World Soil Day

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It is everywhere and pretty much always underfoot. Soil is foundational to so much life on earth and yet is so rarely appreciated for the wonder that it is and all it contributes. December 5th is World Soil Day, which provides an opportunity reflect on and celebrate soil. According to the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, just one teaspoon of healthy soil contains more organisms than there are people on earth! That fact is mind boggling and points to the extreme complexity of this life underground. Increasingly, people are recognizing the role that healthy soils play in the battle to address the negative impacts of climate change…

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Navigating Uncertainty

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Nine months in, we have all mostly become resigned to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is almost hard to remember a time when it did not dominate our lives and all the news sources. However, in the early weeks and months of the pandemic in Canada, we were all navigating in the dark, or at least without a lot of light to shine on the right path forward. The Food Policy Council established Pandemic & Food Roundtable with the goal of supporting those involved in food systems (farmers, food processors and businesses, non-profits, local government) who live and work in the Columbia Basin to discuss our work, our challenges and to help find a path forward in this pandemic…

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Join us Dec 3rd for the next Pandemic & Food Systems Roundtable on Dec 3rd

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Join us for the next monthly Pandemic & Food Systems Roundtable happening on Thursday December 3rd from 1:30-3:00pm Pacific / 2:30 – 4:00 Mountain. These monthly meetings provide space for those involved in food systems (farmers, food processors and businesses, non-profits, local government) who live and work in the Columbia Basin to discuss our work, our challenges and to help find a path forward in this pandemic – for the immediate and the long term.

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Join us Nov 5th for Pandemic & Food Systems Roundtable

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Join us for the next monthly Pandemic & Food Systems Roundtable happening on Thursday November 5th 1:30-3:00pm Pacific / 2:30 – 4:00 Mountain. These monthly meetings provide space for those involved in food systems (farmers, food processors and businesses, non-profits, local government) who live and work in the Columbia Basin to discuss our work, our challenges and to help find a path forward in this pandemic – for the immediate and the long term.

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World Food Day 2020

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Imagine you and your family live in a lovely house. It is the place you grew up in. The doorframe into the mudroom has notches that documented yours and your siblings growing bodies over the years, as you got taller and taller – and now there are new notches tracking the growth of your own children. Out in the backyard, there is the most awesome tree in whose branches you played, swung and built the tree fort, and from those lofty heights you surveyed the world around…

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Helping Out

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It is early October and it’s still warm enough to have the window beside my desk open. I can hear gardening sounds that keep distracting me. Across the alley from my house lives an elderly Italian woman named Domnica. She is trimming a very impressive grape vine on her property. I moved to this neighbourhood at the end of January this year. We had just started to locate all our belongings and enough space amongst the detritus of our lives to begin looking outward towards our new neighbours when the pandemic hit BC. Suddenly all my plans for connecting with our new neighbours, of finding common interests over the fences and moving towards shared meals and garden harvests…

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Brilliant Beans

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I gathered my second harvest of dry beans the other day, when we had a long enough break from autumn rains to dry down the pods. It was a welcome exercise that followed an earlier and larger harvest. It was during my first harvest that I took note of the bean pods not yet ready and still others far from harvestable. This obligation to return to complete the harvest once, perhaps twice, is nature’s way of ensuring that there will always be food and seeds, of fostering food security. …

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Rural Slaughter Modernization – Call for Input by November 16

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The BC government has released an intentions paper and is seeking input on how to make slaughter more accessible and viable for livestock producers.

Fields across the Central Kootenay have long been home to assorted grazing animals. From the earliest settlers here, livestock have made important contributions to farm income streams, community food security and to soil fertility. For many people in rural and urban communities, the provisioning of food has included the culture and practice of sourcing meat directly from the farmers who raise the animals.

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COVID-19 & Food Systems – New Meeting Schedule

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The Food Policy Council continues to engage with those involved in food systems (farmers, food processors and businesses, non-profits, local government) who live and work in the Columbia Basin to discuss our work, our challenges and to help find a path forward in this pandemic – for the immediate and the long term.

We are now meeting monthly on the first Thursday of each month.

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