Completed
The Family Farmers Network is one of the largest networks of organic farmers in North America. Founded by Équiterre in 1996, its management was passed on to the CAPÉ (Coopérative pour l'agriculture de proximité écologique) in 2020.
Based on the principles of community-supported agriculture (CSA), Équiterre established the Family Farmers Network in Quebec in 1996 with 7 farms and 250 families. The network now includes 140 farms that supply organic food to over 30,000 families. Its goal has always been the same: to connect organic farms directly to the local population through organic baskets.
140 certified organic farms or farms in the process of being certified in the Family Farmers Network
30,000 participating families in Quebec and New Brunswick
After 24 successful years, the Family Farmers Network joins CAPÉ, a producer coop, which has as its mission to feed the population in a healthy, local, organic and solidarity-based way. This flagship project, which originally began under Équiterre, is now flying on its own wings!
Twenty years after it was created, the Family Farmers Network has 120 farms, 600 delivery points in the province, and more than 14,000 families receiving organic baskets each week.
The FFN sends a delegation to China for the International CSA Conference. The FFN formula used in Quebec serves as a model to other countries, especially with the subscriber-fee formula implemented from the outset, allowing the network to be self-financing.
Change of vocabulary: terms such as “CSA" and “partner” are no longer used, to be replaced by the "Family Farmers Network" (FFN) and “subscribers," which enables the formula to become more widely known among a public that is somehow "shy" about committing to a farm. That same year, a web application is developed to allow farmers to manage their own registrations and payments online.
After years of distributing the list of participating farms on flyers, Équiterre incorporates a map of the drop-off points and all the relevant information on its website. Later, a micro-site called paniersbio.org was created, and it later becomes fermierdefamille.com/en.
The Garderies bio project is born: the network's farmers begin to supply the institutional environment. Forty daycare centres start receiving organic and local vegetables each week, to the delight of the children and the teaching staff.
Équiterre is invited to share its experience in establishing a network of family farmers that brings together organizations from various countries. The Urgenci network is established in France.
Similar to the expression "family doctor," the trademark "Family Farmer" is adopted as the official name, and within a few years becomes popular, and is used by farms across the province. People are encouraged to partner with a farm by asking "Do you have your own family farmer?
The Community Supported Agriculture network is formed and initially includes 7 farms and 250 families. It was one of the first projects of the recently created Équiterre organization. At the time, the term "organic" was not yet part of everyday vocabulary, but even so Quebec farmers were interested in this environmentally friendly production method.
First attempt to put a number of Montreal families in direct contact with the Cadet-Roussel farm in Montérégie, inspired by the "Teiki" model in Japan. This pilot project was unanimously successful and led to the establishment of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) network!
