CALEB NICKERSON
OUTAOUAIS Jan. 10, 2018
At an upcoming meeting in Chelsea, local stakeholders and farmers will gather to discuss the possibility of a tourism network that promotes sustainable agriculture, linking the Outaouais to Ottawa and beyond.
Allumette Island farmer David Gillespie co-chairs the committee for a project called CANAMEX, short for Canadian American Exchange. The project aims to join farmers and businesses with a focus on agriculture into a mapped tourist circuit that spans from the Monteregie region around Champlain Lake into Vermont and New York State.
“I want it to be as inclusive as possible,” he said. “By that I mean, I’d like to see more than farmers on that circuit, potentially farmers markets, anything that promotes sustainable agriculture as far as I’m concerned, should be on that map. It’s going to be unique.”
Originally, an Outaouais/Ottawa Vallley circuit was going to be the second phase of the project, but Gillespie said that after discussions with his counterparts in the U.S. they decided to join it with the Champlain circuit.
He explained that in the past few weeks, his colleagues presented the project in the Vermont Legislature and were green-lit for state funding, meaning that time is of the essence to get the other legs up and running.
Gillespie said that he organized a meeting of politicians, farmers, stakeholders and press from across the region on Jan. 11 in Chelsea in order to galvanize action on the local leg of the project. He said he’s hopeful that the gathering will bear fruit.
“We’re going to try and progress it,” he said. “We’re not just going to come up with a theoretical plan, I want us to come up with something that will be presentable in short order.”
He strongly asserted that while words like “sustainability” and “agri-tourism” might sound like something for “a tree-hugging, granola-type, pie-in-the-sky sort of farmer,” but the industry has been booming the regions that he hopes to partner with in the States.
In fact, Gillespie will present the project along with his colleagues at the First World Congress on Agritourism coming up this November in Italy.
“I didn’t expect that, it’s great news,” he said, adding that it would be a great demonstration of how industry partners can cooperate across state, provincial and international boundaries.
