Ernest Mercier

Ernest Mercier was a Quebec agronomist and public servant who founded the Artificial Insemination Center of Quebec and later served as the province's deputy minister of agriculture. Raised on a family farm in Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire, he completed graduate studies at Cornell University before returning to Quebec, where he founded the insemination center, served as superintendent of a federal research farm, and then spent six years as deputy minister of agriculture, implementing agrifood policies credited with transforming Quebec's traditional family farms into more efficient, profitable modern operations. After leaving government he worked internationally as a consultant for the Canadian International Development Agency and the Food and Agriculture Organization. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1989 and inducted into both the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame and the Agricultural Hall of Fame of Quebec.