Quebec farmers have been protesting since December. Is anyone listening?

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SHERBROOKE — On Monday morning in Sherbrooke, dozens of tractors drove slowly along a stretch of road between the regional offices of the Quebec farmers association and the Department of Agriculture, a few hundred meters away.

Angered by high interest rates, mounting paperwork and heavy regulatory burdens, farmers’ protests have become a familiar sight across Quebec since December.

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“It’s pretty hard to get farmers off their farms because they have a lot of hours to put in, but seeing them walk out means something is really going wrong in agriculture right now,” Benjamin Boivin said. a corn and wheat farmer in the Estrie region, who was protesting on Monday.

Government aid programs no longer meet the needs of the province’s farmers: only one per cent of Quebec’s provincial budget goes to agriculture, and most of that money funds a tax credit to help farmers to pay municipal taxes, he stated.

Martin Caron, president of the official body representing Quebec farmers, the Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), said net farm income fell on average 50 percent last year, largely due to rising interest rates and the high cost of fuel and equipment.

Burdened by declining profits, farmers are also forced to navigate an increasing amount of red tape. The forms needed to expand farmland can be 100 pages long, he said, and it can take months before new buildings are approved. This is in addition to the training farmers must receive to learn about specific crops.

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“When you have bureaucrats coming to your house to tell you how to do your job, that you studied, it no longer works for producers,” Caron said in an interview.

Since 2015, farmers have paid the government more than $400 million in environmental fees, which are charged on a variety of plastic products, such as seed containers, fertilizers and pesticides. Caron said he wants the money returned to farmers to help them adapt to climate change.

Those tariffs, which don’t exist anywhere else in Canada or internationally, have put Quebec farmers at a commercial disadvantage, he said.

Farmers, Caron said, want the government to cap interest rates for them at three percent. And although the province has created an emergency financing program, he said it consists of more loans at unaffordable rates for already indebted farmers.

Pascal Theriault, director of the agricultural technology and management program at McGill University, said when interest rates were low, farmers were incentivized to invest in their farms. Rising interest rates have contributed to the decline in profits, he added.

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Farmers who participated in Monday’s protest said government programs remain focused on encouraging expansion and new investment, rather than supporting existing operations.

Because of the seasonal nature of farming, farmers often have to borrow money, Theriault explained.

“In the spring, you still have no income, so you need to borrow, borrow to get your seeds, to get your fertilizers, to get everything,” he said in an interview. “It takes a lot of dollars in assets to generate a lot of income, and you need to borrow money to afford those assets. So, every time there is an increase in the interest rate, of course, you are quite affected.”

The large amount of paperwork is partly a symptom of Quebec’s farm support programs: the government helps farmers financially and wants them to be held accountable in return, he said. For example, an agronomist, a soil specialist, must pass some paperwork, and farmers can get a subsidy to hire one, which requires its own administrative burden.

“So, they need to fill out the paperwork so they can get someone to help them fill out the paperwork,” he said.

The Quebec government says it is listening.

“We are talking about a perfect storm, we understand why our producers are concerned,” said Sophie J. Barma, spokesperson for André Lamontagne, Quebec’s agriculture minister, in an emailed statement.

Farmers facing difficulties can apply for an emergency financing program created last year, he said, adding that the government is working with the UPA and other groups to reduce the regulatory and administrative burden.

But Caron said he needs to see results. “People are waiting for action, because for too long we’ve been told, ‘We get it, we’ll create committees,'” he said.

“People are determined to be respected.”

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