A Rocha’s “Farm to Families” project addresses the Vancity enviroFund focus area “Producing food close to home”. Building on A Rocha’s Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) program at A Rocha’s BrooksdaleEnvironmental Centre (Brooksdale), the project will expand the CSA to seasonally provide organically grown produce to over 400 people during a 30-week delivery season. Additionally, the project will provide sustainable agriculture learning sessions and workshops reaching over 700 people.
Connecting families to a local farm gives them a direct link to where their food comes from and provides them with healthy sustainably grown food. Eating locally and seasonally is a learning curve, and we feel grateful to be accompanying so many folks on this journey of sustainable eating. The Farm to Families project addresses the following local concerns: local food scarcity in winter, prevalence of degraded agricultural lands, families on low income unable to access healthy food, lack of public knowledge about growing food and sustainable food systems, and the local need for sustainable agriculture training.
The project will support and encourage young farmers by supporting a half-time farmer/educator to work alongside A Rocha’s existing CSA farmer, training sustainable agriculture interns, developing sustainable agriculture curriculum, and offering sustainable farming and food preparation workshops and public lectures.
