15Apr 2025 by admin
Introducing the Food Shed

Introducing the Food Shed

Featured News, L2T Updates, News
You may have heard our very exciting announcement with the Ministry on March 17. Allow us to share a bit more, and in doing so start from the beginning… On my first day in my new role with Land to Table in May 2018, I met with a group of folks at the Rancho Vignola warehouse in Armstrong, including the owners. We spoke about the potential for their building to house a community kitchen and how to support a farmers co-op. Not long after, during meetings with local food stakeholders, as follow up to a 2018 forum that L2T hosted (on Growing the Local Food Economy), I heard many times over that the North Okanagan region needed a food hub - a place and dedicated staff to oversee aggregation, marketing…
Read More
11Dec 2024 by admin
Recap: Indigenous Food Sovereignty Workshop

Recap: Indigenous Food Sovereignty Workshop

Event Recap, L2T Updates, News
Recap: Indigenous Food Sovereignty Workshop In November, Land to Table co-hosted an Indigenous Food Sovereignty workshop on the "From the Ground Up: Toolkit for Indigenous Food Sovereignty Planning" in Revelstoke with the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (WGIFS), the Indigenous Friendship Society of Revelstoke (IFSR) and the Revelstoke Local Food Initiative. The toolkit is a comprehensive guide developed by WGIFS, who brought three staff to facilitate the three-day workshop. The event gathered Indigenous food champions for facilitated discussions and activities and built shared understanding within a network of organizations and people leading Indigenous food projects. Participants included staff from Interior Health, School District 22, The Lower Samilkameen’s Ntamtqen Community Garden & Food Hub, Xeni Gwet'in Climate Readiness Initiative, Colville Tribes Language Program, Indigenous Rise Up Wellness, the Cwelcwelt Kuc…
Read More
26Apr 2024 by admin
Equitable Access, Nutritious Choices: Dietitians’ Guide to Food Bank Purchasing

Equitable Access, Nutritious Choices: Dietitians’ Guide to Food Bank Purchasing

Featured News, L2T Updates, News
Equitable Access, Nutritious Choices: Dietitians' Guide to Food Bank Purchasing We extend our gratitude to Seamus Damstrom and Linda Boyd, Public Health Dietitians with Interior Health's Healthy Eating and Food Security Program, whose expertise enriches this discussion. - During our Rural Food Banks Study project, it became apparent that food banks and food security organizations are having to purchase more food than ever before to keep up with program demands. Typically, food banks rely on food donations as the bulk of the food they distribute. As purchasing budgets increase and food organizations are forced to make food procurement decisions regularly, food banks and programs are finding themselves in a position of choosing what food is offered to their food insecure clients. Since most of these programs have historically relied on donated…
Read More
26Apr 2024 by admin
Rural Food Banks Study

Rural Food Banks Study

Featured News, L2T Updates, News
Rural Food Banks Study Over the last year, Land to Table (L2T) with Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Institute for Sustainable Food Systems (ISFS) conducted a Rural Food Banks Study in collaboration with Community Connections (Revelstoke) Society, and 4 rural food banks, to help understand and co-develop solutions to the unique challenge of feeding people in rural communities in British Columbia, in the face of increasing demand for food bank services. As the demand for emergency food services increases country-wide, during a time when  public and private monetary and food donations have been at an all time low, these rural food banks decided that working together was the best way to address shared challenges including:over-stretched budgets and staff coupled with ever changing circumstances amid ever increasing demand. Funded by a generous, anonymous…
Read More
31Jan 2024 by admin
2023 Reflections

2023 Reflections

Featured News, L2T Updates, News
Another year has come and gone, and the learning and growing we experience at Land to Table persistently keep us on our toes. We remain genuinely grateful, interested, and engaged in local food systems work. In last year's reflection blog post, I used the phrase 'settling in' to describe Land to Table in 2022. During that year, we further clarified our role as a network through capacity building and fostering connections across many different organizations and sectors. We worked to ensure that more of the food grown here reaches the people who live here. We have always emphasized that without local farmers and their ability to grow farm businesses, our food security is limited. For that reason we will continue to draw links between the local food economy and community…
Read More
04Dec 2023 by admin
Feel-Good Stories from 2023

Feel-Good Stories from 2023

Featured News, L2T Updates, News
Perhaps you’ve heard (cause we’ve shared a few times now)… New this year, Land to Table has been collecting an inventory of the fresh food needs of local social service agencies and food banks across the North Okanagan. This work is a result of the “value chain development” we have been doing in conjunction with UBCO - to connect organizations who care about using purchasing dollars toward ethical/sustainable food, to the farmers who produce said food! Through strong leadership values, advocating for more local food and clear food purchasing goals at Turning Points in Vernon, we were able to connect a local farmer to Turning Points Food Service Manager. Read to hear the farmers experience of that connection: ​​As soon as we completed our first delivery to Turning Point in…
Read More
30Nov 2023 by admin
Sowing the Future: Land to Table’s Ongoing Commitment to the BX Ranchlands

Sowing the Future: Land to Table’s Ongoing Commitment to the BX Ranchlands

Featured News, L2T Updates, News
As we approach the end of 2023, it's time to shine a spotlight on one of our favourite projects. The BX Ranchlands (BXR) represents the opportunity for community-led growing and infrastructure development for greater food security and resilience, all wrapped up in a beautiful 135 acre parcel of land! Land to Table (L2T) Network has been deeply rooted in the plans for this site since our inception in 2018 - mostly in supporting the visionaries (i.e. the BX/Swan Lake Residents Association and RDNO Electoral Area Directors for areas B and C) and advocating for it to remain in public hands. As the year draws to a close, it's heartening to see our collective efforts continue to sprout opportunity, and step-by-step progressions toward  a vision for community resilience through farming. Nurturing a…
Read More
05Oct 2023 by admin
OKIB Sun Valley Ranch: Grasshopper Update

OKIB Sun Valley Ranch: Grasshopper Update

Featured News, L2T Updates, Regional News
Our Land to Table Network is an incredible community of people helping each other share information, resources, and knowledge to support our local food system. This summer, we shared that Okanagan Indian Band's Sun Valley Ranch was struggling with a grasshopper infestation that was decimating their crops. We urgently asked the network if anyone had bug netting they could donate or sell to OKIB, and you responded! Here is a big thanks to Mike Randell, Area C Director of the Regional District of the North Okanagan and president of OK Apiaries, who donated and delivered lots of shade cloth. And thank you to Kirk Hughes from Kootenay Covers Okanagan who also offered netting he had in stock and free delivery. The food security folks at Sun Valley Ranch have not…
Read More
15Dec 2022 by admin
L2T Reflections 2022

L2T Reflections 2022

L2T Updates
In a word, 2022 for Land to Table felt like “settling-in” (technically two words)... for us this has meant gaining clarity about the value of a Network organization, including growing in our capacity building role; being creative about how we partner to access funding, and house our growing L2T team; and focussing in on two clear streams of work (value chain development and community food security). We continue to be guided by a vision to build a thriving, healthy, just and resilient regional food system... And believe that a well connected and coordinated network, with a shared purpose and vision can create meaningful systems change in the North Okanagan.  Here is how we think about the roles that we play as a Network: The first is to build a connected…
Read More
25Oct 2022 by admin
L2T October Highlights

L2T October Highlights

L2T Updates
Land to Table was busy this month. Here are some of our highlights from October. On October 5th, Network Director, Liz Blakeway attended the United For Food Summit, hosted by United Way BC (one of our key funding partners) at the Red Barn on the traditional territory of the Tsawwassen First Nation (TFN). What a treat to meet in person, exchange stories with fellow Regional Community Food Hubs and learn about TFN “celiselem” Community Farm. It was encouraging to hear about UWBC’s commitment to working with partners on the ground to create greater access to funding, streamline reporting, and provide greater support toward community impact and advancing advocacy. On October 22nd, we hosted a farm tour for a group of students and staff from UBCO. Tour stops included farms and…
Read More