The possible farm

I was reading in La Presse yesterday about a farmer who wrote a book: La ferme impossible.».

Dominic Lamontagne’s dream is to have 2 cows, 200 hens and 500 chickens.

To achieve his dream, he must fight against 3 federations to change the rules and a 4th concerning slaughterhouses.

You might as well say that he dreams in color!

In Quebec, it is not possible to process your milk and sell it on the farm. With the international pressure on milk tariffs, the federation of milk producers has their hands full, so this is not their priority. This possibility will never happen.

The hens, that could have been possible, because the limit is 100 in Quebec. I think with a little common sense they could raise them to 300. But for that, Minister Lamontagne will have to make a splash. That will never happen, let's wait until we have another minister.

Chickens, again, the limit is 100 chickens. If you want to resell it, you have to go through a slaughterhouse.

And again, there is a problem, because there is no more slaughterhouse or almost no more.

So, there are 2 solutions left: do like everyone else and buy farms with quotas, but that means spending nearly $ 2 million.

It is almost impossible for a young person to find the funds.

The other way is to play with the rules and be imaginative.

The possible farm in 2020 involves online trading. We can't get out of it. And I'm proving that if you play by the rules, a quota-free farm can be profitable.

My farm which was not profitable is becoming profitable in less than a year and has 3 employees now.

We have to go back to basics and sell directly to the consumer.

The farm possible in 2020, it is almost possible.

It involves the maple syrup sold directly to the consumer, to make honey. There is a shortage of honey in Quebec, now is the time to take market share!

Then baskets of vegetables. With 1 acre of land and a few greenhouses, it is possible to add a few thousand dollars to your income.

What would be missing would be the right to slaughter animals on the farm. If the rules changed, I believe the impossible farm would become possible.

Eggs, I found out this week that there are rules in the rules. It is not possible to have more than 100 laying hens. But, under this rule, we cannot sell our eggs online if the buyer is more than 150 km from the laying site. That must be jumped off as a regulation. This is utterly ridiculous.

Last year I wanted to get into intensive rabbit farming, but gave up because the slaughterhouse is too far from home. Now I want to do it again, but on a small scale (about 500 rabbits annually), but it is impossible, the slaughterhouse is 400 km from the farm.

Can't wait for a slaughterhouse on the farm!

I dream of a different campaign, I dream of a government that will have the guts to confront the UPA in order to modernize the archaic rules in place.e.

The farm of the future is possible, but I don't dream in color .