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 Sooke Region Food CHI Society"Good, local, affordable food for all" SookeFoodCHI.ca Projects |
Farm and Food Garden Tour Sunday August 8, 2010 --- 11 am - 5 pm Sunday August 14, 2011 --- 10 am - 5 pm Poster --- Information (doc) PowerPoint slide show -- Farm Tour, Aug 8 2010 (90 MB) Community Gardens --- Sooke is home to 4 successful Community Gardens. Each garden has a Community Kitchen where community members can join together to create and share meals. Click on the picture to visit the Sunriver website. Sooke Food Farm Guide, ---- An ongoing project that includes farm-gates, markets, courses such as seed-saving, growing tomatoes, composting, community gardens, wild-harvesting tips and more in our region. Download: Sooke Food Farm Guide Farmer Mentorship ---- The Sooke Region Farmer Mentorship (SRFM) program offers training, networking, and partnership opportunities through farm tours, one-on-one mentorship, sharing of resources and connecting community members. Drawing on regional knowledge, expertise and success of local farms we work to encourage new growers in the region. In having a program that "grows" more farmers, our goals are to Co-op table at the Sooke Farmers Market ---- Food CHI supported the development of a co-op table to encourage small garden producers to sell their produce and baking. Fruit Tree GleaningProject In the summer of 2009, Sooke Food CHI launched an exciting new fruit tree project that will help to put local fruit from neglected fruit trees to good use. Based on similar projects that have been successful in Victoria, Richmond, and elsewhere, the project will accept requests from any Sooke Region property owners wishing to have their untended fruit trees harvested. "Small groups of volunteers will be sent to the property," says project co-coordinator Jessica Boquist, "and the fruit harvested will be divided among the property owner, the volunteers, and local non-profit agencies focused on distributing food to area residents." An additional benefit of the project will be its potential to reduce bear-human interactions in the region. Traditionally, untended backyard fruit trees have been a prime attractant for bears, which often damage trees while foraging for over-ripened fruit. The frequent result is unhappy property owners and occasionally, bears that must be destroyed. The project is in its infancy, but we are hopeful we can have volunteers visit 15 properties for this first year. Interested volunteers can contact Jessica Boquist at jessicaboquist@gmail.com, while property owners wishing to have their fruit picked can email Jordan Marr at jordan.marr@gmail.com Farm Forum, Festival and Harvest Feast The forumwas a community wide working session to build a sustainable future for agriculture and food security. Ensuring local government support for food sustainability in the Sooke Official Community Plan. This includes raising chickens on city lots. Awareness Film Nights Socially relevant films in the EMCS theatre .A "meat and food for sale regulations" workshop The workshop was presented by the BC Food Processors Association on Jan. 27 at 7pm in the Edward Milne Community School Theatre. The regulation changes are province-wide so all interested parties were invited to attend. Local growers, producers, restauranteurs etc. were in attendance to share their experiences. |
