From Québec (Canada), Gabrielle Payette-Bédard joins the Nyéléni Forum representing the Forum on Territorial Food Systems (SAT) – Chantier de l’économie sociale. Her work focuses on bringing together communities, organizations, municipalities, and collectives that, from different sectors, seek an intersectoral vision of agriculture and food.
Across Québec, the realities of food sovereignty are diverse: from the fertile southern lands threatened by urban expansion, to northern communities where hunting, fishing, and gathering remain central to life. Urban agriculture is growing in cities such as Montreal and Québec City, while in more remote rural regions challenges persist in accessing fair markets, infrastructure, and prices.
The challenges are many: households with limited budgets struggle to access healthy local foods; indigenous and local seeds are disappearing; farmers lack sufficient support to transition toward sustainable practices; and food literacy regarding local products, cooking, and preservation remains low.
In response, Gabrielle highlights the role of cooperatives and non-profit organizations, which meet the specific needs of their territories by pooling resources and building partnerships with local businesses. Through the Forum SAT, they promote joint action plans with various partners, develop regional fact sheets to highlight challenges and strengths, and organize a provincial forum every two years to bring SAT actors together, fostering collective learning and advocacy.
At Nyéléni, Gabrielle brings the experience of how Québec is building resilient, fair, and accessible territorial food systems, and how the social and solidarity economy helps connect producers and processors with eaters, within a framework of the commons.
