2027.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Nicolas Audet knows that great farming technique comes from experience.

But, as this Gaspé-based market gardener, who runs Ferme la cigale et la fourmi, is quick to point out, gaining experience is never easy.

“Making good decisions comes with experience, but experience often comes from making bad decisions!” Audet said with a laugh as he shared his experience with participants of a videoconference hosted by the Quebec Farmers’ Association on July 24.

“I’ve made a couple of mistakes in my career – and I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. But now, I think I’m starting to make good decisions,” he said.

One of the best decisions Audet ever made was getting into market gardening to sell community-supported agriculture (CSA) memberships early in the game. In 2005, he and his partner Melanie started their farm in Carleton-sur-mer, on the south shore of the Gaspé peninsula, where they grow a huge variety of vegetables and herbs. Today, they deliver baskets to over 200 clients.

That started their family – now grown to include four children — on a life divided between the growing season from July to October and spending November to April in the kitchen turning their harvested produce into products for their loyal clients.

“Our main goal is for our kids to live a good life and have fun on the farm,” Audet said. “They don’t really work on the farm yet, but they can appreciate all the good stuff that comes from living on the farm.”

Audet decided to make the investment into using heated greenhouses after he observed that it just made sense from a business perspective.  

“If you don’t have a heated greenhouse, you’re going to have your products at the same time of year as your clients already have them,” Audet said. “You’re going to have tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers at the same time as your clients who have gardens, so your supply will be high when demand is low.”

Nicolas and Melanie started growing in non-heated tunnels in the summer of 2006. But in Gaspé, where summer nights can easily drop to 10 degrees Celsius, growing in non-heated structures won’t produce the size of harvest that can support a CSA business.

“In our non-heated tunnel, we would come up with cherry tomatoes by the 10th or the 15th of August,” Audet explained. “So you don’t have a big harvest and it’s not the best moment.”

La cigale et la fourmi grows most of its produce in a 30-foot-by-100-foot heated greenhouse made of double polythene. Its foundations and end walls are made of sturdy polycarbonate to hold up against the Gaspé winds, and the 10-inch-by-10-inch cement footings keep the structure stable.

“We also have a garage door, because you have to be able to bring a vehicle in there,” Audet said. “And the height of the rafters has to be a minimum of 10 feet if you’re going to grow cucumbers and tomatoes.”

Audet says one of the keys to success is to seek out a consultant or agronome who knows heated greenhouse production. At the start of La cigale et la fourmi, an agronome would visit for several hours every week, advising on cultivar types and production methods.

“For our whole first year, we had an agronome visit every two weeks. It was a huge help! You should definitely look around your region and see what service is available before investing in the greenhouse.”

Having a technician nearby who can fix and troubleshoot a variety of problems is essential for operating a heated greenhouse, Audet said, explaining that he was lucky to have a close friend able to do repairs at a moment’s notice.

“Of course, the most important thing is what you grow,” he said. “That’s where your value is. You want to be different from what your clients can get in the supermarket, so that when they taste your tomatoes, they say, ‘OK, that’s something special.’”

That’s why Audet grows “Big beef plus,” “Beorange,” “Favorita,” “Sunpeach” and “Sunsugar” tomatoes – types that aren’t as common in grocery stores. And the farm doesn’t do things the easy way. If a type of crop is easy to grow, but tasteless, it doesn’t end up in clients’ baskets.

“Varieties like Rebelski or Sakura tomatoes are easy to grow, and they’re easy to ‘read’ and know what’s going on with them,” Audet explained. “But we don’t like to eat them, so we don’t grow them.”

And that’s what it all comes down to at La cigale et la fourmi — being different from the supermarket competition and being proud of what they do. So far, it has been a recipe for success.

“That’s the main factor for us. Of course, you need the productivity, you need the conservation aspect, but what makes us different? Why do people choose us? Because we have something more special than the supermarkets.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

The provincial government has announced a new envelope of $4 million to encourage Quebec consumers to buy their food directly from agricultural producers.

But if you’re an agri-business owner, act fast! Project submissions for the program are open until Oct. 31, 2024 – or until funds run out. That means the earlier you submit a proposal, the more likely you are to receive funding.

“I’m very happy with this new support, which will promote local marketing and help bring consumers even closer to those who feed us,” said Quebec Agriculture Minister André Lamontagne during the “Mise en marché de proximité et agrotourisme” announcement on May 31.

 “The supported projects will make it possible to offer Quebecers even more fresh, quality products. I invite businesses and business groups from across the province to submit their projects.”

The Mise en marché de proximité et agrotourisme 2024-2026 program is designed to support local marketing and agritourism initiatives, both collective and individual (i.e. both individual producers and collective agri-businesses may apply). Producers, businesses, public institutions, co-ops and non-profit organizations can put forth a plan to shorten the supply chain between producers and consumers and bring farmers and the public closer together.

“Local marketing is an important development lever both for bio-food companies and for (rural) regions,” the government claimed in an official statement. “It makes it possible to support joint planning for the marketing of local products or to finance projects aimed at better positioning a company’s products on local markets.”

While projects like starting up a community-supported agriculture food basket program or building an on-farm kiosk are eligible, Quebec’s Proximité initiative can also fund carrying out planning, diagnostics or studies for an agri-business, designing marketing material, or simply provide money for organizational support.

According to the Agriculture Ministry, one in five agricultural businesses in the province sells directly to consumers, either in a public market, through the sale of CSA baskets or directly from the farm gate.

The Quebec government wants to increase those numbers, encouraging more non-farmers to purchase products from producers directly, or from artisanal processors existing outside the traditional distribution networks of grocery stores.

To qualify for the Proximité program, an individual or farm business must have an annual gross revenue greater than $30,000 and less than $1 million.

In response to criticism from earlier versions of the program, applicants with a current gros annual revenues of less than $30,000 are now deemed eligible if the marketing plan they submit shows that they plan to generate an annual income of at least $30,000 within 36 months of submitting their application.

Quebec also says that it has included “an increase in financial aid for projects targeting organic products as well as for those involving an emerging agricultural business.”

With local market season having just started, MNAs from across the province are stepping up their vocal support of farmers’ markets and farm gate sales.

“Summer is just around the corner, and it’s the perfect time to discover the best in agriculture, anywhere and nearby,” said Audrey Bogemans, MNA for Iberville. “Let yourself be surprised by the richness of the terroir and the authenticity of the producers. Everyone will benefit, even your taste buds!”

Applicants to the Proximité program should submit their applications as soon as possible, as previous provincial programs of this type have run out of funds well before the official application deadline.

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Designating soil as a “strategic national asset” is one of 25 recommendations put forward by the Canadian Senate agriculture committee to protect the soil structure on Canadian farmlands in a report issued earlier this month.

“We do not have another 40 years to protect and conserve our soils,” said Senator Robert Black, chair of the Senate agriculture committee, as he unveiled the new two-year study entitled “Critical Ground: Why Soil is Essential to Canada’s Economic, Environmental, Human and Social Health” on June 6.

The report, which took two years to compile with on-site tours and presentations from farmers, ranchers, research scientists and government officials, recommends that the federal government appoint a national soil advocate.

It is the first substantive study of soil produced by the Senate in four decades, when in 1984, Saskatchewan Senator Herb Sparrow put forth a report entitled “Soil at Risk: Canada’s Eroding Future.”

That report was key in the Canadian farming industry’s adoption of no-till farming. Since then, soil management has improved in Canada and crop yields have increased. But the country’s soil faces new challenges.

“Climate change, extreme weather events and urbanization are degrading soil conditions in every region of this country,” said Black, who previously worked for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture for 15 years. “We need to look at this strategically because it is an important issue.”

The latest study gathered information from more than 150 producers and considered 60 written briefs, along with supporting documents from soil science researchers, agronomists, farmers, ranchers, foresters, environmental organizations, agri-businesses, industry groups and federal, provincial and territorial governments to make its recommendations.

Chief among those recommendations is the proposal that Canada change the public conversation about how vital soil is to the nation’s health and economy.

“Soil is a valuable natural resource,” states a leading paragraph in the 160-page report. “The Government of Canada should designate soil as a strategic national asset. Other countries, such as Australia, have appointed a national soils advocate; the committee believes that the Government of Canada should do the same.”

The report also suggests that Canada’s current methods for measuring soil health are not advanced enough. The committee called on the federal government to collaborate with the provinces and territories to support the development of a consensus on how to measure, report and verify soil health.

It also recommends that farmers and ranchers should have access to “viable and valuable carbon markets,” be eligible for tax credits for soil preservation action, and that the government fund peer-to-peer knowledge sharing groups.

“To protect and conserve farmland soil throughout Canada, the committee heard that all levels of government … should work together to plan agriculture into, and not out of, communities,” the report states.

Witnesses also said that building soil-based incentives (tax credits for farmers, enhanced crop insurance, a viable carbon market), as well as sustained funding for soil research initiatives is imperative for producers’ prosperity.”

However, the Senate Committee on Agriculture notes that the problem of protecting Canada’s soil goes deeper than that: much of what threatens soil in this country is the lack of awareness on the part of the public about how precious soil health and agriculture are.

“We need to be changing the perception of farmers in our children and youth,” said Carolyn Wilson of the Canadian Young Farmers’ Forum in her address to the committee. “Some of the initiatives that Agriculture in the Classroom is doing include bringing young farmers into high schools or elementary schools — where the students are able to see that face, and think: “This could be me. It’s not just my grandfather, my uncle or what have you.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Sometimes the early childhood memory of being on the farm is enough to set your path in life. And for 20-year-old Travis Larwill, growing up on the family farm in Buckingham, Que., in the Outaouais region was full of such memories.

“I remember sitting in the cab with my grandfather on hot days and hauling grain from the combine,” Larwill recalled.

“I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always wanted to farm. Just hearing my grandfather’s stories and talking with him and my grandmother, seeing my dad farm, made me love it so much. It gave me a passion to want to grow the farm.”

Larwill is the seventh generation of his family to work the land in Buckingham, which is now part of the municipality of Gatineau. His grandfather made the decision to wrap up the family’s dairy operation and focus on cash-cropping when Travis was a toddler, keeping the young aspiring farmer busy with the annual wheat and grain crop.

Larwill is an only child, and that came with a lot of attention from his father and grandparents —and the knowledge that he had to take on his fair share of the workload.

“It was pretty good,” Larwill said, before adding: “and then sometimes you wish you had a brother to spread the work around with!”

Opted to enroll at Mac

When it came time to decide what to do after high school, Larwill knew that he didn’t want to stray too far from the family farm. He wanted to be able to get back on weekends to help his father, Randy Larwill. Macdonald Campus, a “short” 150 kilometres away, seemed like an ideal fit.

“My grandfather had done some agricultural classes, but I’m the first one from my family to go into a university program for farming,” Larwill said. “I always wanted to have more education after high school in agriculture and I had friends who raved about how great Mac was.”

In the fall of 2021, Larwill enrolled in the Farm Management and Technology program. While the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic required that students remained masked at all times, he was able to attend in-person classes and meet members of Quebec’s larger English-speaking farming community.

For many students at FMT, the highlight of the program are the required internships, where students stay for weeks at a time with another farm family across the country. For Larwill, that meant heading to Marquette, Man., about 50 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, where he worked with Jeff and Chris McMillan. It was an eye-opening trip.

Internship opened eyes to possibilities

“I drove out there,” Larwill said. “At first you see a bit of bush in eastern Manitoba and then it just opens up till you see nothing but prairie farmland.”

Larwill’s family farm never had any livestock during his childhood, but seeing a Manitoba dairy, beef and cash-crop operation allowed him to have a hint of what animal tending is like.

“I saw a completely different way of farming,” he said. “Helping with beef and dairy, making feed – it was great to get experience on all those things I had been studying at Mac.”

That experience gave Larwill an idea to diversify his family farm back home: if he started building a small herd of sheep now, it could be a great way to use the family’s vacant dairy barn — and add a new revenue stream to its operations.

“At first, I thought getting into beef would be best,” Larwill said. “But it was too expensive and sheep was an operation you could basically run by hand.”

Larwill had his first lambing season this year. He describes it as a “pretty good start” with all the enthusiasm of a young producer excited to apply the theory he had learned at school on the farm.

“It was definitely a steep learning curve. But any time I was stuck, I could go back to my books and get most of the answers for what I needed to do.”

For Larwill, the family farm, which also includes 650 acres of cash crops, is the obvious place to stay. His father is still working and ready to share his experience.

“With the prices these days, just getting land is so hard if you want to start in agriculture. I made great farm connections with people at Mac, and we have the land here. After that, knowing people is often the best tool we have.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Agricultural production has never been for the faint of heart. And maybe it’s never been easy being a young farmer in Canada.

But today’s young producers face challenges that previous generations never had, from the pressures of keeping up with technological change, to the fears of climate change and extreme weather.

No one in Quebec knows that more than the Fédération de la relève agricole. Established in 1982, the FRAQ is the voice of the next generation of Quebec farmers, fighting for the improvement of working conditions for the 8,000 professional and aspiring farmers in the province between the ages of 16 and 29.

“Our membership isn’t limited to people actively working in agriculture, because we recognize that it can be so hard to break into the industry,” said Meghan Jarry, a former dairy producer from Abitibi-Témiscamingue who works as an administrator for the federation.

“Especially with land prices being so high right now, and start-up capital being hard to acquire, we welcome anyone between 16 and 29 who wants to get into agriculture.”

First-hand experience

Jarry knows how hard it can be to get started in farming first-hand. Raised in the Montreal suburb of Boucherville, she bravely enrolled in farm management at Université Laval. Several years later, she married a dairy producer and moved to the little town of Palmarolle, 65 kilometres north of Rouyn-Noranda.

“I was able to see, very up close and personal, how succession planning can be difficult and emotional,” she said, relating her husband’s struggles in navigating his own farm transfer. “And now, I’m still very much committed to seeing that it goes well because that farm will maybe one day be our son’s farm.”

Succession planning is just one of the challenges that FRAQ addresses as it advocates for young farmers within the Union des producteurs agricoles and at the provincial level. And its recommendations on the topic are concrete, well-researched and sometimes radical, as Jarry explained in a June 12 videoconference with the Quebec Farmers’ Association.

Relève advocates for farm splitting

For instance, FRAQ recommends Quebec allow for the splitting or dividing of farmland so that succession can be made easier, a change that would overturn the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec’s long-held ban on splitting farmland.

But, says FRAQ, “splitting farmland can be beneficial for certain agricultural projects, particularly those involving the next generation. By encouraging the diversity of models, it can be a beneficial element in starting new businesses.”

The FRAQ also has solid proposals for changing the way farm financing works in the province.

“We want to help young producers by abolishing the ‘part-time’ category in La Financière agricole’s programs,” Jarry said, echoing a long-held grievance of many producers who are trying to establish themselves. “So many more producers could be helped if all farm start-ups could qualify for the full-time subsidy.”

No shame in being a part-timer

In fact, the distinction between part-time producers and full-time producers is one that the FRAQ is challenging in its advocacy work. For generations now, many producers in central and Atlantic Canada have found it necessary to find off-farm work to maintain a stable income. And that shouldn’t be a point of shame among farmers young or old.

“There’s this perception that, if you are a part-time farmer, you are not a ‘real’ farmer,” Jarry said. “And changing the perception of the industry from within, and changing how the public perceives it, is part of what FRAQ does.”

For Jarry, creating an atmosphere of hope for young farmers in the agriculture industry is a constant battle, waged on a personal level. When asked if the dominant mood among young producers is one of optimism, she reflects pensively and responds:

“Well, when I got into dairy, I was so eager,” she said. “And my friends said to me: ‘Just wait till you’ve been farming five years!’ I do find that I’m more jaded now than I was at the beginning. But we have to support one another and power through. And the community at FRAQ is one that powers through and endures.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Horses used to be the backbone of a farm. Only a century ago, if a producer wanted to plough a field, remove trees or get into town, he’d have to hitch up a team.

In Canada, it was only in the 1940s that tractors started replacing horses as the engines of most heavy lifting in agriculture.

Yet, the love and fascination for equine companions remains. That means the work horses kept today are descendants of the past genetic selection of Belgians, Percherons, Clydesdales, and all breeds that worked on farms.

But with the more “leisurely” lifestyle that work horses now enjoy can come health concerns.

“All draft horses tend to become overweight very easily,” said Angie Beaudet, an equine nutrition consultant who has worked in the field for 10 years. “Canadians, Halflingers, many of the Spanish breeds, mules, donkeys and miniature horses can also tend to obesity. And these are the ‘easy-keeper’ breeds that are popular for horse lovers to own.”

The most common culprit regarding obesity is insulin resistance. Horses are able to produce more insulin on a higher level than many other species. Similar to a human with pre-diabetes, the insulin of a horse will kick in strongly when its blood glucose levels are rising. While its glucose levels are under control, its insulin is soaring.

Health issues to watch for

“That can lead to a lot of health problems for horses,” Beaudet explained to participants at an April 24^th videoconference organized by the Quebec Farmers’ Association as part of its ongoing Farm Forum series. “It’s what leads to laminitis or founder. It’s often associated to Cushing’s disease, and gut issues and even asthma can result from horse obesity.”

Those are health issues no horse owner wants to deal with. Knowing if your horse is overweight is key, says Beaudet, who works at Moulée Vallée Feed in Richmond, QC.

And, much like keeping cattle, keeping track of a horse’s body condition score is the best safeguard against equine obesity and the host of problems that arise from it.

“When I’m evaluating a horse’s health, I’m going to use a body-score system to evaluate the fat distribution in key areas on a horse’s body,” Beaudet said. “That means checking fat distribution in the neck, withers, shoulder, ribs, loin and tailhead.”

Equine body-condition scoring gives a rating between 1 and 9 for each of these six areas; divide the sum total by six and you’ll have an indication of a horse’s body score.

An ideal score in the “easy-keeper” breeds is 5, Beaudet explained. However, most tend to obesity and will stand at the 7- to 9-mark when the overall score is calculated.

Conditions are preventable

“All of these health concerns are pretty much 100-per-cent preventable and we can manage them if we do the proper things,” Beaudet said. “We just have to adapt the horse’s diet to stop health concerns from arising and managing them if they do.”

The first step is getting an analysis of the hay you’re feeding your equine friend. Working with a nutritionist is key, she said, along with getting the hay analyzed by a reputable lab.

“We want a hay with low sugar, starch and digestible energy so that your horse doesn’t gain weight too easily. We also want a low iron level. There’s still a lot of debate on the subject, but some studies have shown that high iron levels predispose horses to insulin resistance,” she explained.

A common misconception among horse owners looking for feeding hay holds that a lower protein level will keep a horse’s protein intake in check.

Keep sugar intake low

However, Beaudet said, hay with a protein level below 10 to 12 per cent will be detrimental to the animal’s ability to gain muscle mass — and muscle mass is key to combating insulin resistance.

“We always want to keep sugars as low as possible,” Beaudet specified. “That means no feed, no grains, no molasses. You want to avoid everything that’s oats, corn, barley —

all those kinds of ingredients.”

As many agricultural producers know, keeping a horse is not for the faint of heart — or for the light of pocketbook. Horse-keeping is expensive due to feed, stabling costs and professional expertise required to keep them healthy. For Beaudet, keeping a close eye on diet and nutrition is vital to making sure your horse is happy and healthy.

“One hundred years ago or even 50 years ago, horses could work 10-12 hours a day, several times a week. That’s just not really realistic nowadays. But the right diet, with the right exercise and monitoring of health concerns can help them adapt to being kept as a hobby or for sheer enjoyment.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Canada’s commissioner for the environment and sustainable development has accused Agriculture Canada of falling behind in meeting its goals for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

In an official report issued April 30, Jerry DeMarco, the commissioner appointed by the federal government to provide an independent analysis on its environmental and sustainable development issues, heavily criticized Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s climate policies and monitoring efforts.

In his “Agriculture and Climate Change Mitigation Report,” DeMarco put emphasis on the Agriculture Ministry’s lagging efforts in developing a plan to reduce emissions from nitrogen fertilizers and suggested the industry needed to shape up fast.

“Given the current climate crisis and limited results thus far, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will need to ensure that all its expected reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for 2030 take place in the six growing seasons that remain,” said DeMarco in a press release that accompanied the report.

“The department has so far achieved less than 2 per cent of its 2030 overall greenhouse gas reduction target,” the commissioner stated.

Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay thanked DeMarco for the report and outlined what steps his ministry would take to meet climate goals in the future.

“There is no doubt we need to do more to help the agriculture sector reduce emissions, and quickly,” MacAulay said.

In his response to DeMarco’s criticisms, MacAulay outlined the steps his ministry has taken to ensure Canada’s agriculture industry contributes to the nation’s overall goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, citing the funding of 14 research labs across the country and the creation of two programs to help farmers adopt more sustainable farming practices.

“Since 2020, the Government of Canada has announced over $1.5 billion in funding to advance climate change mitigation in the sector,” MacAulay said, “including the Agricultural Clean Technology Program, the Agricultural Climate Solutions – Living Labs Program and the On-Farm Climate Action Fund.”

The federal agriculture minister also pointed out both its “Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership” (Sustainable CAP), a series of programs and activities cost-shared between Ottawa and the provinces, and its “Sustainable Agriculture Strategy,” a long-term plan that it hopes will help bring together action on climate issues in agriculture.

Programs included in both are voluntary for producers. DeMarco noted that such funding programs were flooded with applicants and were delayed by a year in disbursing payments.

“The department’s delays in funding approvals resulted in recipients missing a growing season,” the commissioner wrote, “which limited the greenhouse gas reduction results achieved….”

In his report, DeMarco notes that agriculture accounts for 10 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, which have been increasing since 1990. Agriculture remains a major source of methane and nitrous oxide, which are potent greenhouse gases. Between 1991 and 2021, the sector’s emissions have risen by nearly 40 per cent, driven by increased crop production and fertilizer use.

Those figures are still below the greenhouse gases emitted by Canada’s oil and gas industry (28 per cent), transportation sector (22 per cent), buildings (13 per cent) and heavy industry (12 per cent), prompting MacAulay to defend the efforts the country’s farmers are already making in the fight against climate change. “Being on the front lines of climate change, they have felt the devastating effects first-hand, from droughts to wildfires to floods,” MacAulay said in a statement, referring to producers. “Canadian farmers work hard every day to produce the best products in the world and are already making significant efforts to be more sustainable.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

When Ottawa announced the federal budget last month, few agricultural groups were impressed. Citing a lack of investment in a key sector of the economy, both the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture spoke of their disappointment in the lack of support the budget offered to agriculture.

Now, many observers are also saying that while the government’s plan to increase the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption (LCGE) will benefit many producers, it could also introduce a heavier tax burden onto the younger generation of Canadian farmers.

The latest federal budget unveiled in April introduced the government’s intention to increase the LCGE to apply to up to $1.25 million of eligible capital gains, an increase from the current level of $1.016 million , which is indexed to inflation.

“This in and of itself is a positive development,” said the CFA in an official statement, noting that the government’s decision was consistent with the CFA’s budget recommendation “to increase the capital gains exemption threshold above $1 million to be more in line with current market farmland values.”

But the good news stops there, say industry observers. Because those same changes could make it even harder for families to transfer their farms to the next generation.

“This may make it a little bit harder on the incoming generation to generate the cash flow to have funds available to pay out mom and dad,” said Ryan Kehrig, national leader for agricultural tax with accounting firm MNP.

In a podcast hosted by RealAg Radio, Kehrig explained that the increased exemption for capital gains could put younger agricultural producers in a position where they feel obliged to pay more taxes to ensure their farming parents have a comfortable retirement fund.

“Let’s say mom and dad want to have X amount of dollars to fund their retirement, and they plan on selling the farm to the farming kid — to the successor. They’re going to gift anything over and above that number that they want to have here,” Kehrig explained.

“If they want to have, say, $3 million after tax, they’re probably going to have to sell more share equity to their kids at capital gain rates to trigger that $3 million after tax.”

But with a larger equity share being purchased by the successor at capital gain rates, the incoming generation of farmers will feel the pinch.

“So for the farming kid, there’s probably going to be more ‘skimmage’ — taxes being paid to the government — to leave mom and dad in that position.”

Kehrig’s concerns over how Budget 2024 will impact young producers is the same as CFA’s. The national farmers’ federation predicted the increase in the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption “could play at odds with CFA’s policy objective of creating a more favourable tax environment for young generations of farmers seeking to the enter the sector.”

The federation says that a more detailed analysis of the potential implications for Canadian farms and farm succession planning is required.

But for analysts like Kehrig, the new budget certainly isn’t a cause for celebration for producers who are looking for a break when taking over the family farm.

“There’s a short, immediate impact in terms of succession planning here,” Kehrig said. “And I do see it being a tightening for the younger generation in that regard.”

Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

For anyone not involved in agriculture, the words “family farm” often bring up images of a simple life with a few hens and cows and picturesque buildings on the homestead.

But farm families, like the Egans in the town of Low, north of Wakefield in the Gatineau hills, know that running a family farm is a tough business that constantly requires innovation.

“We try to run a very tight ship,” said 20-year-old Ory Egan. “We take genetics seriously and do our research on our bulls and stallions to ensure we get the best quality offspring.”

It’s a statement Egan — who represents the sixth generation to farm his family’s land in the Outaouais region — makes with pride. 

Any visitor to “Egan Home Farms” will see a lot of Simmental cattle. The family calves 180 a year, keeping full blood Simmentals, commercial Simmentals as well as F1 females crossed between Simmental and Red Angus.

The family – including Ory’s father, Kelvin Egan; grandmother, Leith Egan; mother, Christina Thompson; and sister, Kendall Egan – takes genetics very seriously, working together on the cattle herd along with keeping 20 Percheron draft horses.

“Growing up on the farm was great. I’ve always enjoyed the horses and cattle,” Egan said.

“I remember leading one of our draft horses across the yard with my dad beside me. The mare looked gigantic since I was so small, and I really thought it was crazy how I was able to walk with such a big animal who was so calm and nice.”

Life on the Egan farm was full of hard work and fun: going on sleigh rides, feeding horses and cows, calving cows, foaling mares and working on equipment in the winters. Summers were spent in the hay fields, or moving mares and cows to different pastures, and going to horse shows.

When high school graduation came about, it didn’t take long for Egan to decided that enrolling at Macdonald Campus of McGill University in Ste. Anne de Bellevue was the right thing to do.

“I thought it was important to continue schooling in agriculture, since it would allow me to improve on my strengths and weaknesses,” Egan said. “As we’re focused on livestock at my family farm, cropping was one of the main things I wanted to learn about.”

And learn he did in Mac’s Farm Management and Technology program. Enrolling in the fall of 2021, Egan benefited from the program’s internship component by going to work on a whole different scale of family farm, the “Anchor D Ranch, run by the Skeels family of Rimbey, Alberta.

“It was just a great experience,” he said. “They’re one of the best Simmental breeders.”

“My boss, Dan Skeels, took me in for the summer and treated me as if I was a part of their family,” he added.

Egan stayed out West for 13 weeks, liking it so much that he extended his trip to join the family for a cattle show and getting a chance to travel to British Columbia and see the Rocky Mountains.

Egan finished  the FMT program just this semester. But already he has some great ideas for the family farm in Low.

“I’d like to begin selling some of our heifers privately – both our full-blood replacement heifers and commercial replacement heifers,” he said. “I believe that we have great quality in our cows and would like to give the opportunity to them to go to other farms and show what they have to offer.

“I also think it would be a great Idea to put some focus in cropping,” he continued. “As the saying goes, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket, and we do have both cows and horses. However, I believe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to diversify even more and add crops to our farm.”

But whatever the future holds, this enterprising young farmer is grateful to have come from a family farm.

“You have more reason to be hopeful when your family already has a farm and you are able to take it over,” he said. “I feel bad for young people trying to begin farming and who are starting from scratch. Everyone knows it is not at all easy to get into, nor to be able to afford.

“I do believe that all young farmers can have a future. However, they really have to love what they’re doing. The ones with established farms will have a head start as they will have the knowledge and the capital to continue and or start out.”