Northlands partners with Shovel & Fork to expand urban farming operations
EDMONTON, AB – On Saturday, June 14, four beehives accompanied by 80,000 honey bees joined the 31,200 square-foot Northlands Urban Farm located on the southwest corner of the Northlands Campus. The Northlands Urban Farm was initiated in May 2014 in partnership with Shovel & Fork, a company that focuses on teaching food skills that can be used at home such as butchery, preserving and beekeeping. Lactuca Corp., a backyard urban farming operation which primarily grows different varieties of salad mix, is operating the Northlands Urban Farm.
“Our intention is to demonstrate that agricultural production can be a viable use for under-utilized urban land, particularly for the production of high value cash crops,” said Sharilee Fossum, Acting President and CEO of Northlands. “The Northlands Urban Farm will feature programming to educate guests of all ages about how food gets from the farm to their fork.”
In addition to the Northlands Urban Farm, Northlands will also house an apiary (bee yard) onsite to demonstrate beekeeping and honey production. This urban beekeeping operation will be managed by an experienced beekeeper. Urban bee hives will allow Northlands to help create awareness about the role of pollination on our food supply and profile the global challenges the beekeeping industry is facing due to colony collapse disorder – a syndrome where large quantities of bees have been abruptly disappearing.
The Northlands Urban Farm has been the site for two workshops facilitated by Shovel & Fork with more workshops taking place in fall 2014. For more information on Northlands Agriculture initiatives, please visit northlands.com/our-events/agriculture and for more information on Shovel & Fork and Lactuca please visit shovelandfork.com and lactuca.ca respectively.