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Fête Champêtre: A chance to harvest agricultural knowledge

Published: August 01, 2018

Annual Quebec festival celebrates local farming community

If you ate today, thank a farmer.

With ongoing urbanization, it’s a sentiment that isn’t quite expressed enough.

“I remember one time I was in a grocery store and a woman didn’t know that eggs come from hens—she thought they are just from the grocery store,” says Vincent Laurin, a representative of this weekend’s 43rd annual Fête Champêtre agricultural fair in Mirabel, Quebec. “I mean, a lot of city folks don’t know how farming really works.”

For more than four decades, Fête Champêtre has provided some of the answers. Launched as a family-run tradition in the early 1970s, this two-day festival is now organized by the Mirabel Deux-Montagnes Agricultural Society to recognize and celebrate local agricultural traditions and practices.

The two-day festival provides a platform to promote agriculture—engaging the public in learning about various products, agribusinesses, and people whose jobs are important but often overlooked.

In Mirabel, as an example, 50 percent of the region is farm land, with a mixture of beef, dairy, grain, vegetable and maple syrup production.

This year’s Fête Champêtre will include:

  • A Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch, featuring food and drink grown in the region;
  • An “agricultural triathlon”;
  • A beef cattle exhibition by 4-H competitors;
  • Kiosks, fun activities and games promoting various farm-to-fork enterprises.

The Eau Tronc Sucré sugar shack, a young and growing local maple syrup enterprise, has been chosen as the heart of festivities for this year’s Fête Champêtre.

“We are expecting around 5,000 people this year. Many families who live outside of our community bring their kids and stop by—they want to let the younger ones learn about agriculture and the importance of farming in everyone’s life,” says Laurin, the son of a dairy farmer.

Enbridge is committed to improving quality of life in the communities where we work and live. In 2017, we invested more than $584,000 in community-strengthening initiatives across Quebec, and our $2,500 donation will help support the 43rd Fête Champêtre as it celebrates the fundamental work of the agricultural community.

Every year, Fête Champêtre features a wide variety of local products such as vegetables, fruits, meat, cheese, and even ciders and wines.

“Farming is really important in the region. Regardless of what they sell, people always come together at Fête Champêtre to understand what others do and appreciate the values of their products,” says Laurin.

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