Odor, noise, dust, road safety. While more and more citizens are moving to agricultural areas, some issues of cohabitation sometimes interfere with the rural world. It is in this spirit that the Federation of the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), the 12 MRCs of Montérégie and the City of Longueuil launched Our campaign, a living environment to share – Let’s cultivate living together in Montérégie.
The objective of this campaign is to promote dialogue and living together in agricultural areas.
“Before, everyone had their father, their grandfather who had been a producer, we had a link with a farm somewhere. This link is less present than before because there are fewer farms than before. So, we want to establish contact, because there are issues of cohabitation sometimes,” explains Jérémie Letellier, president of the UPA Federation.
The latter believes that if citizens were better informed about these issues and the real impact on their lives, they would not pay attention to them.
“When we don’t know that, when we move to the countryside, when it smells like manure, then we say to ourselves: oops, well are you going to smell like manure all the time? Do tractors make noise all the time? It’s about demystifying our practices a little so that citizens feel welcome in the countryside and understand our reality,” he adds.
“I think we can resolve several imbroglios, which, in the end, are not really important, but which gain momentum when people do not know the reality of one or the other.”
–Jérémie Letellier, president of the UPA Federation
Second phase
The campaign, which will run from May 17 until December, will be in its second phase. The first, launched on February 24, 2020, was aimed somewhat at citizens, but more at the political environment, such as cities and MRCs, explains Mr. Letellier.
“There, we really emphasize the comparison, the awareness that citizens have in relation to the environment and the agricultural producers who do the same,” he informs.
The project is being implemented in particular thanks to financial support from the provincial government, through the Montérégie Biofood Strategy.
