Discover our seeds!
The Co-op Farm of the Mill is located in Saint-Clément on the banks of the Trois-Pistoles River, in Wolastoqey traditional territory. We recognize the systemic inequalities that are a direct result of colonization and that persist to this day. We are committed to respecting and supporting First Nations in their sovereignty over their territories and to ending systemic racism.
We are a small business operating on a cooperative model. Our farming practices are focused on ecology, preserving waterways, and maintaining healthy soils. We are also fortunate to use and participate in the preservation of the Beaulieu Mill, a cornerstone of St-Clément's history.
Seed production
After 8 years of market gardening and just as many years of seed preservation, the seed component is now an integral part of our mission on the farm!
Today, 60% of the world's available seeds come from four multinational corporations: Bayer-Monsanto, Chemchina, Corteva, and BASF. This concentration of control over life, coupled with the patenting of vegetable varieties and GMOs, threatens biodiversity. The FAO estimates that nearly 75% of cultivated varieties were lost in the 20th century alone.
Not so long ago, seed production still depended on farmers who preserved their harvests, reproduced varieties locally, replanted them year after year, and exchanged them with others. These varieties were diverse, adapted to the climate and the realities of the land. With the arrival of large corporations, all this know-how was lost. International and local legislation was passed, limiting the use of heritage varieties. In Canada, of the 7,366 wheat varieties known today, only 239 are legal for farmers. Under the promise of greater productivity and various resistances, GMO and F1 crops were introduced, standardizing stocks and crops, but also making farmers dependent on the companies that supply seeds. The reproduction of patented seeds is either illegal or genetically impossible.
By developing this seed monopoly, these companies have also seized control of our food supply and are hindering the food sovereignty of people around the world. These issues are rarely discussed in Quebec. Nevertheless, we consider ourselves luckier than in France, where the sale of uncatalogued seeds was prohibited until 2020, or in Colombia, where 4,000 tons of seeds were destroyed between 2010 and 2013 because they were deemed "non-compliant" following the implementation of new laws. Naturally, the production of native, heirloom, and open-pollinated seeds is the first to suffer the repercussions of these compliance policies. Destroying plants cultivated for hundreds of years, resistant and adapted to the lifestyles of the people who grow them, means destroying knowledge, autonomy, and an irreplaceable genetic and cultural heritage.
That's partly why I wanted to reproduce seeds and why it was one of our missions at Ferme Coop du Moulin!
Long live (bio)diversity!
The cooperative model and the community
By establishing our farm as a cooperative, we wanted to ensure we remained true to our values of horizontal organization. This means that decisions are made as a team, everyone has a say in the future of the project, and tasks are distributed fairly and by consensus. This allows us to have multiple perspectives working together to solve daily challenges, but also to consider how to make our project more respectful of the environment and the community that hosts us.
We hope to make consuming local and organic vegetables more accessible in the region, regardless of people's social status. We invite anyone interested in our products to contact us directly if price is a limiting factor. We also collaborate with Croc-Ensemble des Basques to distribute vegetables free of charge through shared refrigerators and food assistance baskets.
Basques Public Market
The markets are closed for this year.
See you at the Christmas public market on December 1st
in Trois-Pistoles