Creston food hub opens

A long-awaited food hub officially opened its doors in Creston on October 15, the fruition of eight years of discussion, study and advocacy on the part of locals.

Spearheaded by Fields Forward Society of Creston, the Kootenay Farms Regional Food Hub and Innovation Centre provides local growers and processors with processing equipment and facilities, an aggregation and distribution service, and sales support. Businesses will rent the equipment or hire Fields Forward’s staff on a fee-for-service basis.

The province gave $500,000 to Fields Forward and the Regional District of Central Kootenay this spring to finalize development of the food hub, which locals have been advocating for since 2013. The province is providing a total of $800,000 over three years to support the initiative.

In addition, the Columbia Basin Trust contributed $150,000 to purchase commercial-grade equipment for the facility. The funding follows on previous allocations to support feasibility studies.

“The Columbia Basin Trust has provided Fields Forward with tremendous support over the last three years. We couldn’t have succeeded with this Food Hub initiative without their ongoing interest and support in food security and farming,” says Elizabeth Quinn, executive director of Fields Forward.

The hub is one of six now operating in the province, with an additional six set to come online in the coming months as part of the province’s $5.6 million food hub network.

All hubs are being considered as locations for mobile seed cleaners being developed under the aegis of Vancouver-based FarmFolk/CityFolk, which is leading a BC Seed Hub initiative funded by the BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.

The project is looking at the potential of adding in-hub infrastructure or mobile cleaning units at food hubs in different regions of the province.

“We have been able to build four mobile seed cleaners,” the society reported last week, expressing appreciation for provincial funding to do so. “In the not-so-distant future, these trailers will be housed at partner locations across the province.”

According to the province, those locations have yet to be determined.

“FarmFolk CityFolk are continuing to consult with different food hub operators to determine which facilities are most interested and appropriately located and sized to include seed processing equipment,” a statement from the agriculture ministry said. “At this time, the Kootenay Farms food hub is not involved but potentially could be in the future.”

6 days ago

A BC Forest Practices Board investigation has found overgrazing has damaged grasslands in the Coutlee Range Unit near Merritt — and the range-use plan meant to prevent it was unenforceable. With complaints about overgrazing on the rise and grasslands covering just 1% of BC's land mass, the findings raise fresh questions about how the province manages one of its most vulnerable — and valuable — food-producing ecosyste#BCAg#BCAg ... See MoreSee Less

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MERRITT – A BC Forest Practices Board investigation has found instances of non-compliance related to overgrazing have damaged open grasslands in the Mine pasture, part of the Coutlee Range Unit near...

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Several ranchers in recent years have gone into temporary non use on that range , so that means the grass should grow. But drought conditions/lack of rain and snow don’t allow that to happen . Dried up springs , creeks waterholes in various pastures add to over grazing where there is water , as livestock and everything else stay close to the water source . So even though less cattle are on it , over grazing appears. There is a large volume of horses on it 365 days/year which is wrong ! They pull grass right out of the ground when it’s just trying to grow ,, opens the door for weeds to grow in. That don’t help it. Aging infrastructure ( fences) laying on the ground, pipe line building , ( lack of commitment to fence maintenance) amongst all users contributes also to over grazing. Recreational atv users leaving gates open between pastures allows livestock to go back or ahead in pastures also expidites over grazing. Logging ( bcts) has no problem laying out cut locks on both sides of a fence , then it gets smashed down during logging and they don’t take responsibility to stand it back up or clean the cattle gaurds out when they are done , that happened 4 years ago on pasture 5 up there . I bet it is still not fixed . There are lots of contributing factors to the problem.

Tragedy of the commons.

I looked through the report. I saw nothing about the effects of noxious weeds on productive grasslands. This particular area is vulnerable because of the Ministry’a efforts to diversify the use of the Grasslands.

This pasture is under tremendous pressure not only from cattle but from irresponsible local residents who treat it as a landfill dumping all manner of household debris here. And don't even get me started on the mud bogging and camping in sensitive riparian areas. The feral horses are in this pasture 365 days a year just hammering it. Would sure be nice to see some enforcement action on people who are intentionally ripping up the grasslands and riparian areas. Cattle could be a valuable resource for rebuilding soils and native grasses in this area with the help of electric fencing and/or e-collars. The humans will be harder to manage.

The Forest and Range Practices Act was written by lawyers for global forest licencee shareholders. Results-based = unenforceable.

Also, can we talk about the impact of a pipeline being built through the middle of this field for multiple years?

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