Annual

Farming & Film Night Gala

Co-sponsored with Awareness Film Night

Preserving Farmland

Featuring: 3 short films:  “Hands Off the ALR Townhall Meeting” held in Sidney in November, “Growing Farmers” and “Hands in the Dirt”.

Post screening discussion with Kimi and Kareno, featured in “Hands in the Dirt”, Nathalie Chambers of the Farmland Protection Coalition and members of the newly formed Sooke Region Farmland Trust. 

Kimi and Kareno grew up on Vancouver Island and were a part of the Saanich Organics growers, Richmond Sharing Farm and Kwantlen University Farm School. They are now residents of Finn’s Slough on the banks of the Fraser where they grow organic veggies for Richmond and Vancouver on Sweetdigz Farm. Kimi and Kareno are young and energetic and are farmland activists with “Farm Watch”. They will share with us their passion of “urban farming” and farmland stewardship.

The Farmland Protection Coalition is a grassroots organization of groups and individuals committed to protecting farmland and supporting farmers and food systems in the Capital Region and across B.C.  They recently organized a rally on Family Day in Victoria attended by 1000 people in support of maintaining the Agricultural Land Reserve as it is rather than stripping it of its jurisdiction and teeth as is being tossed about by the B.C. government.

The Sooke Region Farmland Trust has been created to assist in acquiring and preserving land for farmers to work who cannot afford to buy farming acreages in our area and to advance community awareness, local resilience and participation in food security.  “High land values, vanishing ALR land and the loss of processing and distribution infrastructure have undermined local food systems. The trust’s objective is to enrich Sooke as a place to live, work, raise families and share organic, GE-free food”, says Mary Coll of InishOge Farm in Sooke and one of the trust’s founding board members. Founded in the summer of 2013, this is the area’s first farmland trust. Find out about what this means and how you can be a part of it.

Evening also features

  • Booths in the foyer with a wonderful array of locally grown and made products, produce and seeds for sale plus information on growing in the area and land access resources.
  • Tea and gourmet cookies (by donation) featuring local ingredients made by the Culinary Arts students at Edward Milne High School . Bring a mug for tea!
  • Door prizes of garden gift baskets

Don’t forget to bring some cash for the cookies and the locally grown produce and products….supporting our local economy!

Doors at 7, films at 7:30