The impact of Agricultural Zone Development Plans (PDZas) on sociability and agricultural representations
Since the Second World War, we have witnessed the establishment of an industrial agricultural model leading to a deterritorialization of agriculture. Over time, various problems associated with this model were identified and, in 2012, the provincial government of Quebec adopted the Agricultural Zone Development Plan (PDZA) to overcome these limitations. The objective of this article is to study the phenomenon of reterritorialization of agriculture through the creation process of a PDZA in two Regional County Municipalities (RCMs) of Quebec: the RCM of Antoine-Labelle and the RCM des Sources. Firstly, this research shows that this process is based on the development of new forms of sociability among the stakeholders of the PDZA, which is expressed through the engagement or re-engagement of dialogue in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. This is made possible by a shift in the agricultural representations held by non-agricultural actors which have strategic knowledge, but also by agricultural producers.