Shuswap Food Conversations

In this episode Warren's guests are Melanie Bennett and Mary Rodriguez with the Shuswap Food Action Society. Melanie will outline the spring and summer programs for SFAS including what's going on at the John McLean Community Garden, the Community Teaching Garden and with Project Grow, the youth gardening contest. Mary oversees the School Food program for School District 83 and will update us on the successes of the past year and how the School Food program is having a positive impact on the health of children in our community.

In this episode listen to Warren's interview with Dr. Navin Ramankutty, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Data Science for Sustainable Global Food Systems at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Ramankutty's research program aims to understand how humans use and modify the Earth’s land surface for agriculture and to determine the implications of these modifications for the global environment. His research aims to find solutions to the problem of feeding humanity with minimal global environmental impact. Navin and Warren will talk about his life growing up in India, how he came to Canada, and how he hopes his research will help to improve the way we grow food and feed the planet.

This week Warren welcomes Christine Tether, Manager of the Downtown Salmon Arm Farmers Market. Christine will share her experience coordinating this weekly event and working with the many vendors who attend the market. She and Warren will talk about Christine's past roles as a Biologist and her life raising three (soon to be four) children with her partner on their homestead in Notch Hill.

Warren welcomes back Dr. Keith Williams of Athabasca University to talk more about indigenous agriculture practices and returning to the theories of land stewardship that our first peoples have followed for centuries.

In this episode you will hear Warren's interview with Dr. Cary Fowler, an American agriculturalist who served as the U.S. Special Envoy for Global Food Security from 2022 to 2025. He was previously executive director of the Crop Trust, which has a mandate to ensure "the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide." Dr. Fowler is known as the father of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which currently houses samples of more than one million distinct crop varieties. In 2024 Cary Fowler received the World Food Prize for his work on seed genetics and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

In this episode Warren welcomes Denise Griffiths and Larissa Stagg of the Sorrento Village Farmers Market. Market Manager Denise and Society VP Larissa talk with Warren about the origins, growth and success of the market that has been running on Saturdays in Sorrento (May to October) for twenty-five years. You will hear all about Larissa's bee keeping business and about the other artisans, brewers, farmers and foodies who come together every week to make the Sorrento Farmers market a great destination for anyone living or travelling in the Shuswap.

This week Warren's guests are Adam and Jenna Wall of Purple Pasture Homestead in Salmon Arm. Working on Jenna's grandparent's land, they started their homestead in 2019 while living in a 26 foot trailer. Now well established, Adam and Jenna are regulars at the Downtown Salmon Arm Farmers Market. Their goal is to be as self-sufficient as possible. They grow their own food, raise their own animals, do their own canning and baking and bring their delicious food to sell at the Farmers Market every week.

This week Warren's guests are Jade and Isabelle Shamen, Quoc Nguyen and Amelia Jensen, all members of the recently formed FRIES Society. This new organization in the Shuswap is dedicated to making available the equipment and infrastructure that local food growers need to establish their farms and help to rebuild our local food system. FRIES encourages using regenerative farming methods to protect our water, to rebuild our soil and to provide the local community with nutritionally dense foods. The group is coordinating a food equipment cooperative including farm implements, transport equipment and food processing equipment such as a grain mill. In addition the team is developing facilities for local food storage.

This week Warren's guests are Kevin and Joy de Vos of Foxtrot Dairy located just off Hwy 97B near Enderby, BC. Joy and Kevin have been running Foxtrot Dairy on Kevin's family land for decades. Now, they have opened Foxtrot Dairy General Store on the property and are offering educational tours of the dairy, local produce and dairy products, and their own farm raised beef. Kevin and Joy are long time 4H leaders and the family has been deeply involved in the community for many years. Listen in to hear about Foxtrot Dairy's latest endeavor and make a plan to visit Foxtrot Dairy soon.

In this episode Warren's guest is Salmon Arm City Councilor Sylvia Lindgren. Sylvia and Warren talk about the role of the City's Environmental Advisory Committee and its relationship to preserving the environment for sustainable farming and food production in the Shuswap. The EAC mandate is to protect, maintain and enhance the natural environment in accordance with the provisions of the Environmental section of the Official Community Plan. Some upcoming projects include an anti-idling campaign and setting up community seminars in conjunction with local nurseries on drought-resistant and fire-safe landscaping.