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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The volume of food produced in Yellowknife and across the territory, including community and backyard gardens, greenhouses, and harvesting, is expected to go up in the NWT with a new $6-million investment agreement to grow the agriculture sector.

A major boost in NWT agriculture funding is expected to increase the volume of small-scale NWT food production, such as the agri-forestry done by Arctic Harvest in Yellowknife. Here, Craig Scott of Arctic Harvest holds up some morel mushrooms harvested in 2011. - NNSL file photo

Arctic Harvest, a Yellowknife wild food harvesting company, is among the agricultural companies in the city that have been started with funding from the current bilateral Growing Forward agreement between the GNWT and the federal government, which will bring a $500,000 per year increase starting next spring, for a total investment of $1.2 million per year in the NWT agriculture industry.

"I think it's phenomenal, it's great news," said Mike Mitchell, who started Arctic Harvest with partners Craig Scott and Dwayne Wohlgemuth last year. The business harvests NWT birch syrup, tea leaves, wild berries and elusive morel mushrooms and prepares them for sale.

"I think that a lot of food security solutions depend on government start-up money, so if they've seen the wisdom to extend the fund and grow it, then right on," Mitchell said.

The agriculture funding increase came out of meetings held earlier this month with the ministers of Agriculture and Agri-food from across the country, including Industry, Tourism, and Investment Minister David Ramsay. The current cost-sharing agreement for agricultural investment in the NWT signed in July 2009 is slated to expire in March.

Development of the agriculture sector over the past few years has benefited the city's growers economically through NWT produce sales to Yellowknife restaurant owners and tourists, and has also had a positive impact on the environment, Mitchell said.

"Economically, it's a sideline so it's making us some money, so that's nice," Mitchell said. "But ecologically, the more food you could grow here the less you have to ship up from down south."

Major food producers in Yellowknife include Arctic Farmer and the Yellowknife Garden Co-operatives, which boasts more than 100 members.

Skills transfer investments through groups like the garden co-op have increased the number of people growing their food in Yellowknife with backyard gardens and initiatives like community gardens to nearly 1,000, said John Colford, director of investment and economic analysis for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI).

The GNWT has identified increasing the supply of locally produced food, diversification of the kinds of foods harvested, supporting small business, traditional economies, and lowering the cost of food for families behind efforts to continue developing the agriculture industry across the territory.

"Almost all of our communities have seen the benefit of agriculture development and have expressed keen interest in seeing it continue," Ramsay stated.

The agricultural programs, initiatives, and enterprises that will receive investments through the increased funding have yet to be determined, Colford added, depending on which concepts proposed for Yellowknife and other NWT communities will help build the foundation of agriculture in the territory.

Growing Forward 2 is slated to take effect next April.

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