The gardening frenzy created during the pandemic has been so pronounced that a producer of organic seeds in the Lanaudière region is now fully expanding.
When Jean-François Lévêque and Guylaine St-Vincent founded the Jardins de l’Écoumène in Saint-Damien in 2002, they never thought that people would care so much about their seeds. “At the time, we thought we were crazy to be interested in open-pollinated seeds and old varieties,” says Mr. Lévêque in an interview.
Things suddenly changed during the pandemic, he explains. “There was this Prime Minister’s speech where he encouraged people to shop local and told them we needed to move towards food self-sufficiency. From then on, people flocked to baskets of organic vegetables and seeds. We went from 100 orders per day to more than 8,000 pending orders by mid-January 2021.”
The grower recalls that there was a shortage across the North American seed network at the time.
BY KIND PHOTO / Ecumenical Gardens
He and his wife could therefore finally consider moving the activities of the Jardins de l’Écoumène out of the basement of their apartment building and moving them to a new 12,000 square meter building that was recently inaugurated. Your team has grown from nine to 28 employees. In this new building, a seed shop is now open 12 months a year where customers can get advice.
The seed company says it has increased the volume of seed packets distributed by 50% over the past three years. “This gave us economic leverage to present the project for this new building and thus obtain financing. With this space we have the conditions to pursue our mission and carry out our projects,” says Jean-François Lévêque.
The Jardins de l’Écoumène were also able to acquire new land in Saint-Jean-de-Matha, a neighboring municipality, thanks to a $4 million investment that enabled the purchase of equipment and the construction of the building. The company will grow from 3 hectares under cultivation to 15 hectares and multiply the production of seeds by the same amount.
“These new gardens will take our production to another level. I don’t know if the seed craze will continue as intensely as many people have become gardeners and may have realized that growing vegetables is not that easy, but there is really an awareness that has been made. Looking back, I think this pandemic was like an exercise, a simulation of a food crisis like what could happen to us in the future. People want to be prepared for that,” says Jean-François Lévêque.