Sept. 18, 2013, Vancouver — Local support for a Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) research project is no small potatoes.
Sept. 18, 2013, Vancouver — Local support for a Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) research project is no small potatoes.
Last Tuesday, Vancity presented Dr. Kent Mullinix, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems (ISFS), with an enviroFund grant for $75,000 at the North Delta branch.
The donation – supported by proceeds generated through the bank’s enviro Visa credit card – will go to produce the institute's Sustainable Agriculture Enterprise Budget Series.
Over the course of the next year, the series will assess the economics of small-scale agriculture production to supply a sustainable food system in southwest BC through alternate marketing channels.
The ISFS will produce 30 production budgets that small-scale, direct-market farmers can use for effective farm business planning. These basic up-to-date farm planning tools represent a broad range of crops and are directly applicable to southwest B.C., but are not currently available locally.
These production budgets are part of a larger ISFS project to design and plan for a sustainable, regional food system and to create a methodology for food system design and planning that can be adopted and applied to other regions around the world.
“It is our hope that these production budgets, and the bio-regional food system design and plan, will provide powerful information and tools that support us all working together to create a sustainable food system future that contributes much more substantially to the economic, social and environmental vitality of our region’s food system,” says Mullinix.
This year, the Vancity enviroFund is supporting the development of an ecologically sound, viable and resilient local food system through this year’s grants.
Click here for more information on KPU’s ISFS sustainability initiatives.
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