Group 11 – Village Vancouver Transition Society – Food Energy Descent Action Plan (FED-AP)
Group 12 – FarmFolk CityFolk – Farm Program Manager
This group was on a mission to unveil the mystery of who exactly the seed saving community is. They wanted to see who was attending the BC seeds gathering conference at Kwantlen and determine just how much knowledge they had, how long they had been saving seeds for, and what they planned on doing with all that information!
They completed their community service learning by volunteering at the conference. During the lunch break they were able to gather the information they needed. They made a questionnaire and determined all of the participants were from BC and that there was no correlation between the size of seed saving operations and years of experience.
The group worked well by bouncing off ideas from one another and divided up section of the work.
Group 13 – The Galiano Club (Community Food Program) – “Galiano Island Community Food and Economic System – The Way to Sustainability”
Group 14 – Delta Farmland & Wildlife Trust – Perennial Woody Habitat on Farms: Challenges & Opportunitie
This group worked with local farmers and conducted literary research to determine the effects of hedgerows on the pest population in Delta farms. They met with their community partner and refined their research topic to evaluate the influence of hedgerows on potential predators of the pests, the pests themselves, and the role of the hedgerows themselves. They did extensive literary research connecting different pests and predators with specific native trees used in the hedgerow stewardship program by the Delta Farmland & Wildlife Trust. A few members were even able to get out there and plant some hedgerows with their community partner! It was a really fun experience that they enjoyed but one that showed them just how difficult planting trees was. The group had a great dynamic and they enjoyed working with one another. They were able to conduct telephone interviews with a few farmers to get some information on the hedgerows and their opinions of their roles on pest management. They described the interviews as very interesting and fun! The farmers seemed eager to share their knowledge and talk to them about everything. They even have plans to have tea with one of them so that they can go over the results of their report together!
Group 15 – Rootdown Organic Farm – Compost tea research and analysis for small farm, sourcing, brewing and testing
This group’s aim is to determine if compost tea is a viable option for use at root down organic farms. Additionally, they want to provide guidelines for future research projects by suggesting recipes for compost tea that root down farms can try. They did extensive literary research on compost tea and even sampled some tea! No, they didn’t drink it – they had it analyzed for bacterial populations.
They spent an entire day at Root Down farms where they learned about the problems the farm was facing, and had the opportunity to shovel sand into bags to help weigh down sheets and protect the farm’s precious organic crops.
One of their group members was already well versed with what compost tea was, so they eventually believed him when he told them it was not the kind of tea you enjoy on a cold rainy day. They had a conflict free semester and are looking forward to finishing their report!