Thank you to everyone who joined us for this event!
– Photo gallery –
– Discover the farm –
Tour Urban Fresh Produce and Chi Garden at Just Food Community Farm, a shared urban farmstead in the NCC Greenbelt, and taste the healthy local food grown on location!
Regeneration Canada is pleased to present our final field-to-fork event of the season! Gather your friends and family and join us on October 1st at Just Food Community Farm in Ottawa, ON, a shared community farming space that offers various training programs and start-up opportunities. We will feature Urban Fresh Produce and Chi Garden, which both operate out of Just Food Community Farm. Chadwick Lewis of Urban Fresh and Sun Shan of Chi Garden will guide guests on a journey through their gardening spaces and discuss their experiences with urban food production and market sales.
Our speakers Joel Williams, soil health educator, and Antonious Petro, Executive Director of Regeneration Canada will discuss regenerative agriculture, equitable land access, community models and the socio-economic impacts that come along.
The day will conclude with a vegetarian family-style meal incorporating ingredients from Urban Fresh and Chi Garden, prepared by Chef Resa Solomon-St. Lewis of Baccanalle.
About the hosts
Just Food Community Farm is where people and projects come together to model and inspire small-scale, viable agriculture businesses and initiatives in the Ottawa region. Located on a 150-acre farmstead in the NCC Greenbelt on the west side of Blackburn Hamlet, the Just Food Community Farm is ideally situated on the #94 bus route and bike paths, with a unique network of pathways that make exploring the varied activities a pleasure. Just Food promotes a healthy local food economy with access to food for all, a vibrant and economically viable farming sector, and a cost-effective conservation and land stewardship model that builds on scientifically based agroecological practices.
Chadwick Lewis runs Urban Fresh Produce, a small urban farm at Just Food Community Farm. Originally from the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, his interest in farming sparked when he began caring for his late uncle’s estate and cultivating over 25 diverse crops. Chadwick was used to visiting Canada often to spend time with his dad, and during one of his travels, he enrolled in the horticulture program at Algonquin College. During the course, he was exposed to various farming practices that led him to join Just Food. Chadwick is passionate about providing healthy food options to others.
Sun Shan was born in Beijing, China, and now lives in Ottawa, where she is an urban farmer and educator with a vast biology and ecology background. In 2015, Sun Shan founded Chi Garden along with her partner, where she combined over 20 years of experience working as a biomedical researcher, conservation biologist, non-profit leader, sustainability educator, and cultural/community interpreter. Her small ecological farm is cultivated as a place for diverse vegetables and herbs, community conversations around food, and connected traditions. Sun Shan is a member of the National Farmers Union (NFU) and its BIPOC group, and is an organizer for the East Asia Earth Village, where a diaspora of producers and creators from East Asia connect and co-create.
– Discover the farm –
About the speakers
Joel Williams is an independent plant and soil health educator providing lectures, workshops and consultation on soil management, plant health and integrated approaches of sustainable food production. Joel has worked extensively in Australia, UK and Canada (where he’s currently based) and has been fortunate enough to lecture to farming audiences internationally. Joel has a Bachelor of Agricultural Science (AUS) specialised in plant and soil dynamics and an MSc in Food Policy (UK) which focussed on food systems, intercropping and agroecological transitions.
Antonious Petro is the Executive Director at Regeneration Canada and a Master’s candidate in soil sciences at UQAT. He has an Undergraduate Degree in biology and a Graduate Diploma in community economic development. Antonious is interested in soil carbon sequestration in agricultural soils and in the ecological services of urban soils. He specializes in simplifying and making scientific concepts more accessible, and focuses on ecology, agri-food ecology, sustainability project management, and citizen mobilization around climate change.
About the chef
Chef Resa Solomon-St. Lewis is an award-winning chef based in Ottawa and the Founder of Baccanalle – Taste the Caribbean Lifestyle. She completed Chef School at Algonquin College and holds a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Ottawa. Resa grew her company Baccanalle in farmer’s markets and community fairs, and they remain a core part of her business today. Baccanalle offers catering, specialty foods, takeout and meal prep and is named among Canada’s top woman-led food businesses by the Food Network. Chef Resa is delighted to be part of Ottawa’s food scene, local economy and Caribbean culture.
