Rainy summer, the distress of market gardeners

2023-08-05 17:59:52

Dozens of market gardeners expressed their distress on Friday over crop losses caused by extreme summer weather events. They were gathered in Montérégie for a press conference by the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), which is asking for emergency assistance from the Quebec government.

In front of his fields of yellowed and muddy cabbage and lettuce, Denis Forino has only one word: “disaster”. After a frost in May and a period of drought, sudden heavy rains in July destroyed 75% of his crops. They have rotted, been attacked by insects, and overgrown with weeds. Impossible to work in the field when the tractors sink. The icing on the cake was hail last night.

“It made holes, the diseases will get into the plant. At the point where we are, I have to do fungal treatment, but is it worth the other expense? asks the owner of Ferme Forino, in Montérégie.

For the first time in his life, the farmer considered giving up his business. “The future scares me. We are trying to adapt to certain climatic changes. Droughts, we are able to get through. But for excess water, drainage is not enough. It’s atrocious,” testified Mr. Forino.

The future scares me. We are trying to adapt to certain climatic changes. Droughts, we are able to get through. But for excess water, drainage is not enough. It’s atrocious.

Benoit Hervieux, owner of Ferme Benjo, in Lanaudière, is also experiencing a drop in motivation. When his fields look like swimming pools, he sometimes prefers to close his eyes to this vision of horror. “There are limits to what you can bear in terms of worry and stress,” explains the producer.

Mr. Hervieux is emotional when he reports the messages of support he receives from his employees. “I will not let go, for me and also for them,” he said, wiping away a few tears.

The market gardener does not yet know which portion of his fields he will be able to save. The rain caused the proliferation of fungi which attacked his beets.

“Last year, we delivered truckloads of beets to our customers from mid-July. There, I started a little yesterday and it is crumbs of trucks that we deliver, ”notes Mr. Hervieux.

In this context, the market gardener asks consumers to be lenient with the aesthetics of the Quebec vegetables they buy. “If people were less demanding on quality, we could reduce waste and financial losses,” says Mr. Hervieux.

Help needed

According to representatives of market gardeners, strawberries and raspberries, potatoes and processing vegetables, the damage caused by the torrential rains is unprecedented and affects almost all regions of Quebec.

The president of the Association of Strawberry and Raspberry Producers, Michel Sauriol, says he is worried about the next generation. “I’ve never seen discouraged young people like that,” he said.

These events are taking place at a time when input prices, and therefore the cost of production for farmers, have risen significantly in recent years. Thus, many market gardeners lack cash to fight the calamities that befall their fields.

Producers are therefore asking for quick action from the Government of Quebec. The UPA proposes in particular “the financing of urgent work to preserve recoverable harvests, an improvement of the new program to this of the Financière agricole du Québec (FADQ) aimed at supporting agricultural businesses affected by the inflationary context, the deferral of the payment of premiums to the crop insurance program as well as a payment holiday on loans to the FADQ”.

We are also asking for the implementation of a major project to completely overhaul the support programs, which would no longer be adapted to today’s crops and climate.

“There is no program for market gardeners’ yield losses. These are quit programs. But before abandoning the field, the producer must have more than two-thirds of his field that is not good, in order to be able to have an amount of aid that does not cover 100% of the loss,” explained Martin Caron. , president of the UPA.

The minister is concerned

The office of the Minister of Agriculture, André Lamontagne, reacted by e-mail saying that they were concerned about the situation. “We don’t want to leave anyone behind. We have experienced various exceptional situations: droughts, propane crisis, other seasons of heavy rain. In exceptional cases, we will be present, ”transmitted the press officer Sophie J. Barma.

For its part, the FADQ issued a press release pointing out that 2,466 notices of damage have been recorded since the start of the season, while the average for the last ten years is 1,795 on this date. She also announced new measures, namely the creation of a unit to monitor the situation, interventions with financial institutions to raise their awareness and the postponement of invoicing for the crop insurance program.