Veiller au grain pour un avenir durable: a field of possibilities for agricultural diversification
Imagine that your morning cereal and bread came from Quebec-based processing and manufacturing companies committed to supporting the regeneration of agricultural soils. That dairy cows, beef cattle, and pigs are fed grains from local companies that promote biodiversity in their fields. That diverse crops, such as sunflowers and dry beans, grow among the corn and soy in major agricultural production regions. This is the vision of the project Veiller au grain pour un avenir durable, which aims to encourage the adoption of sustainable practices on large-scale farms in Montérégie by initiating collaborations between farmers and buyers like food processing companies.
Three ‘springboard’ projects
These collaborations will take shape in the coming months through the creation of three ‘springboard’ projects that we aim to develop in collaboration with farms and food processors and with the support of agronomy and marketing advisors. Project could involve, for example, integrating new small grains or legumes crops on five to ten farms and identifying commercial outlets and partnerships with companies producing flour.
To inform crop diversification projects, we are currently completing a review of existing and past crop rotations on large-scale farms in Montérégie, learning from the history of experiences from many farmers. We are also documenting efforts made to reduce environmental impacts in Montérégie’s dominant crops, namely corn and soy.
A diversified crop inventory
We conducted a review of existing documentation and undertook interviews with more than 20 organizations, companies, agronomists and farmers to identify crops that promote the use of soil health practices while offering agronomic benefits and an attractive market potential. We focused on fall cereals (wheat, spelt, rye, triticale), oats, barley, hemp, flax, buckwheat, sunflower, canola, mustard, camelina, dry beans, dry peas, faba beans, IP soy, sorghum, millet, and processing vegetables in rotation with corn and soy.
One of the main advantages of crop diversification is to build better soil structure, facilitating water infiltration and retention. This benefit comes thanks to the presence of living roots in the soil, which are maintained through practices like cover crops and winter crops. Practices like these can be technically challenging, when for example the late harvest of a main crop like corn leaves insufficient time to establish a cover crop before winter.
The key: understanding the challenges
While Montérégie farmers have experimented with a wide variety of crops over the years, many efforts were abandoned due to a lack of markets. For this reason, it is critical to assess crops and practices from agronomic, environmental as well as economic and market perspectives.
Stay tuned: we will soon share the crops and practices at the heart of the three springboard projects to be developed over the coming months in collaboration with agricultural producers in Montérégie and organizations and companies from different parts of the supply chain.
