The 2021 Mobile Seed Cleaner Tour was an overwhelming success. With a total of 15 stops, we were able to connect with many friendly faces and clean an overwhelming abundance of seeds.
The tour kicked off with our BC Seed Security Program Manager, David Catzel towing the trailer out to the Interior of BC. We were able to connect with Rachel Roussin, the coordinator of Kootenay and Boundary Farm advisors, who helped organize public workshops at our first few stops at Hummingbird Farm in Winlaw, College of the Rockies Creston Campus, and Vince McIntyre Farm in Argenta. The stops in Winlaw and Argenta were for the purpose of cleaning seeds for farmers. At Hummingbird Farm, we cleaned a wide variety of flower seeds grown organically and at the stop in Argenta, we helped clean over 2500 lbs of cover crop seed for replanting and wheat for eating.
Afterward, we spent a couple of days in Kamloops cleaning seeds at SSOL farm and engaging kids in seed security at Butler Urban Farm. Butler Urban Farm focuses on engaging the community around food and provides them with fresh organic produce at no cost. Anyone is welcome to come and harvest or start their own garden plot at the urban farm. During our visit, we hosted two different age school groups. The students had a blast digging for potatoes and we had great discussions about the importance of where our food comes from and how it is grown. We then took to some hand and foot threshing of beans, followed by the Winnow Wizard to separate the chaff from the beans. Students were able to take home some seeds to plant in their garden and hopefully sprout a lifelong interest in seed saving. We then headed north to Clearwater to attend their Saturday Farmers Market and ran a workshop in Dunster the following day that had some participants show up from as far away as Hazelton.