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Quebec farmers have been protesting since December. Is anyone listening?

SHERBROOKE, Que. - On Monday morning in Sherbrooke, Que., dozens of tractors slowly rolled along a stretch of road between the regional offices of Quebec’s farmers association and the Agriculture Department a few hundred meters away.

Upset about high interest rates, growing paperwork and heavy regulatory burdens, protesting farmers have become a familiar sight across Quebec since December.

“It’s pretty hard to get farmers out of their farms, because they’ve got so many hours to put in, but to see them going out, it means that there is really something going bad in farming right now,” said Benjamin Boivin, a corn and wheat farmer in Quebec’s Estrie region, east of Montreal, who was out protesting on Monday.

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