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lenn Susan never thought he’d
have a job that married all of his
varied interests — from carpentry
to culinary arts to technology — so
he was pleasantly surprised when
he found himself interviewing for a
position that did just that.
“This fell into my lap,” Susan says of
applying for the position of hydroponic
technician with the Yellowhead Tribal
Council (YTC) container farm project. “I
come from a carpentry and IT background,
but growing food — and growing food with
technology — has been a passion of mine.”
The job — a hydroponic technician —
was more chemistry than carpentry, Susan
says. But a year into the role, he spends his
days tending to crops and testing pH levels
in the facility’s water system.
“It was a big learning curve,” he says.
“Understanding the chemistry of the water
was the big trick. It’s so much more than
adding nutrients … there’s a lot of science
behind it.”
The food Susan is growing — mostly
leafy greens like romaine lettuce or kale
— feeds his community. It’s part of a pilot
project spearheaded by the Yellowhead
Indigenous Education Foundation (YIEF)
and the YTC. The idea is to address a
growing level of food insecurity among
Edmonton’s Indigenous population and the
community at large.
“YTC reached out to YIEF to support
them in seeking funds for a container farm.
Their nation members living in Edmonton
need easier and more affordable access
to food, and container farming begins to
address this need,” says Cheryl Savoie,
executive director of YIEF.
The trends Savoie and her colleagues
were seeing are accurate. Indeed, Alberta
experiences the highest rate of food
insecurity of all Canadian provinces.
Indigenous people who live in Alberta,
on average have a lower income than
their non-Indigenous counterparts and
are, therefore, more susceptible to food
insecurity, were particularly impacted by
inflation and high cost of living.
“It’s an economic constraint. The
inflation, the cost of living, the fact the
living wage is not reflective in mainstream
society, let alone in the Indigenous market,”
Savoie says, adding that need was spread
across a variety of demographics.
“Single parents, single family units and
students just weren’t able to get their needs
met,” she explains. “They were suffering, so
we put together a program.”
So far, that program has been successful.
It can produce hundreds of heads of lettuce
in just a matter of weeks and can stagger
various types of crops so that it continually
produces food. Susan says a single batch of
crops can produce anywhere from five to
eight kilograms of produce all from a single
shipping container. To date, Susan has
harvested and distributed enough plants to
provide 7,280 meals.
Susan believes the model should be
expanded – and, to some degree, it is.
The Alexis First Nation is in the process
of setting up its own container farm.
But Susan thinks the method could be a
solution on a global level to what he sees
as an increasing problem of food supply
and demand.
“With everything being so expensive,
I just don’t think we’re ever going to see
a point where the cost is low again,” says
Susan. “I think this is probably the next
step. These things can be stacked up and
in terms of efficiency, I think growing food
with hydroponics is next.”
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