Jorry Doréus walks through rows of young molokhia sprouts. The leafy vegetable is mostly found dried or frozen in Canada, imported mainly from Egypt.
But Doréus says there is an appetite for the fresh, spinach-like vegetable. From people who miss the taste from home — but also from Quebecers who are discovering it for the first time.
“It’s to meet that demand that we’re offering this product fresh, harvested just a few kilometres from their home,” said Doréus.
Molokhia is known as lalo in his home country, Haiti, and is also consumed across several African and Middle Eastern countries. The agronomist started planting seeds in 2013 after moving to Quebec City — the harvest destined mainly for friends and family.
In 2024, Doréus and three business partners pitched their project to the Quebec government, and obtained a five-year lease for their experimental farm, Ferme des Ambasseurs, located 10 kilometres north of downtown Quebec City.
The land, nestled between the Beauport and Charlesbourg neighbourhoods, had been harvested by the congregation of the Sisters of Charity for more than a century.
In 2014, the nuns sold to a real-estate developer, Groupe Dallaire, that had the ambition of building enough townhouses, condos and housing to fit up to 20,000 people. But opposition to the project was fierce, notably from local farmers.
The Quebec government never authorized the zoning changes needed, and in 2022, it bought the land from the promoter for $28.7 million. It is slowly opening up calls for tenders, and planting the seeds for an agro-park project on the 203 hectares of land to encourage urban farming and sustainable agriculture on its territory.
For Exalien Exatul, the vice-president of Ferme des Ambasseurs, taking on that legacy is an important responsibility.
“We want to diversify Quebec agriculture,” said Exatul who, like Doréus, is an agronomist.
“Quebec welcomes us with everything we have, and we bring everything we can. For us, it’s food.”
Just seven kilometres south of the hot field, the Pomme Salade grocery store has just received a delivery of fresh molokhia, harvested that morning.
Co-owner Alain Lessard got a call from Doréus last year to distribute the product. Customers have been asking for it ever since.
“Last summer it was a little bit, and this summer…big time!”
Lessard points to crates of root vegetables, fruit and packages of amaranth — also harvested by La Ferme des Ambassadeurs.
He estimates 30 to 40 per cent of his clientele are from African, Latin American or Asian countries, looking for a taste of home, and he does his best to serve them.
At the cash register, Roland Samuel has stacks of plantains, hot peppers and okra piled up on a cart.
He buys in bulk from Pomme Salade for his own grocery store, Ivoire Epicerie, located in the Charlesbourg neighbourhood, down the road from the Ferme des Ambassadeurs. It’s the first time he sees fresh molokhia in Quebec — a staple in recipes from his native Ivory Coast, added to soups or served with plantains.
“We eat a lot of it, so we’ll be really happy to see it on our dinner plates,” said Samuel, who plans on ordering some when the next harvest arrives, if his business partner, his wife, gives the OK.
“Yes, all the decisions have to be taken together,” he laughed.
Across the road from the Ferme des Ambassadeurs, a cul-de-sac in a residential neighbourhood leads to another parcel of farmland that is privately owned.
Like the Sisters of Charity’s land, the vegetable farms on du Vignoble Street are one of the last remaining relics of what was once the agricultural hub of the region, historically known as Bourg Royal.
It’s the first year the organization Aliments d’ici & saveurs d’ailleurs is leasing a small plot. The name translates to “Produce from here, flavours from there.”
During her PhD in nutrition at Université Laval, the project’s manager, Bénédicte Allam-Ndoul, observed how newly arrived immigrants struggled to navigate Quebec’s culinary codes.
“So what I wanted to do is a workshop to help them learn how to cook local food, with their cultural background.”
That means introducing some of the basics of Quebec cuisine, like turnip, and adding in a pinch of Afro-Caribbean flavour, she said, pointing to the hot peppers and African eggplant growing in the field.
More importantly, Allam-Ndoul said, she wants to bring people to the farm to talk about nutrition and about the opportunities of urban farming.
“It is very easy to get fast food here — it’s cheap, more affordable than [imported] vegetables, so people go there and we don’t want that.”
Part of the harvest will be donated to local organizations that work with newcomers, like the Centre Multiethnique in downtown Quebec City. La Ferme des Ambassadeurs will also contribute to the project, once their own yield grows.
And to bring families to the site itself, food baskets will be sold at the farm.
“Because children, they are disconnected from the reality, from what the land can give us,” said Allam-Ndoul.
In the neighbouring field, Bérénice Koné is growing her own vegetables, intent on knowing where they come from and that they are pesticide free.
“To contribute to Canada’s food autonomy, we have to produce ourselves,” said Koné, who freezes part of her harvest for the winter, selling some of the surplus to her entourage.
Koné has lived in Quebec City since 2012 but it’s her first year renting on du Vignoble Street.
“My parents were farmers [in Ivory Coast], so it’s nostalgic for me.” The previous day, she sent a video of her garden to her older brother back home.
“He told me ‘it brings me back to when we were 12 or 13 years old,'” she said, when her mother cultivated vegetables and sold them locally.
“When harvest time came, molokhia was the only thing in her garden I liked,” said Koné.
“I had to get my hands on it, coûte que coûte, whatever the cost,” she laughed.
