Growing Opportunities: Sage-Terre

(english translation to come)

Vanessa et Chocolat: Sage-Terre souhaite utiliser les ânes au sein d'un programme de réinsertion sociale

Difficile de dresser un portrait de la Ferme Sage-Terre en quelques mots: projet venant tout juste de voir le jour, il est en pleine évolution. En fait, Sage-Terre se définit davantage comme un projet social que comme une ferme axée sur la production. On pourrait qualifier Sage-Terre de communauté au sein de laquelle s’élabore graduellement plusieurs projets qui, bien que variés et à différents stades de démarrage, rejoignent tous la mission de l’organisme:

«La Ferme Sage-Terre aspire à créer:

·Un style de vie juste, équitable et écologique;
·Un lieu de vie coopératif, basé sur l’entraide et dans le respect des êtres qui y vivent;
·Un modèle de vie alternatif réalisable et réjouissant.»

The Peat Moss Side-Adventure

So there we were, minding our own business, when we decided to stop minding our own business and ride down off the road to find out about a machine we saw in the distance that looked like a large vacuum cleaner sucking up the very earth itself into its bowels:

Farm Glance: La Société des Plantes

Patrice Fortier talks with Vanessa

From St. Vallier, continuing North-East up the St. Lawrence, we stopped at La Société des Plantes, near Kamouraska. The owner, Patrice Fortier, worked as an artist in Montreal and New York before purchasing his farm around the year 2000. Clearly, his artistic taste and talents have not gone to waste out in the country. At La Société, there is a great appreciation for beauty and design and Patrice has a keen sense for cultivating the exceptional and the extraordinary.

Farm Glance: La Mauve Cooperative

Ok, so this Farm Glance doesn’t feature a farm.  But La Mauve Cooperative is worth posting about because of its success marketing the products of small farms in the area surrounding St.-Vallier, just northeast of Quebec City.  This post will be mainly text-based, but before I get to that I want to share a cool technique the cooperative uses when loading up veggie boxes for its box program:

Growing Opportunities: Programmes d’appui québécois/Québec support programs

Non pas une ferme, la toute nouvelle auberge de jeunesse de la Petite-Nation ou nous avons séjourné bénéficie du programme Stratégie jeunesse/Although not a farm, the Petite-Nation youth hostel we stayed at benefited from the Youth Strategy program

Tout au long de cette première étape en sol québécois, plusieurs fermiers ont contribué leur grain de sel aux questions portant sur les subventions gouvernementales (c’est à dire, le temps investi dans le processus de requête en vaut-il la peine? Quelle est la meilleure approche envers la rédaction d’un plan d’affaires et la requête de subventions? Etc.). On ne s’en étonne pas, les opinions à ce sujet diffèrent. Nous avons conséquemment noirci quelques pages de notes et nous avons consigné les programmes québécois d’appui évoqués au passage par les agriculteurs qui en ont bénéficié. Après avoir survolé quelques sites Internet, nous vous présentons un échantillon des programmes qui, à première vue, semblent correspondre à l’échelle de culture que nous envisageons.

Throughout this first québécois section of our trip, most farmers shared their viewpoint and experience in regards to our questions relating to government grant programs (for example: are the outcomes worth the efforts involved in the application process? How can a business plan help position a business so as to increase one’s chances of obtaining a grant? Etc.). Turns out opinions on the matter differ. So, we took many notes and compiled a shortlist of programs from which our hosts benefitted.

Farm Glance: Les Serres Naturo

While checking out La Mauve cooperative in St.-Vallier Quebec we were offered an unexpected chance to visit one of its member farms–Les Serres Naturo has been owned and farmed by Leo and Ginette Dutil for twenty years. A major aspect of the 10 acre operation is based on growing crops in eight large greenhouses custom designed and built by Leo using mostly scrap metal. The greenhouses contain large oil furnaces that heat hot water in pipes running beneath the soil. Leo and Ginette, we have concluded, are farmer-geniuses and were able to show us more techniques and technologies than we will share here.

Ginette looked at us like we were bush-league when we marveled at her tomato-support system, which she tells us can be bought at any large greenhouse supply store. Yet we've visited many market gardens, at least out west, that don't use them. These are the best supports we've seen for ease of use.

Farm Glance: Ferme aux pleines saveurs

No two ways about it, Martin Turcot and Chantale Vaillancourt are in the business of producing food. After visiting mostly farms of one to five acres, this 20-acre farm just outside the village of Saint-André-Avellin was, for us, a thing to behold.

Trip Journal: Gatineau à/to St-Vallier

Gatineau à/to St-Vallier: 10/05-27/05

Difficile de croire que nous sommes sur la route depuis déjà plus de deux semaines. Bien que légèrement retardé (fidèle à l’habitude de deux d’entre nous, on vous laisse deviner lesquels) notre départ s’est effectué sans heurt grâce à l’appui de nos parents et amis. En pédalant de Gatineau à St-Vallier nous avons franchi plus de 500 kilomètres et visité 6 entreprises agricoles. Nous nous sommes même permis une petite pause au centre-ville de Québec (merci à nos hôtes warmshowers.org) question de nous gaver de smoked meat et de bière artisanale en bonne compagnie…la bière, vous savez, c’est comme pour les crottes de fromage, on doit se forcer pour emmagasiner les calories essentielles… Bref, dur dur la vie de cyclotouriste, heureusement qu’existent les dépanneurs québécois!
Hard to believe we’ve been on the road for more than two weeks. Although we left a little later than expected (unsurpringly so for two of us, can you guess which ones?) our departure went smoothly. Biking from Gatineau to St-Vallier we covered more than 500 km and visited six sites. We even took the time to relax downtown Québec (more warmshowers.org love), drank good beer and stuffed ourselves with smoked meat sandwiches.What better way to store a few calories for the road than to drink beer and eat fresh cheese curds…Introducing a new nutrition fad: the Québécois dépanneur diet.

Growing Opportunities: Grazing Days Bond

As mentioned in a previous post here, farm bonds are one of the innovative financing models farmer Paul Slomp is using to raise the capital needed to launch his intensive grazing beef CSA farm. Paul is highly motivated by the potential to increase public engagement in local, sustainable food production. He sees bonds as not only a strategy to raise much needed funds but also a means for people to become involved in their food system in a way that goes a step beyond farmers markets and CSAs.

Growing Opportunities: The Credetao’s agricultural platform

Between leek transplants and mesclun harvest, Charlotte and Richard from Lève-Tôt Farm outline the main features of the project in which they participate.