Puddle Produce Farm

Local Ma By Jes ic de Easya Kirby

Brianna van de Wijngaard of Puddle Produce Farm is on a mission to support, build, and diversify the community food supply. Are you in?

If it involves local farming, growing, or food production in Williams Lake, Brianna van de Wijngaard has been a part of it or influenced it in some way. Her passion for growing, promoting, and supporting local farmers and growers is palpable, and she’s been carving a niche for a growing local food sector in the region since she moved there from Victoria in 2013 to start Puddle Produce Urban Farms.

van de Wijngaard spent her first three years in the Cariboo establishing her market gardening business, known as SPIN farming, which used available land on residential properties in Williams Lake for growing and selling food. She converted 4,500 square feet of yard space to productive garden beds. In 2016, she supercharged her business, moving to a 70-acre property in Soda Creek, just north of Williams Lake. Puddle Produce Farm obtained organic certification in 2020, and started a 70-member weekly box program, in addition to attending two farmers’ markets from May to October and selling to Long Table Grocery in Quesnel in the summer.

Clearly, van de Wijngaard still had time on her hands and fuel in her heart. While she was growing her farm, she also served on the board of directors and as store manager for the now disbanded Cariboo Growers Food Co-op for three years, and for four years she served on the Board of Directors for the Cariboo Direct Farm Market Association.

More recently, she was hired to coordinate a new food security project, the Central Cariboo Community Food Hub, improving household and community food security in the region. She was also appointed to the Cariboo Regional District Agricultural Development Advisory Committee in 2022.

With a list of achievements this long, and obvious passion for community access to fresh, healthy, local food, one would imagine van de Wijngaard grew up toddling in a veggie patch and playing in the garden dirt—not so.

“I never gardened or had much of anything to do with growing food until after university,” van de Wijngaard says. “I just didn’t grow up with it, so I didn’t know I would like it. But, I have always been really drawn to environmental work, so I think that plays a big part in my connection to it.”

She volunteered on a farm in Hagensborg in the Bella Coola Valley after graduation, and it was then that she realized how much she loved the physical work of market gardening. “I also realized through that experience that I could be doing something tangible for the environment while fulfilling my need to be outside and working,” van de Wijngaard says. “I felt an instant attraction that I remember to this very day!”

Once she started learning more about gardening and sustainable farming, she also developed a great respect for farmers. “I admire them and their commitment so much, and I wanted to be a part of and support the amazing work that they do,” she says.

And amazing, important work it is, not just the act of farming but also the ancillary work of supporting and promoting local food systems, the way van de Wijngaard does on the daily. It preserves and protects local food security and sustainability for communities—but it is also bigger than that.

“Not only does it improve our own health through better, more nutrient-dense food, but sustainable agriculture can also serve as a tool in combating climate change,” she says. “With regenerative farming techniques, like cover cropping and low or no-till farming, soils can sequester billions of tons of carbon each year and improve nutrient availability for plants and livestock. It may not be the top industrial GHG emitter (10% on average), but I think its ability to transition perhaps more readily than other sectors like transportation and energy is promising or worth exploring.”

Farming and growing is hard work, not just physically but in terms of competition, the constant struggle for fair prices, and because of infrastructure and labour challenges.

“I think one of the biggest challenges farmers and growers face is simply competing—largely on their own—in a very challenging market,” van de Wijngaard says. “I am happy and encouraged to see so much government and community support for local food production increasing recently, but the playing field is far from level quite yet.”

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be, she adds. There will always be grocery stores offering far more than local growers can but supporting local addresses a different facet of the food supply.

Not only does it improve our own health through better, more nutrient-dense food, but sustainable agriculture can also serve as a tool in combating climate change.

Farming and growing is hard work, not just physically but in terms of competition, the constant struggle for fair prices, and because of infrastructure and labour challenges. ”

“I think if we want to invest in community food security— something only local and regional producers can provide—we have to invest in building that system and proactively supporting them,” van de Wijngaard says.

Farmers and growers face high costs for inputs and expenses, which affects profitability, and labour is difficult to secure, given it is most often seasonal work and most growers are already struggling to pay themselves.

“They also face processing challenges in getting their product direct to consumers, especially for local meat producers,” van de Wijngaard says. “It’s a long list, and it is up to communities to help make a difference.”

Of course, the best way to support local farmers is to buy from them as often as possible. This can take extra effort because it means going out of one’s way to get to those producers, but as the sector grows, van de Wijngaard is hopeful growers will be able to build in and support convenient ways for the community to access local food.

“If someone wants to go a step further in supporting local farmers and growing the sector—which is the long-term goal—they could consider reaching out to our municipal, regional, or even provincial governments to voice support,” she says. “We have a very supportive agricultural minister right now, so it’s a receptive time for community outreach.”

Lastly, if you have the time (and prefer to get your hands dirty or get moving!) consider becoming involved in growing the local food sector.

“This could be as simple as organizing something to celebrate and promote local or culturally-significant food or volunteering on a local food project like gleaning or working on a local farm,” van de Wijngaard says. “Even though we have a long way to go to shift the system, every little bit helps.”

Learn more | www.puddleproduce.ca