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How to Build a Farmers Institute: South Island Farmers Come Together

January 19, 2024

Formally established just this fall, the South Island Farmers’ Institute (SIFI) represents the efforts of founding members Katie Underwood, Shellie MacDonald, Robin Tunnicliffe, Sol Kinnis, Derek Powell and Christine Fuller, in addition to South Island agrologist Megan Halstead and a whole host of passionate farmers and farmer-allies across the Island. Young Agrarians is thrilled to see a new Farmers’ Institute emerge for the island as a way for farmers to connect with each other and support agriculture in their regions.

In September of 2023, we got on the phone with SIFI founder, Katie Underwood of Peas n’ Carrots Farm, to learn how she and her colleagues have brought their Farmers’ Institute to life over the past few years from the needs, enthusiasm and dedication of South Island farmers.

The SIFI aims to provide a space for farmer-to-farmer networking on South Vancouver Island for the purposes of education, mutual aid, and advocacy. Whether it’s to learn about seed saving, participate in a group harvest party, or brainstorm about agricultural water access, the SIFI is actively accepting new members. Read on to learn about the Institute’s origin story, and mark your calendar for upcoming events.

FROM INITIAL SPARK TO FINISH LINE

Katie attended her first Farmer2Farmer conference for Vancouver Island farmers in 2018 at Saanich Fairgrounds, where she was thrilled to be in the same room as her now-mentor, Robin Tunnicliffe of Sea Bluff Farm. Attending the conference awakened Katie’s passion for farmer-to-farmer networking, and signaled the lack of a dedicated farmer-to-farmer space on the South Island. Katie started thinking seriously about how to develop such a space in her community, but was waylaid in making it happen by the realities of starting a new farm during the pandemic years.

By 2023, years of farmer isolation during the pandemic made the need for farmer solidarity clearer than ever, and Katie was ready to make it happen. In February of 2023, Katie took a few days away from her farm (and her beloved chickens!) to travel up to the Mid Island Farmer Connect, hosted by the Mid Island Farmers’ Institute (MIFI. Long in-person and on-farm conversations with friends and farmers in Merville provided Katie the opportunity to learn and ask questions in real time about the issues facing farmers on the Island, and to learn from the strategies that Mid-Island farmers have taken to address them. In particular, Katie was able to network with Mid Island farmers about their own Farmers’ Institute, which Arzeena Hamir of Amara Farm and many others were working to strengthen in the wake of the pandemic. Bolstered by these conversations and offers of support, Katie finally had the tools, mentorship and vision she needed to get a Farmers’ Institute up and running in her own community on the South Island. 

Katie came back home to Saanich and couldn’t stop talking about the idea of starting a Farmers’ Institute. With the support of her friends and mentors, she started recruiting farmers and farmer-allies across the South Island. Megan Halstead, the South Island Regional Agrologist for the Ministry of Agriculture, along with Shellie MacDonald, Director of Haliburton Farm, jumped at the idea of creating a Farmers’ Institute. Together, they met with 50 South Island farmers to answer the questions: what do you want from a Farmers’ Institute, and how can we best support you?

Katie and her colleagues found that folks really wanted to learn together – about production-specific knowledge, policy, diverse farming practices, and more – and wanted access to the networking opportunities that would make that knowledge-sharing possible. These threads would become the structuring goals of the SIFI.

Next came the paperwork, namely grant applications and formalizing the Institute. At the time time, in the Summer of 2023, Katie and her friends got the ball rolling on farmer-to-farmer education: hosting a seed saving workshop in collaboration with Farm Folk City Folk, gathering together for educational farm visits, harvesting and harvesting Robin’s phacelia seeds together  to raise money for the Farmers’ Institute, and facilitating a cover cropping program in collaboration with the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation.

All of these events and more happened before the SIFI’s first official board meeting in late September, which, if nothing else, is a testament to the dedication and enthusiasm of the many, many farmers – across all of Vancouver Island – who have made the SIFI possible. Thanks to these farmers and their allies, the SIFI is now officially in operation, and can’t wait to connect and provide for South Island Farmers in 2024. 

This year, Katie and her colleagues look forward to connecting with a broader variety of farmers on the South Island, particularly large-scale producers and livestock farmers. They also aim to gather information from sustaining farmers – farmers who have been providing for the South Island community for decades and/or generations – in order to expand the shared farmer knowledge base for having collaborative conversations with local, regional, and provincial governments about issues such as water access and land use. Most of all, they are excited to ring in the New Year with a Farmer to Farmer conference, which you can register for below. 

Business Resiliency Series:

Farmer to Farmer Workshops:

Farmer to Farmer Field Days:

Join the SIFI for the ongoing Sustainer Series on the first Wednesday of each month at 7pm at the Saanich Fairgrounds, featuring a different sustaining farmer at each session.

Facebook: South Island Farmers Institute
Instagram: @sifarmersinstitute
Email: info@sifarmersinstitute.ca

CONNECT WITH YOUNG AGRARIANS:

Got Land? Want Land?

Through the B.C. Land Matching Program, Young Agrarians offers support to farmers looking for land for their farm business, and landholders looking for farmers to farm their land. We’ve made more than 307 matches on over 12,084 acres to date! To learn about available land opportunities, and to learn about the B.C. Land Matching program on Vancouver Island & the Gulf Islands, please visit youngagrarians.org/land or contact the Vancouver Island Land Matcher, Kiyomi Ito, at kiyomi@youngagrarians.org.

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