Let’s gather the herd and chat!

If you’re a farmer – do you make enough money? Do you have all the water, equipment, time you need? Let’s get together and discuss some options.

A week Thursday, on November 28th, will be our first Farmers gathering, 6:30 at Celista Hall. What I’d like to get from this meeting is a good idea of the challenges that our local farms are facing, if there are any thoughts about how to fix those challenges, and also to talk a bit about what efforts are currently in place to try to make things better. I hope that we can get lots of the North Shuswap farmers, and from other areas too, to come out for a discussion of the state of farming in our area.

Some things we’ll chat about are:

• Common challenges
  • making a living
  • transition/aging out
  • labour
  • housing
  • water resources
• Need for more local production
• Opportunities for local sales/tourism/year round retail
• FRIENS a non-profit – what they do, future plans/projects/prospects
• SEDS – Ag Task Force – what they do, future plans/projects/prospects
• Where do we go from here?

There are a couple of groups, a non-profit and a committee, that are specifically focused on agriculture in the area. In the North Shuswap we have FRIENS (Farm Resources, Infrastructure and Education in the North Shuswap) and on a more broad level the Shuswap Economic Development Society has their Agriculture Task Force. Both groups are run by farmers and each in different ways are working towards a better and more profitable farm life in the Shuswap.

If you are a farmer, or are interested in these topics, please join us for an interesting evening discussing how to make you more money, make the job of farming easier, and making the Shuswap more self-reliant for food.

If you have questions, get in touch – Jay Simpson, JSimpson@csrd.bc.ca or 250-517-9578

Thursday November 28th, 6:30 at Celista Hall for Farm talk!