EVENT RECAP: Kootenay Farms Food Hub Tour

On Sunday, November 14th, the eighth event of the Young Agrarians 2021 Farm Club series took place virtually, offering viewers at home a tour of the Kootenay Farms Food Hub in Creston, unceded traditional territory of the Yaqan Nukiy.

This event was a collaboration with Fields Forward Society. The tour provided an inside look at the new facility providing access to community-based processing equipment at affordable rates and an opportunity to ask the Hub’s Project Manager questions by chat on Zoom.

The Kootenay Farms Regional Food Hub produces juices from fruits and vegetables, packaged vegetables for institutions, bottle jams, freeze-dry products into powders, and provides other food processing services like a commercial kitchen, mobile vegetable washer, vegetable cutter and a processing line with bottler and bagger.

It also offers an aggregation and distribution service, and sales support. A dehydrator and cold, dry and freezer storage is planned for the future. Businesses can rent the equipment or hire Fields Forward’s staff on a fee-for-service basis.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in, for your great questions and to Elizabeth and Stephen for giving us an informative tour! If you’re interested in learning more about using this space or its services, please contact info@fieldsforward.ca.

If you’re interested in producing, processing and value-add, the Basin Business Advisors Program is offering a multi-part webinar series called “Mythbusting the Wholesale Food Market” throughout February and March 2022. Learn more and register here.

Learn more about Fields Forward:

Fields Forward Society is a food and agriculture initiative in Creston and District working to build a vibrant and productive local agri-food. It has a mandate to support and sustain the community’s environmental, indigenous, social, cultural, economic and aesthetic values. In addition to the new Food Hub it owns a community fruit juicing machine used by the region’s orchardists.

Learn more: https://www.fieldsforward.ca/regional-food-hub/

Additional Information

• Check out the rest of the events this season in this blog post. Don’t miss an update by subscribing to our Columbia Basin/Kootenay newsletter!
• Join our Young Agrarians Columbia Basin Facebook Group to stay up-to-date with all events.
• If you have any questions please contact Hailey@youngagrarians.org.

GOT LAND? WANT LAND? 

Through the B.C. Land Matching Program, Young Agrarians is offering support to farmers looking for land for their farm business and landowners looking for farmers to farm their land. The Columbia Basin Land Matcher will be attending the event to answer any questions about accessing land through this program. For those unable to join us, you can send a message to hailey@youngagrarians.org for more information.