By Adam Donnelly

Urban farm helps strengthen food security in Kamloops

Aug 4, 2020 | 7:13 PM

KAMLOOPS – If you travel along Clapperton Road in Kamloops, there’s one property that stands out. Located just behind the Butler Auto and RV lots, it’s owned by the same family; instead of trailers, it’s a working urban garden, which produces a cornucopia of fresh food.

“These are Jalapeo peppers here. We’ve got Purple Ruffles Basil here – the darker coloured things. We’ve got tomatoes there, more black beans, and then zucchinis are off in the distance there,” Kevin Pankewich explains.

Kevin Pankewich is the farm manager at the Butler Urban Farm. He’s in charge of the bounty of produce currently growing on the North Shore lot, which has undergone a significant transformation over the past several months.

“When we arrived here in April, this lot looked like a dustbowl,” Pankewich explains. “A weedy dustbowl, at that.”

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You couldn’t tell that by looking at it now. Peas are ready to be picked. Tomatoes are ripening on the vine. Cabbages are prepared to be plucked. It’s come a long way since Glenn Hilke first drove by about six years ago.

“I saw this empty lot. I’d passed by it thousands of times,” Hilke says. “That day, for some reason, I thought ‘wow, this would make a great garden.’ So I went looking for the owner. I found someone crossing Wilson Street, who told me the owner was Joe Butler, the owner of Butler RV.”

Hilke went to Butler to make a case for the farm.

“When I explained to Joe we could make a great garden here that could produce food – free food for the food bank and other agencies in town, emergency, good, fresh, organic produce, Joe said ‘Okay, that’s done,'” Hilke recounts.

The property has since been passed to the hands of the Kamloops Food Policy Council. The veggies produced on the farm are bound for several destinations, including the recipients of the Gleaning Abundance program.

“We already have a list of agencies who can use the produce,” Sandra Frangiadakis explains. “We’ve already been taking them fruit; now we can take them vegetables, as well.”

Board member Jesse Ritcey believes there is a bright future ahead for the farm project. The council just recently found out the project has been awarded a $30,000 grant from Peavy Industries.

“Just the potential here for this to be a neighbourhood, community hub. The education, the spin-off, the benefits there, here on the North Shore is just amazing,” Ritcey says. “It’s hitting that food security and the community development aspects.”

For Pankewich, the biggest bonus has been the buy-in from volunteers throughout the community.

“A lot of my job has been to get the work started,” Pankewich explains. “I keep saying over and over, to no end that I’m taking credit for the work other people are doing here because it really is the volunteers that make this happen.”