The alternation of heavy rains and heat waves has hit Quebec’s agricultural production so badly this summer that more producers are considering giving up everything.
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Leaning on the back of his truck, David Simard draws a rather bleak assessment of the past year.
“It was hell!” I turned 30 in the spring and look like I was 40 in the fall,” admits the man who took over the family land at the foot of Mont Sainte-Anne from his father in 2013.
David Simard owns a farm at the foot of Mont Sainte-Anne. Photo Jean-Philippe Guilbault
The young farmer is in his 11th season at the helm of Ferme Simard and has never experienced a summer like the one that has just ended.
- Listen to the interview with Martine Fraser, Rank Worker in Mauricie for the organization At the Heart of Farmer Families, on the microphone by Alexandre Dubé via
QUB radio
:
David Simard is also looking very bad for next season as the rains have brought numerous diseases to the fields, real “time bombs”.
“I had black cabbage rot affecting the roots of the strawberry plantations planned for next year,” he explains.
Diseases affected David Simard’s tomato production in the summer of 2023. Photo Jean-Philippe Guilbault
Crying in his fields
The same story in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, where Hubert Steben-Chabot does not mince his words to describe the “hardship” of the last few months.
“I would sometimes sit in my car crying for 30 or 45 minutes while the rain fell on my fields. Go into the greenhouses and start crying again, cry most of the day,” he says.
Hubert Steben-Chabot’s greenhouse production was also affected by the capricious weather in the summer of 2023.
Last April, the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA) sounded the alarm and estimated that one in ten farms could close due to inflation. Almost 30% of producers then expected a negative balance due to interest rate increases.
“We have many young producers who come to us and tell us that they will not be able to sow next year and will not be able to buy their seeds,” says the president of the UPA of the Capital-National. Yves Laurencelle.
- Listen to the interview with Martin Caron, General President of the Union of Agricultural Producers, on the microphone by Alexandre Dubé via
QUB radio
:
Emergency assistance requested
Both David Simard and Hubert Steben-Chabot regret the lack of support from the government during this difficult time.
“When it’s time to save the aviation industry, billions will come out, but when it’s time to put money into farmers, then it becomes an expense, it’s no longer an investment,” laments Mr. Steben- Chabot.
He is concerned about the number of his colleagues taking their own lives, as he sees several passing by, especially on social networks.
“We have the chance to create life, it’s not normal that that brings death with it,” he philosophizes. “We always have in the back of our minds: Will I be next? »
IF YOU NEED HELP
Quebec suicide prevention hotline
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www.aqps.info
• 1-866-CALL (277-3553)
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www.jeunessejecoute.ca
• 1-800-668-6868
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