What is L2T Up to this Year?

Land to Table took on an extraordinary number of projects last year (March 2021-2022 with a summary report coming soon). And from that great work and engagement, there are two clear ‘project paths’ that we are excited to be expanding on over the next six months.

Local Food Procurement through Value Chain Development

With new funding from Feed BC, UBC, and also the RDNO (Rural Economic Development Grant) we are pleased to be expanding our work the focusses on growing the local food economy. Building on the successes and foundation of a first-year collaborations and achievements with UBCO, the focus this year is to deepen our work and impact wit UBCO, expand our knowledge and lessons learned to build relationships with other institutions and undertake some research of our own. Our year two efforts include the following:

  1. Continue to deepen and broaden relationships of cooperation and trust across a value chain (farm to institution) to increase local food procured at UBCO and engage with the campus community to create new local food champions.
  2. Undertake a market feasibility study to better understand the landscape of producers/products available regionally and the market potential for sales of local fruit and vegetables to local institutions and retail channels.
  3. On the strengths of the UBCO model, expand opportunities to support local food procurement to other regional institutions by exploring opportunities for partnership and identifying specific local food items for procurement (through those partnerships).

Community Food Security

L2T is so pleased to continue as a Food Hub Steward with ongoing funding from UWBC Regional Community Food Hub Initiative. See announcement here. This funding is creating capacity for us to bring on additional staff, in order to support the food security program providers in the North Okanagan with a focus to bring more local food to local residents (who access food security programs). In this role Land to Table will expand as an advocate for local food security, and provide capacity building and support to partners through grant writing, direct coordination, and amplified communications. We look forward to hosting a forum in the new year, to share about some of the partner project successes and make new connections for projects in 2023-2024, including sparking connections between local farmers and food security programs in the North Okanagan. We look forward to sharing stories about partner projects over the next six months!

Check out more about this initiative on the United Way BC website here.

You can also view this short UWBC promotional video that Land to Table contributed to this summer (to increase funding to the Hub Initiative pot and help keep funding coming into our region).

If you have any questions about our project focus or want to learn how to be involved, contact Liz, L2T Network Director – liz@landtotablenetwork.com