On April 10, around 30 Pontiac business people and residents gathered at the Little Red Wagon Winery in Clarendon for a public consultation regarding agri-food development in the Outaouais.

Hosted by the Table Agroalimentaire de l’Outaouais (TAO), the goal of the event was to give local producers and business people the opportunity to influence development in the regional agri-food sector over the next five years.

Mandated by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, the TAO is currently in the process of renewing its agri-food development plan for 2019-2024.

Headed by TAO Director Vincent Philibert and TAO Project Manager Aurelie Boyer, the event consisted of a 40-minute presentation on agri-food development in the Outaouais, summarizing TAO’s previous plan from 2013-2018.

According to Philibert, the new plan will likely contain various elements from the last one, with a few updates that will depend on what issues and plans of action locals feel should be implemented.

“We’re doing a tour of every territory in the Outaouais, every MRC,” said Philibert. “We’re meeting with producers and community leaders to listen to them tell us about issues they have to deal with and the actions they would like the partners in charge of this plan to initiate.”

Following the presentation, attendees participated in a workshop where they teamed up in groups to discuss five issues and objectives and provide actions to deal with them. Then, each group presented its results to the rest of the attendees.

To identify the five issues and objectives detailed in the activity, TAO compiled each MRC’s Agricultural Zone Development Plan (PDZA).

“We compiled all the objectives and issues of the five PDZA’s, as of right now,” said Philibert. “We put the principal ones that appear in at least three of the five. We’re asking them to identify the actions. The idea is that we want their ideas. There are maybe new paths to solutions, new ideas that permits us to update the five PDZA’s at the same time.”

A PDZA is a report supporting the agricultural zone of a respective territory outlining its issues and the actions in place to deal with them, Philibert said.

Despite the Outaouais consisting of five different territories including the Pontiac, Philibert said the consultations have made him realize that the issues and objectives regarding producers in each MRC are largely the same.

“We realized that the issues affecting people in the Pontiac are very similar that those of other territories,” he said. “We see great similarities between them. That’s what we want people to realize.”

According to Philibert, all producers in the Outaouais received a survey through the mail prompting them to give their point of view on the current state of agri-food development in the region and what changes they’d like to see.

With the public consultation tour of the five MRC’s, TAO is hoping to attain information that the organization didn’t get from the answers in the questionnaire, Philibert said.

“Right now, we’re really in the information collecting phase,” he said. “This summer we’re going to analyze and digest all of it, so that in the fall we can arrive to a finished product that we can finally publish.”

For the final phase of development for the 2019-2024 agri-food plan, TAO will hold a public forum.

Satisfied with the turnout, Philibert said that if the level of participation remains similar for the next two consultations and the forum this fall, TAO will have more than enough relevant information to provide the best five-year plan possible for the Outaouais.

“I’m very satisfied,” said Philibert. “It’s fun. We must have about 30 people or so here. If it keeps going like this, plus the questionnaires, we’ll be very satisfied with the turnout.”

After concluding the third of five public consultations in the Outaouais over the month of April, the next two are hosted in Chelsea and Gatineau on April 11 and 17 respectively.

The TAO Agri-food Development Plan for 2019-2024 will be completed and published in the fall, according to Philibert.

Founded by MAPAQ, TAO is a non-profit organization dedicated towards organizing the actions for development of the region’s agri-food sector.

Register or subscribe to read this content

Thanks for stopping by! This article is available to readers who have created a free account or who subscribe to The Equity.

When you register for free with your email, you get access to a limited number of stories at no cost. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to everything we publish—and directly support quality local journalism here in the Pontiac.

Register or Subscribe Today!