JM Fortier: Farms For Food Sovereignty

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May 18, 2025

JM Fortier, a Quebec farmer, educator, and author, shares insights on fostering food sovereignty through small-scale farming. He discusses the vital role of community connections in local food systems, emphasizing grassroots movements against corporate dominance. Fortier also explores innovative agricultural practices, including technology's integration in horticulture while advocating for sustainable soil management. The conversation highlights the importance of collective action in promoting resilience and tackling challenges within organic farming.

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INSIGHT

Movement as a Living Plant

JM Fortier believes that movements are fragile and need nurturing like young plants.
He views leadership as serving others and helping many succeed together across the movement.

ADVICE

Multiply Movements Through Initiatives

Spread your movement by launching diverse initiatives like farms, markets, schools, and restaurants.
Use each project to multiply both farmers and informed eaters simultaneously for greater impact.

INSIGHT

Need for Farmer Unity

Lack of organized, aligned cooperation among small farmers weakens the movement's potential.
Decentralized independent farms flourish but the absence of a unified structure limits broad success.

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#223: JM Fortier shares his vision for farming as a pathway to food sovereignty. From his home in Quebec, JM has helped lead a growing movement of small-scale, soil-based farmers working to reconnect communities with their food. Through his work with the Market Gardener Institute, he’s offering tools, structure, and encouragement to a new generation hungry for change. This is a grounded and inspiring look at how living soil, real skills, and deep purpose can rebuild the food system from the roots up.

https://realorganicproject.org/jm-fortier-farms-for-food-sovereignty-223

JM Fortier is a farmer, educator, and author from Quebec, Canada, who also appears on a weekly television show. He is known for promoting a culture that replicates small-scale diversified farms that rely on market gardening strategies (direct sales of cash crops to community members) and human-powered growing practices. In the late spring of 2024, JM and his fried Chris Moran launched the Market Gardener Podcast:

https://themarketgardener.com/podcast/

You can learn more about JM and his many adventures here:

https://www.en.jeanmartinfortier.com/

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.

The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States this year. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce, and pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs from products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations).

To find a Real Organic farm near you, please visit:

https://www.realorganicproject.org/directory

We believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be, but that the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing the ability for small farms who adhere to the law to stay in business. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but still paying a premium price. And the lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.

If you like what you hear and are feeling inspired, we would love for you to join our movement by becoming one of our 1,000 Real Friends:

https://www.realorganicproject.org/real-organic-friends/

To read our weekly newsletter (which might just be the most forwarded newsletter on the internet!) and get firsthand news about what's happening with organic food, farming and policy, please subscribe here:

https://www.realorganicproject.org/email/