Quebec's agronomists say a 50-year-old law is holding agriculture back

Tashi Farmilo

Quebec's agronomist regulatory body, the Ordre des agronomes du Quebec (OAQ), is calling on the provincial government to seize a rare legislative moment and overhaul a law governing the farming profession that has not been meaningfully updated since Pierre Trudeau's first term in office.

The OAQ is roughly equivalent to a provincial law society or college of physicians, but for certified farm scientists. It oversees the province's more than 3,200 licensed agronomists and tabled a formal brief with the National Assembly on February 11, urging lawmakers to use Bill 15 as a vehicle to modernise rules that have been in place since 1973.

An agronomist is a science-based professional who advises farmers and agricultural businesses on everything from soil health and crop management to environmental sustainability and food safety. Think of them as the engineers of the farming world: the professionals who help ensure that food is grown safely, efficiently, and with the land's long-term health in mind. In Quebec, agronomists must be certified members of the OAQ to practise, in the same way that engineers or nurses must be licensed in their fields. Quebec's agricultural sector employs tens of thousands of workers across nearly 29,400 farms, generating billions in revenue and feeding families across the province and beyond.

Bill 15 is a sweeping piece of legislation designed to streamline Quebec's professional regulatory system, the framework that governs dozens of licensed professions across the province. While much of the public attention surrounding the bill has focused on healthcare, with debates over expanded roles for nurses and midwives, it also touches on many other professions, including agronomists. Multiple professional groups have described the bill as a rare opportunity to make lasting changes to how professionals are regulated in Quebec.

The OAQ's brief contains five main recommendations, but its core message is straightforward: the law that defines what an agronomist can and cannot do is so outdated that it has become a practical obstacle. The original legislation was written in an era before precision agriculture, climate modelling, environmental impact assessment, and modern agri-food science were even concepts, let alone core parts of the profession.

The OAQ is asking, in particular, for a clearer definition of which professional tasks are reserved exclusively for agronomists, and for an updated description of the profession's scope. Without these clarifications, both farmers and professionals are left in a murky legal grey zone when disputes arise over who is qualified to do what. The order is also highlighting the bill's potential to help address the workforce crisis gripping Quebec's agricultural sector. The labour shortage remains a major concern across the agri-food industry, with approximately 7,000 unfilled jobs in food processing alone in the province. By allowing clearer collaboration between agronomists and other certified professionals such as professional technologists, the OAQ argues the sector could make better use of existing expertise.

The OAQ is careful to note that it supports Bill 15 as written, and welcomes two specific changes the bill proposes. One removes a quirk in the current law that only considered agronomic work "professional practice" if it was performed for pay, a technicality that created enforcement headaches for the order. The other updates the OAQ's internal governance structure.

"These modifications represent a first step in the right direction," said Michel Montpetit, president of the OAQ. "They correct concrete obstacles to the application of the regulatory framework and improve the Order's capacity to carry out its oversight role."

The OAQ emphasises, however, that these fixes are modest compared to what is needed. It notes that substantial groundwork has already been done: years of consultations between the OAQ, the provincial agriculture ministry, the Office des professions du Quebec, and a wide range of industry stakeholders have already produced broad consensus on what reforms are needed. The OAQ argues those proposals could be added to Bill 15 as amendments without delaying the bill's passage.

The context is hard to ignore. According to the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, Quebec has the second-largest agricultural sector in Canada, accounting for roughly 21 per cent of the country's domestic agricultural workforce. The professionals charged with advising that industry have been working under rules written before the internet, before GPS-guided tractors, and before climate change became a daily reality for farmers.

"It is time to provide Quebec with a modern, coherent, and structured professional framework equal to the agricultural, environmental, and climate challenges of today and tomorrow, in the interest of the public, producers, and the agri-food sector as a whole," said Montpetit.