Quebec pledges more funding for farmers to cope with devastating weather events

The Quebec government will be compensating farmers for the damage caused by heavy rains last summer and the historic drought that hit Abitibi-Témiscamingue at the start of the season.

On Monday, Premier François Legault announced that he reached an agreement in principle with Quebec's union of agricultural producers (UPA). At the UPA headquarters, he said details of the agreement would be shared after the Council of Ministers ratifies the agreement next Wednesday.

The deal comes after UPA members held several tractor rallies in recent months to draw attention to producers' financial struggles, namely due to competition with foreign producers.

Demonstrations took place in Montérégie, the Eastern Townships, Chaudière-Appalaches, Capitale-Nationale, Mauricie, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Gaspésie and Outaouais.

Stéphanie Levasseur, second vice-president of the UPA, told CBC's Quebec AM that the union had a good meeting with the premier. She said Legault seemed to have a "good understanding of the challenges" that lie ahead for farmers.

"He was the first one to recognize that we were in a crisis earlier this spring, so it was very constructive," Levasseur said.

In addition to granting more funding, the deal includes a program intended to help farmers cope with high interest rates — a problem that the next generation of producers is wrestling with.

However, Levasseur said farmers also need more support to meet consumer demand in the medium and long term.

Those rates, which currently fall between four per cent and seven per cent, have had "an almost catastrophic impact" on producers' yields, Legault said, adding that he hoped that the Bank of Canada would start lowering its key interest rate on Wednesday.

"We will also replace the moratorium on cultivable areas," Legault said, referring to a long-standing request from the UPA. "It will be replaced by a regulatory framework, so there will be conditions."

Quebec and the UPA have defined 14 measures to reduce paperwork and bureaucracy in the short term, and that more measures would come in the medium term, he said.