The Yukon government continues to work on a local food strategy.
“It’s a five-year strategy. What we’re doing with that is we’re taking small steps to promote government purchase of local food. We’re trying to get a government policy in place that if they have a special event, they have to consider local food and if not, provide a reason why they didn’t purchase it,” said Randy Lamb, an agrologist with the government of Yukon.
There are several initiatives outlined in the strategy, ranging from providing low-cost lease options for agricultural lands, improving access to food and researching cold climate food production.
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“We have the different initiatives listed that we tied to food security: community food access, community food processing, community backyard food production and nothing wasted. But the rest is about our industry and helping it to grow and become more established and diversified,” he said.
According to Lamb, there has been diversification with vegetable production and growth in the livestock industry.
“Twenty years ago, we would’ve had, maybe, one herd of cattle with 50 head and it was a remote homestead operation. In the last five years, we’ve seen one producer in the Whitehorse area, he had a field with about 100 head which, for us, is quite big.”
Lamb added that the Yukon Agriculture Association has set up a website that includes a Yukon Farm Products and Services Guide.
“We’re doing little steps like that that are helping to link all the producers together.”
As well, a new page was created on the agriculture branch website to help producers in the region learn about selling to government.
The Yukon government also plans to soon develop a marketing campaign to work with farmers and grocery stores on how to better promote Yukon grown products, he said.
