Langley Sustainable Agriculture Foundation

Do you have a passion for environmental education? LEPS is hiring for immediate start! To express your interest, please contact education (a) leps.bc.ca

Have a large berry or fruit tree orchard ? The Langley Community Harvest Program will start up in June this year, gathering everything from berries, fruit, and backyard vegetables for volunteers and food banks. Anyone with extra fruit trees or berry shrubs can register by emailing [email protected]

Join us for a Community Art Plant workshop series this spring. Learn about local plants and how to identify, photograph and draw them! Sign up for all 3 free vi...rtual workshops at http://www.iscmv.ca/events/ At the first workshop on April 21 at 6PM, learn how to identify and safely collect common plants in your neighbourhood. Everyone welcome! This Project has been supported through the Neighbourhood Matching Fund of the Vancouver Park Board.

https://www.langleyadvancetimes.com//langley-farmers-mark/ Check out the article in the Langley Advance Times about Langley Community Farmers Market taking place this summer. Calling on all local Langley Farmers to consider participating in this Wednesday market this year.

Thinking of spreading manure or fertilizer on your field in the next 24h? This is a great tool to assess if conditions of applying manure to your fields are right. Rainfall, saturated fields, high water table - all reasons to wait with your application of manure (liquid and solid). This risk assessment tool gives you a map to pin your location, provides rainfall forecasts and includes soil types in your assessment. Check it out: https://agri-nmp-msa.pathfinder.gov.bc.ca/ Image by Myriams-Fotos / Pixabay

Wow, our Learning Farm is coming together! In conjunction with Langley Sustainable Agriculture Foundation we are having students during spring break hands on, ...distanced and safe working away! From digging soil, to building garden boxes, weeding and planting, it is amazing. We even did a tutorial on fruit tree pruning. It is a great day to be outside!

It’s easy to say that farmland should be preserved for future generations and a whole other thing to make that happen! This story of Madrona Farm on Vancouver... Island is an example of how community support can bridge the divide between an altruistic vision to preserve farmland and a family’s realistic financial needs. https://youngagrarians.org/transition-casestory-madrona/ Learn more about alternative farm transition models at https://youngagrarians.org/bc-transition-toolkit/ #bclandmatchingprogram #bclmp #growbc #bcagri

The path forward for agriculture in Langley can only be a shared road by farmers and policymakers. Join this public presentation to find out how your experience from the fields and barns can land on an Ag planner's desk.

Spring is for spending time in the garden! And this goes for students at Langley Secondary School as well. Thanks to Amanda Smith and her peers at LEPS, students were able to learn soil and farming basics at the Learning Farm since September 2020. We all want to keep eating, now and in the future. Never to late to raise a farmer, never to early in life to get your hands in the ground and grow something.

Recent comment in a farming group: "You all keep throwing out questions about what to do with your soil and everybody just throws out their opinions. For heavens sake, when are you all going to learn that the first thing to do with any kind of soil is to find out what is there first before screwing it up with the shotgun approach." A good soil test starts with good sampling. No matter how big your garden or farm is, you can learn a lot from the results of a soil test. Dig in to soil science and get your soil tested before the planting season begins. Here is a guide to get you started. https://www2.gov.bc.ca//soil-nutr/soil-sampling-guidelines

Langley sure doesn't have the climate that supports the growth of Cork trees, but Langley has plenty of wineries that likely have used this cork for their bottles. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=519975942139717

Sustainable Agriculture and Management of Natural Resources doesn't stop with the finished product. This video, right from Vancouver, shows, that especially products made from natural materials have value even after they have been used for the first time. https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderToday/videos/1183447928754606

Good interview to read or listen to! Author Julian Cribb spoke with Spark host Nora Young about the impact of our current food system and how it can be improved. He says that urban farming holds the key to sustainable food production and that we should take a system approach to the whole food business. Agriculture is a biological progress, not an industrial one. Lets start by looking at all that food waste. https://www.cbc.ca//industrialized-food-production-is-a-ve

Great chance to contribute to the improvement of the Little Campbell River watershed. Your gift will be matched by Margaret Atwood.

Our frst strategy meeting for the Learning Farm produced plenty of action items for the year ahead. Very inspiring to see municipal and community partners actively involved in this process. So grateful for LEPS to support this project with their organisational and grant writing capacities.

Repost from Westham Island Herb Farm. Conversations are always good, especially if food is involved. This month, dig into your local ag scene and see what your farmers are up to. There's more to know than you can imagine.

Are you between the ages of 18 and 30 and interested in shaping the future of the Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector? Apply to become part of the Youth Council through the link http://www.agr.gc.ca//the-canadian-agricultural-youth-co/

#foodfreedomday Plenty to be grateful for: Today is Food Freedom Day for Canada. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) has calculated that by Saturday, February 8, 2020, a Canadian household of average income will have earned enough to pay their entire year’s grocery bill. That's one day earlier than 2019. Read the whole story here.