Another year, another crop of small-scale agriculture success stories from communities above the Arctic Circle.
The stories are highlighted in Beaufort Delta Small Scale Foods Program 2016-2017 Year in Review authored by the Inuvik Greenhouse Society.
They were collected from the Inuvik Greenhouse team’s delivery of the Small Scale Food program in the Beaufort Delta — a partnership sought by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment to ensure the program benefitted from the team’s passion and local expertise.
The team visited every community in the Beaufort Delta region with workshops, outreach, and educational opportunities designed to build strong agriculture communities and give them the knowledge to thrive.
Topics of the programming included:
- Plant and food care
- Greenhouse preparation and winterization
- Canning
- Pickling
- Jam-making
- Dehydration
The Department of ITI delivers community agriculture programming to encourage local food production in support of the GNWT’s mandate to foster economic diversity and increase access to healthy, local food.
Here’s an excerpt of one of the anecdotes from the year-in-review. This came from a community visit to Sachs Harbour.
During the second visit, we were able to close up the greenhouse. One member proudly showed me her blueberry plant, only for us to realize she had been nurturing a very large weed for the entire season! Of course, we all had a good laugh, but at the same time we realized that more education was needed on plant identification.
View the full document here.