FEBRUARY 2020 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
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Partnerships facilitate Langley learning farm The two-acre site will promote farming in the region
by RONDA PAYNE
LANGLEY – Three years of fostering partnerships has led to the launch of a learning farm in the Towship of Langley aimed at raising awareness of agriculture in the community. Langley Learning Farm began as the brainchild
of Gary Jones, a horticulture instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. He developed the concept after receiving calls from local schools about how to set up gardens and food-growing education programs. A presentation to Langley township’s
Agricultural Advisory and Economic Enhancement Committee in 2016 received a warm reception. Representatives from the Langley Sustainable Agriculture Foundation on the committee embraced the idea and ran with it, and the foundation is now the lead community partner on the venture. Situated on two acres in the eastern section of
the Derek Doubleday Arboretum, the farm operates as a partnership between KPU’s School of Horticulture and the LSAF as well as School District 35, Langley Environmental Partners Society (LEPS), Seyem’ Qwantlen Business Group (the economic development wing of Kwantlen First Nation), Arboretum Botanical Society of Langley, Langley School District Foundation and the township. LSAF is taking take the lead on the project. LSAF secretary Carol Paulson says the farm is gaining ground. “With Langley Senior Secondary, we’re
developing an Environmental Sciences 11 and 12 course,” she says. “The environmental science kids can grow vegetables in an environmentally sensitive way, see how it’s done, harvest them.” The program is expected to start in fall 2020.
Fraser Creek runs near the area being used by the learning farm, so working on riparian health will tie into LSAF’s existing ecological services initiative. Students will have hands-on involvement in the foundation’s work. “Other things are longer term,” continues
Paulson. “We want to put in an area of indigenous plants and heritage plants with signage.” This falls in line with existing areas created at the site according to Al Neufeld, deputy director, public spaces and community initiatives with the township. “We’ve been developing themed gardens and
areas for the public to learn about plants and sustainable gardening principles like composting, sustainable water capture, different types of plants, the cultural use of plants,” Neufeld says of the arboretum. “It’s an excellent addition down there on a couple of acres that we haven’t immediate plans to use.”
Central location LSAF holds the licence from the township to use
the property for the learning farm. The formal agreement creates a centralized location for community-based food skills. There will often be people on site to help answer questions and provide support for aspiring and actual farmers. Future plans will require capital, but a food forest including fruit trees and bushes is in the works as well as an incubator farm for those who want to get into farming. “People who want to experience one crop season will be able to plant it, manage it and sell the produce and then go on to their property,” says Paulson. “We’re also thinking about putting some sort of an urban container garden in – a transport container – and retrofit it so that it can grow
vegetables. Anybody can come and see and learn how hightech container gardens can work.” Neufeld adds that it’s an opportunity for the general public to be exposed to farming and learn more about it in the context of the arboretum, which has long offered community garden plots. “We have had community gardens there for a
while,” says Neufeld. “That’s the first stage of encouraging people to grow their own food. I think the learning farm is a bigger endeavour because there will be bigger plots as a portion of this … for growing food and also encouraging the plans for the Langley Sustainable Agriculture Foundation.” Paulson says LSAF wants to offer additional
programs to complement what is already offered by other groups at the arboretum. For example, LEPS has offered food education to elementary school students through its Nature’s Classroom program for 10 years, say Nichole Marples, executive director. “[The learning farm] will provide extension to the high school level,” she says. “It will also be a venue to provide further support to classroom teachers who champion garden programs at their schools. It will support school food programs, encourage food self-sufficiency and engage a new generation of potential farmers.”
The centrally located site on Fraser Hwy makes it visible and engaging to the public. “Langley is a highly agricultural community, and
this provides more opportunity to engage the public in farming, and potentially encourage future farmers who will steward our ALR lands into the future,” says Marples. “It’s food competency, and the interest in local
food and the interest in food competency is very high right now,” says Paulson. “We like to provide a place to learn.”
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