An alliance to “stop agricultural destruction”

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The SaluTERRE Alliance insists that “the pantry of Quebecers is in danger.”

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Five organizations – Équiterre, the Federation of Young Agricultural Workers of Quebec (FRAQ), the Cooperative for Ecological Proximity Agriculture, Protec-Terre and Vivre en ville – join forces to create the SaluTERRE Alliance, a group which aims to protect agricultural land and promote succession in a field subject to market vagaries and climatic disasters.

In their announcement sent by via press release, the members of this new alliance maintain that our arable land is disappearing under concrete in the name of industrial development or urban sprawl.

We are losing a rare and non-renewable strategic resource whose essential function is to feed us, we add.

In an interview at Midi info, on the airwaves of ICI Premiere, the president of the FRAQ, Julie Bissonnette, called for the creation of an agricultural observatory.

At the moment, we don't even know who owns the land, how many transactions are being made, she said.

In the eyes of Ms. Bissonnette, it is essential to protect and preserve agricultural land, which only represents 2% of Quebec's surface area.

The mission of the Alliance is to raise awareness among the population and elected officials about the importance [of land preservation]. And to be aware that Quebec's pantry is in danger, she added.

The components of this vast problem are already known: in addition to the scarcity of agricultural land, eaten away by urban development and the sprawl of cities, succession is particularly rare due to the often exorbitant price of agricultural land.

Worse still, as agricultural production is necessarily subject to weather conditions, the multiplication of extreme climatic events undermines the productivity capacity of farmers. Last summer, many market gardeners lost large areas of their crops due to heavy rains.

Food is becoming increasingly scarce. On a global scale, this is very concerning. And climate change won't get better.

A quote from Julie Bissonnette, president of the FRAQ

The Alliance also claims to have significant support from the population, especially in the wake of the deleterious impacts of the climate crisis on agricultural production.

In the wake of the announcement of the creation of this group, a survey commissioned by the members of this group precisely indicated that 74% of the Quebec population considers that it is urgent to intervene in order to #x27;ensuring the protection of agricultural land coveted for residential and industrial development.

The survey also indicates that 69% of respondents believe that x27;We must curb urban sprawl by promoting the construction of already inhabited areas.

If there already exists the Protection Commission of the agricultural territory of Quebec, which must precisely avoid the slow disappearance of these lands, Ms. Bissonnette has a clear opinion on the question: Nothing is perfect, but if this commission did its job, we would not we wouldn't be there.

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