Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec (FPAQ) and Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) sharply criticize the Gagné Report for its lack of seriousness, objectivity, analysis, and economic foundation with regard to the future of Québec maple syrup. "The report's recommendations will lead the maple syrup industry to ruin. Mr. Gagné's goal is not to give the industry a boost, but rather to knock the legs from under it," FPAQ president Serge Beaulieu said today at a big meeting in front of the Québec National Assembly. A group of over 1,000 maple syrup producers braved the bad weather in order to say NO to the Gagné Report and YES to prosperity in their sector through their collective development tools.

Rob Wallbridge

I’m proud of the growth in the organic sector. According to the Organic Trade Association, organic sales in the United States have increased from $3.6 billion in  1997 to over $39 billion in 2014. This double-digit rate of growth holds true for Canada, too, which is now the fourth-largest organic market in the world.

Jonathan Crowe

Now that the election is over, many disappointed Canadians are talking about proportional representation, and how much fairer it would have been than our first-past-the-post electoral system.

I have never been a fan of proportional representation, partly because I think its supporters are mostly unhappy with the results of the most recent election and want to re-run it under different rules that they think are more favourable to their side, and partly because I’m a big fan of holding members of Parliament accountable to a constituency. But also because I’ve seen how PR systems operate in other countries. Not in the intricate, technical, here’s-how-it-works terms that PR advocates like geeking over — the real-world effects. And some of those real-world effects are precisely the opposite of what PR advocates want.

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"If you’re a smart rural community, start with what your residents are already spending their money on."

Eardley Escarpment in the Municipality of Pontiac, Québec

By Michael H. Shuman

At a time when daily headlines bring worse and worse news about the plight of rural economies, it's worth reminding ourselves that success is possible.

Last autumn, Marian Burros of the New York Times wrote a piece about how the 3,000-person community of Hardwick, Vermont, has prospered by creating a new "economic cluster" around local food. Cutting-edge restaurants, artisan cheese makers, and organic orchardists turning fruit into exquisite pies are just some of the new businesses that have added an estimated 75-100 jobs to the area in recent years. A new Vermont Food Venture Center hopes to accelerate this creation of enterprises.

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Breckenridge Creek, Municipality of Pontiac, Québec.  (Image ©Thomas Soulière 2014)

macleans.ca

November 20, 2014 — Canada was once a country of farms. At Confederation, four out of every five Canadians were farmers. Today, farmers comprise less than two per cent of the population and produce a mere 1.1 per cent of GDP. Should it come as any surprise that the amount of farmland in Canada is shrinking, as well?

Last week, Statistics Canada released a comprehensive look at agriculture in Canada, bringing together the latest economic, geographic and ecological indicators. The most noteworthy observation: Nearly one million hectares of “dependable agricultural land” has disappeared from cultivation over the past 10 years, most of it subsumed by development around Canada’s biggest cities.

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Rob Wallbridge

I can’t really tell if it was the “packed with pesticides” or the “bashing mom bashes good” phrase that finally made me realize what was wrong.

It wasn’t long after I became active on Twitter that I began to question some of my long-held assumptions about GMOs and “conventional” agriculture. I had always been a critic of GMO technology, based on a broad range on concerns and backed by what I considered solid evidence and sound arguments. But on-line I found a community of scientists, farmers, journalists and others who were passionate about good research, sound reasoning and logical thinking on agricultural issues. And their conclusions were often at odds with mine. Seeing their evidence, I was forced to re-evaluate and modify a number of my positions.

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Ralph C. Martin, PhD, P.Ag
Guelph Mercury

The Statistics Canada 2011 Census of Agriculture shows that farm youth are still leaving their farms. About 20 years ago, almost 20 per cent of farmers were under 35 and by 2006, less than 10 per cent of farmers qualified for this distinction. In 2011, only 8.2 per cent of farmers were in this energetic age category of enhanced mental acuity and physical stamina.

Let’s be clear that we’re not only talking about fewer farmers as farms increase in size. The point to emphasize is that as the overall population of farmers declines, young farmers are disappearing even faster.

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Jonathan Crowe

Shawville is abuzz with reports of a tame deer approaching people in the middle of town. (She’s turned up at the high school on more than one occasion.) We encountered her ourselves last Monday evening during a walk: she followed us at a discreet distance for about 700 metres before we were able to shake her off.

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Jonathan Crowe

Questionable Practices is Eileen Gunn’s second short story collection, her first in a decade. The stories it collects are motley and idiosyncratic, and toe an impossible line between the tragic and the screwball. They’re lively, funny stories with a bitter core, or maybe it’s the other way around.

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Jonathan Crowe

In early May we took possession of our new car, a 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek. Touring trim, manual transmission. In tangerine orange. (Yes, the colour is Jennifer’s fault.)

We’ve had the new car for three months now, and have put 7,000 km on it. What’s it been like so far? And how does it compare to our previous car (a 2004 Subaru Forester)?

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Katharine Fletcher

Devastation to biodiversity/wildlife during prescribed fires

Jonathan Crowe

In June 2011, heavy rains washed out a portion of Route 148 between Luskville and Quyon, forcing traffic to detour along narrow gravel roads for more than two months. At the time I noted that had the washout occured east of Parker Road rather than west of it, no detour would have been possible: westbound traffic would have had to double back to Gatineau, and eastbound traffic would have had to take the Eardley-Masham Road or the Quyon Ferry.

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Last Friday was International Refugee Day. There are more than 50 million people who are displaced. My mind can’t begin to grasp the heartache, and poverty that entails.

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