‘I would love to see Kamloops food-secure’ – food policy chair

By RACHEAL ESTOK

Student, Thompson Rivers University 

Long-time Kamloops resident Laura Kalina is passionate about a healthy food economy in her community. “I would love to see Kamloops food-secure,” said Kalina, author of Building Food Security in Canada and co-founder of the Kamloops Food Policy Council (KFPC).

“Years ago we had many canneries in Kamloops…my dream is to get back to what Kamloops was in the 1940s…they had apple orchards and tomatoes and just a really vibrant agricultural community,” she said.

A self-declared promoter and sharer, Kalina is looking forward to “getting people excited about food security and the abundance that we have in Kamloops ” at the upcoming CommUnity Innovation Lab (CIL) Feb. 3-5 at Thompson Rivers University.

When Kalina first moved to Kamloops in 1987, she saw “a fair amount of food insecurity (and) a lot of single parents not able to feed their families. By the third week of the month, money was running out so that prompted me (to start KFPC) because it was hard to believe that people really didn’t have the food available to feed their families.”

A couple of years later, she realized that “everybody is food insecure. If there is an earthquake in Hope, we’d run out of food within three days.”

The KFPC, established in 1995 as an effort to strengthen the food economy, educates the public on food security issues and partners with local organizations to establish food system’s projects, such as community gardens, public produce, and community kitchens.

“To mentor people and build capacity within the community, finding the right person for the right activity … is what I enjoy doing,” said Kalina.

KFPC’s has many successful projects and partnerships within the community, such as the Gardengate Training Centre, which is run by Open Door, the Kamloops Public Produce Program working in partnership with the City of Kamloops, and the Gleaning Abundance Program.

Kalina believes that one of the KFPC’s biggest accomplishments is getting the civic government working toward a healthy food policy. She hopes the Food and Urban Agriculture Plan will be in place by the end of the year.

“That’s amazing to actually get policy within the city to support sustainable food and urban agriculture. It’s really cool that in the 20th year (of the KFPC) we are actually launching a food and urban agriculture plan,” said Kalina.

Kalina hopes to see Kamloops food-secure by having municipal policies in place that support food security. Her vision includes “more community gardens, more public produce (and) people who are growing food on their front lawn and at bus stops.”

Education about food is important for community sustainability, too. “Farm-to-school programs where we have farmers growing food for the schools, more community kitchens, and more education around food, cooking, and canning” are some of the things the KFPC works toward.

For Kalina, the collaboration at CIL is important for sustainability and for increasing the capacity within the community. “Food security is such a mammoth job and nobody can do it alone. It’s all sectors of the community,” she said.

To learn more about sustainable food economies and to register for CIL, visit http://www.freshoutlookfoundaion.org. The City of Kamloops’ Food and Agriculture plan is at http://www.kamloops.ca/foodsecurity.