Agriculture and the forest industry have been going through difficult times for a number of years now in several of Quebec’s regions. The industry’s traditional business model, among others, is declining at a steady pace, and the agricultural sector is being subject to threats such as major multilateral trade agreements that are likely to jeopardize its competitiveness. In response, some rural communities have chosen to diversify their economic activities. In this context, the harvesting of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) appears to be one of the solutions that could contribute to revitalizing these rural regions.
| Small fruits | Plants used for food | Medicinal plants | Ornamental plants | Mushrooms |
| wild blueberry | fiddlehead | American ginseng | ox-eye daisy | king bolete oyster mushroom |
| wild cranberry | Labrador tea | common yarrow | rough rose | chanterelle and trumpet chanterelle |
| serviceberry | flowers | Canada yew | Mosses | morel chaga |
| various grains chokeberry |
cattail | teaberry goldenseal |
fir and other tree branches |
matsutake lobster mushroom |
Source: Lac-Saint-Jean Model Forest, 2016.
Lac-Saint-Jean Model Forest (LSJMF) is currently managing a project focusing on under-utilized or fallow lands and the cultivation of a range of NTFPs. NTFPs help offset the challenge of ensuring a sustainable and competitive agroforestry sector. This project is carried out on twenty (20) sites throughout the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region – some of which are within the boundaries of the LSJMF landscape.
History
In 2015, Créneau d’excellence AgroBoréal, the project instigator, invited LSJMF to lead the project due to the close alignment with LSJMF’s mission to diversify the development of forest resources within its boarder. LSJMF’s sound understanding of the issues at stake and its ability to act as a project proponent made it an obvious participant that could provide an added value and leadership to the project, in particular, demonstrating the strong potential for commercialization of NTFPs. The project was thus drawn up jointly by the Créneau, LSJMF and Agrinova, a college centre for the transfer of technology. Collectively these partners are enabling its implementation.
Project description
The objective of the Agroforestry Gardens 02 project is to test five types of agroforestry landscapes on which a dozen or so NTFPs will be introduced. These have been selected using criteria from a literature review describing the active components and known uses for approximately forty NTFPs and other cultivations. An analysis of agronomic and marketing opportunities has also made it possible to identify the NTFPs of greatest interest.
Project status
Fifteen private sites owned by businesses with land to be enhanced and five sites on the public land within five regional county municipalities (RCM) are currently in production. Some initial crops have already been harvested. It is noteworthy that the project does not deal with the marketing aspect, however; a Facebook group was created to promote the exchange of information and create synergy between producers and other NTFP stakeholders in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region.
This project aims to test models of agroforestry development and offer innovative opportunities for commercialization of the NTFP sector while contributing to changing the regional culture of these often-misunderstood resources. The project will continue for another year and should come to an end in November 2017. We will let you know as soon as we obtain conclusive results!
For more project information, contact:
Serge Harvey, Lac-Saint-Jean Model Forest serge.harvey@fmlsj.ca
Isabelle T. Rivard, Créneau d’excellence AgroBoréal, isabelletrivard@agroboreal.com
www.agroboreal.com http://agroboreal.com/project/jardinsagro
