"It's up to us to reinvent agriculture." A pop-up on the website that sums up the vision. The company will soon be rebranded as the Institut jardinier-maraîcher, to be more faithful to what it offers: digital learning products. If Suleyka Montpetit joined forces four years ago with public figure Jean-Martin Fortier, farmer, entrepreneur, speaker, and author of the best-seller Le jardinier-maraîcher with a preface by Laure Waridel , it's because she believed in his values. Especially since she has the tools to accelerate the company's mission. The CEO has just been chosen by Femmessor as one of Quebec's 100 inspiring entrepreneurs.

Training in the small-scale farming model

Suleyka wants to support the range of learning products, develop a community platform, and become a media with specialized articles and blog posts. A vast brand deployment project, the objective of which is to support future small-scale agricultural entrepreneurs throughout the digital learning chain. The company sells a niche product and has an international focus. The training courses have already helped create small farms in more than 65 countries.

The course, set up four years ago, teaches how to produce on a small scale in a diversified way. Everything is covered, vegetable by vegetable, one season at a time. The methods, the tools, the detailed technique and the practice. “The demand for online courses has exploded,” rejoices Suleyka. “There is a need for training to be filled.” La Ferme des Quatre-temps, a model agricultural project by André Desmarais launched in 2015, serves as a reference and helps document learning in the fields.

Updating the farming profession

Speaking of the wolf, Jean-Martin has been a bit of a spokesperson for the next generation of farmers in Quebec for about fifteen years. He thus gives all the visibility the project needs. "His presence and experience help people imagine that the model we are proposing is possible to achieve," illustrates Suleyka. The pandemic has brought climate issues back to the table and highlighted the urgency of rethinking our models. "But the profession cannot be improvised," she reminds us. "We must avoid the trap of idealizing." The farmer is above all an entrepreneur. "Today's farmer must establish a business model, understand marketing, know how to position himself, manage and market, and plan his crops in advance. More than a balance, it is a dance between mastering financial data and wanting to change the world," Suleyka says nicely.

The crisis has also highlighted the challenge of the agricultural workforce, including hiring local workers. The profession has been mechanized and devalued with the intensive agriculture model. “There is nothing stimulating about picking cabbages all day on a ten-hectare farm,” she agrees. “On the other hand, the model that we are proposing is rewarding and changes the image of the farmer. On his small diversified farm, he is constantly and intellectually challenged by management, production and harvests.”

Influential leadership

The pandemic has certainly sparked increased interest in food sovereignty and the importance of collectively reorienting ourselves. However, to ensure that the idea endures and is not just a passing fad, the team has reached out to various bodies such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Hydro-Québec. “Regulatory frameworks need to evolve,” Suleyka emphasizes. “We need to reorient public policies and remove obstacles to the evolution of the type of agriculture we are promoting, such as quotas or the Agricultural Land Act.”

Through the influential leadership that Jean-Martin Fortier has been able to develop, there have been victories. The subsidies now awarded to small farms for greenhouse cultivation since the end of 2020 are a notable one. The businessman just received the Meritorious Service Cross from the Governor of Canada in February 2021, another step forward for his influence in the community.

“The future of agriculture is in organic, regenerative and local,” says Suleyka. “We talk about soils, biodiversity and ecosystems, especially human ones. Because we must not forget the nutritional aspect as a social bond. Bringing food back to the community is a fundamental aspect.” The food self-sufficiency model involves eating in season, selling and producing in one’s community, accepting a certain responsibility as a local producer.

“It’s more than an agricultural transformation: the project brings about transformations in social relations and the communities that it revitalizes,” Jean-Martin said during the podcast Le comité des idées dangereuses with Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois in February 2020. For several years, Jean-Martin has been proclaiming that local ecological food agriculture could be a societal project in Quebec. “Let’s replace mass agriculture with agriculture by the mass,” he doesn’t hesitate to say. Eco-entrepreneurship is destined for unprecedented growth. And the Institut jardinier-marseilleur intends to help accelerate the movement through education.