Students enjoy fresh kale buds at the farm.

2014 Loutet Farm Year-In-Review

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a community hub...

The North Shore Neighbourhood House’s Edible Garden Project operates Loutet Farm as a social enterprise that creates social, environmental, economic and educational benefits for the community while building a plant to plate local food system.

Entering its fifth growing season, Loutet Farm is a community hub

that brings together hundreds of neighbours to get their hands dirty, buy produce, and celebrate food. It is a place for students to meet the worms and discover their love for kale.

We are re-imagining the use and role of public parkland, and Loutet Farm is the first of its kind in the region.

“It turns out that growing and sharing food also grows our neighbourhoods.”

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The North Shore Neighbourhood House’s Edible Garden Project partnered with UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the City of North Vancouver in late 2010. On February 26th, 2011 we held a groundbreaking ceremony in the snow at the new Loutet Farm site. The next several months focused on building the farm – bringing in soil, building fences, a garden shed, hoop house, and sowing the first seeds.

In our second growing season, 2012, we focused on building the health of our soil. This included composting a lot of diverted waste materials (grass clippings, manure, leaves, etc), using cover crops, and sheet mulching. We installed drainage and irrigation systems that improved soil quality and use water more efficiently.

Our third growing season, 2013, brought increased capacity through farm infrastructure and significant improvements to our educational programs. We built a new hoophouse, tool shed, added two honeybee hives, and improved our composting system. The new volunteer practicum program had three potential future farmers experience a full season of hands-on farm learning. Our Fed Up program nearly tripled the number of primary age students engaged in unique field lessons. Interpretive signage provided insight into our programs for our community neighbours and dog walkers.

looking back...

Growing Numbers2011

217 volunteers800 volunteer hours

$3,600 revenue

2012276 volunteers

1299 volunteer hours460 event participants

200 student visitors$18,000 revenue

2013 348 volunteers

2018 volunteer hours835 event participants

520 student visitors$32,000 revenue

2014 473 volunteers

3116 volunteer hours1942 event participants

572 student visitors$42,000 revenue

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sold-out markets

beautiful veggies

hemlock table

a snapshot of 2014:In 2014, Loutet grew as a social enterprise and demonstrated that our goal of meeting financial self-sufficiency through farm-generated revenue is well within reach.

We increased our efficiency and ability to track data by introducing a new point of sale system for our farm gate sales. We put our new system to the test as popularity of our farm gate sales grew significantly and community neighbours lined up every Wednesday and Saturday. We continued to enhance our relationship with Maplewood Farm and used their glass greenhouse to grow hundreds of vegetable transplants that we sold at Loutet Farm gate sales. We continued our volunteer internship program, and trained three more potential future farmers.

The donation of a huge pile of beautiful lumber from Neptune Terminals was one of the highlights of 2014. Neptune discovered an old growth Hemlock log on their property during construction and had it milled into lumber for the EGP. With this wood and the special help of two outstanding community members – Michael Agrios and Rick Ericsson – we built a 16-foot long celebration table and a shelter to cover the table and upgrade our farm processing area.

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This year we also worked with the North Vancouver School District 44 to establish an agreement to develop and maintain our first Schoolyard Market Garden at Sutherland Secondary School. By 2015, Loutet will have a sister farm in operation at Sutherland, just 5 blocks away!

In order to help raise the funds for the new Sutherland market garden, we hosted our first Farm to Feast fundraiser dinner at Loutet on a beautiful evening in early August. The event was a success with over 70 community supporters enjoying a fantastic meal prepared by the Whole Foods Market team during the height and beauty of the Loutet growing season.

farm to feast

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visit the farm and literally jump up and down with excitement when we tell them the first kale of the season is ready to taste test (We’re proving that kids actually DO like Kale). The daily parade of nearly seventy dogs walking their owners, ever alert to the delicious smells of freshly turned compost pile, keep an eye on the Farm for us. And what better way to end of each month from spring to autumn, than to wash the damp soil from our hands and sit down to share a meal sitting amongst the vegetables that are nourishing far more than just our bodies. North Shore residents are thinking about how food impacts both their own health, the health of the community and the environment and are actively participating in broad food policy change in the community.

This project is supporting local food production and helping to create a more food secure community. This year, over 470 volunteers participated in hands-on activities on the farm and have donated over 3100 hours to support the project, and hundreds more line up twice a week for farm gate sales. On average, 200 school children benefit from monthly programming on the farm and are learning to connect how food can impact not only their own health, but also the environment and their community.

community supportIn-ground bed image

The initial enthusiasm for Loutet Farm has been the tip of the iceberg. As each season has passed we’ve been blown away by the community participation and support, only to be even more amazed the following year when more people join us at the farm. Loutet Farm is actively being used by the community as a site for learning, skill building and social interaction. We are successfully modeling sustainable food production, and engaging the public in why this is important. We have enthusiastic support from neighbours and the City of North Vancouver who see Loutet Farm as a successful re-imagining of public parkland.

We invite groups of all sizes and ages to help us on the farm and learn how food is grown. This includes a range of groups and individuals from corporate teams, to high school field trips, to individuals looking to get their hands dirty.

Rain or shine, people of all ages make their way to the farm. They share seeds saved in Italian gardens decades ago and brought to new homes and veggie patches on the North Shore. They test the definition of “waterproof” as even torrential downpours won’t stop the deeply committed from building a fence or turning a pile of manure. We can’t help but grin after Brooksbank Elementary students

eager pumpkin patch participants volunteers hard at work

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In our start-up year (2011), we sold only $3,600 worth of produce. In 2012, our first full growing season with all essential infrastructure installed we were able to grow and sell $18,000 worth of produce (4,100 lbs). Through substantial gains in soil fertility, product and market diversification we generated $33,000 in 2013, which covered our core costs. Primarily through increased efficiency and marketing we were able to increase our revenue to $42,000 for 2014, meeting our target for the season. We are well on our way to reaching the breakeven revenue point of $52,000 by the end of the 2015 season.We would like to thank the Vancity enviroFund, Metro Vancouver Urban Agriculture Awareness Grants, the Radcliffe Foundation, Neptune Terminals, and Whole Foods Market for their financial contributions that have made our work at Loutet Farm possible.

Whole Foods co-hosted our first Farm to Feast fundraiser dinner at Loutet Farm in August 2014. We look forward to partnering with them to create this annual event to raise funds, awareness, and community.

financial update

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challenges

We would be able to increase our efficiency and harvest quantities if we had access to refrigeration and improved infrastructure and space for processing post-harvest. How much we can sell is limited by the amount of produce we have time to harvest before markets, or are able to store without refrigeration.

With our newly constructed celebration table and shelter, we will improve our post-harvest efficiency. Having functional cold storage / refrigeration on site or close by would spread the harvest through the week, ensuring more variety at markets and that everything that is harvested is sold. The ability to store harvested produce also increases our ability to supply local restaurants and retail outlets, thereby adding more diversity to our marketing channels.

We need an electricity hook up in order to install cold storage. As we increase the number of public events we hold at Loutet, another advantage to having electricity on site would be to have lighting for ambience and safety.

Customers at our very popular Farm Gate Sales have expressed how much they love being able to buy local food right in their neighbourhood and how they consider it a weekly community event. They have also expressed that they wish that they could purchase a diversity of local products (ie. meat, dairy, eggs, preserves, baked goods, fruit) and have refreshments and entertainment (ie. coffee, smoothies, pastries, buskers) so they could spend more time and visit with neighbours.

One of our longtime volunteers is interested in taking responsibility to manage a small pocket market with 4-5 additional vendors at some of our Saturday farm gate sales. She would check business licenses, collect table fees to cover costs, and manage a small number of vendors to ensure a good mix at each “pocket market”.

Being able to increase the product diversity and community draw of our farm gate sales could significantly increase both our marketing potential and our positive impact on the community.

without cold storage, our sales are limited by what we can harvest immediately before a market

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2014 in numbers...56 produce sale days generating $224 to $1513 per day

$37,000 and 7300 lbs of produce harvested and sold ($42,000 overall revenue)

Salad Greens were our biggest income generator

($4431.50), with carrots coming second ($2992.00)

473 volunteers worked on the farm

3116 volunteer hours logged

3 volunteer practicum students trained

500 cubic yards of “waste” diverted from the landfill and used at Loutet Farm

Over 550 children from local schools and summer camps experienced the farm and sampled farm produce

Minimal vandalism/theft

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As we move into our fifth season, we look forward to:

• Improving marketing, public awareness and outreach• Maintaining community support and enhancing volunteer opportunities• Continuing to engage Brooksbank Elementary students and summer

day-camps• Enhancing our harvest and processing infrastructure to increase

efficiency• Continuing to enhance our market and sales systems to sell more

produce while increasing customer satisfaction• Increasing farm gate sales and onsite fundraising events to reach our

5-year target of $52,000 in farm revenue from Loutet Farm• Developing the Sutherland Schoolyard Market Garden, having a

successful first season operating two urban farm sites.

goals for 2015

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thank you!The success of this project would not be possible without the support and enthusiasm of City of North Vancouver Mayor, Council, and staff. We appreciate your vision and your ongoing support, funding and enthusiasm.

We welcome you to visit Loutet Farm any time!

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local food supports a healthy environment & community

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2014

Contact the Edible Garden Project to find out how you can support us, buy our produce, or get involved.

Layout: Kristi Tatebe

Graphics: Sandra Hansen Design