North Slave Region Communities Advancing Agriculture

News Type: 
Blog Entries

October 27, 2017

 

Communities across the North Slave Region have been actively advancing local agriculture and food growing initiatives. Here are a few recent highlights.

 

Gaining Compost Confidence

In-person workshops were hosted in Behchoko, Lutsel k’e, Ndilo, Detah, Wekweeti, Whati, and Gameti over the month of September. The workshops focused on soil health and how to create nutrient-rich compost for growing vegetables.

(Gameti's Greenhouse)

 

Logan Rudkevitch works with Arctic Farmer and led the workshops, which were organized and hosted by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI).

 

“The highlights for me were the farm in Gameti as well as the group of community gardeners in Behchoko. Getting the chance to meet some of the farmers in Gameti and the farm that they have built on sand is really impressive and inspirational. It showed me that there is real potential for farming in the North for local consumption,” Logan says.

 

(Gameti's Potato Field)

 

Overall, workshop participants were highly-engaged and eager to test and improve their soil. While soil in the region may not always be nutrient-rich enough for thriving plants and produce, adding compost to the mix can have encouraging results.

 

“When we stopped in Whati, I noticed that the general store was donating all of their fruit and vegetables that had gone bad to the compost pile. It is this type of thinking that makes building and sustaining compost easier. It’s a practice that could be adopted elsewhere in the NWT,” Logan explains.

(The communtiy garden in Whati)

 

Dettah Builds a Community Greenhouse

 

With support from ITI, Dettah built a community greenhouse over the fall. The greenhouse was an all-hands-on-deck project, which involved the community’s youth training program. Youth worked with a journeyman carpenter to learn new skills including how to build and maintain the greenhouse.

 

The greenhouse will also be used in the future to teach youth how to garden and maintain healthy soil and plants.

Berry Planting Workshops

About 50 berry bushes were planted throughout Behchoko, Gameti and Whati in late September. The bushes can be found in community gardens and at designated locations that the communities requested, such as the senior’s centre in Behchoko and the school in Whati.

All plants were varieties well-suited for growing in the north, such as high bush cranberries, haskaps, saskatoon berries and raspberries.

The workshops were supported by ITI and led by Boreal Gardens and Arctic Farmer.

Investing in NWT Agriculture

Over the last five years, $6 million has been invested under the Growing Forward 2 Agreement to support and grow the NWT agriculture sector. Beginning April 1, 2018, under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, the NWT has a budget of $1.21 million annually from 2018-2023 for agricultural initiatives in the territory. This budget is covered 40% by the GNWT and 60% by the Government of Canada.