Nakusp's business community has been considering the prospects of launching a community-focused "food hub" to help local producers find a bigger and better market in the village and wider region.
In the first week of April, the Nakusp & Area Development Board (NADB) hosted an event for local producers to discuss the prospects of a food hub. The event, sponsored by the Columbia Basin Trust and Nakusp & District Chamber of Commerce, looked at what kind of framework could drive more support for local businesses.
NADB's Aidan McLaren-Caux had told Black Press Media that Nakusp is working with the Grow & Connect Interior project on a Kootenay pilot to model better supply networks and reduce regional transportation costs for local goods.
Focused on B.C.'s southern Interior, the free online modelling system crowdsources real-time data to help businesses make their supply chains more efficient and draw more traffic, no matter how small or local their markets are.
The project, funded by the $2.5-billion Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership, is operated by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC, whose members include associations representing the province's produce, dairy, beverage, grain and meat sectors.
"They are in their beta phase of testing the software, but we are excited to see how it rolls out and if and how we can participate," McLaren-Caux said by email.
In a statement, Nakusp Chamber president Kristina Mogensen told Black Press Media the goal is to partner with organizations including NADB to facilitate programs, encourage economic development and collaborate around local agriculture, food security, entrepreneurship and distribution.
"The ultimate objective would be to work in tandem with other organizations who share aligned values revolving around economic development and agriculture," Mogensen said. "We hope for it to be a physical space, but at this point the networking, connections and collaboration take priority to support local agriculture and small business owners."
As she listed, Nakusp is home to everything from hobby gardeners, to full-scale farms. Some producers and business owners need as much support as a commercial kitchen, rental space for events, and assistance with packaging and distributing products.
"While that is a wide range, we want to work together to fill as many gaps as we can to fulfil their needs," Mogensen said.
Asked whether Nakusp wants to see a food commons, similar to the work with the Indigenous Friendship Society and Local Food Initiative to build a greenhouse and garden beds for community programming, Mogensen said this is a "great vision" the village would have to explore further.
"Nakusp does have a food bank that works with the local schools," she noted. "There was also discussion of a greenhouse initiative with another organization, however, those 'plans' are in the very early stages and we have no confirmation or insight into how those are going."
Mogensen added the local chamber would love to see Nakusp launch programs for community growing and youth education, in particular.
"The residents of Nakusp and the area have always valued supporting local as much as possible," she said, emphasizing the hope that a food hub would make buying local products easier for the village community and surrounding regions.
"Nakusp wants to see increased food production and agriculture initiatives," Mogensen continued. "Several markets and grocers in our area make it easy for us to shop local. We encompass a large area and are always happy to see more food producers, gardeners, farmers and markets come to life and bring local agriculture to the forefront of our food security and landscape."
Learn more about the Grow & Connect Interior project at .