Poop and hydroponics: a Nunavut community’s new approach to fresh food

A Memorial University-based program donated 12 of these hydroponic bins to Arviat’s greenhouse initiative, which grow produce under LED lights. They’ve been distributed to 12 Arviat households, where residents have the option of selling their produce to local stores. (PHOTO COURTESY OF K. LINDELL)

Arviat greenhouse coordinators Keenan Lindell, left and Megan Gavin measure plants in their community operation. This year, the group is growing lettuce, radishes, spinach and beets. (PHOTO COURTESY K. LINDELL)

Arviat greenhouse coordinators are already pulling up ripe radishes. The group has experimented with different locally-sourced fertilizers, and found goose poop among the most effective. (PHOTO COURTESY OF K. LINDELL)

What do goose poop and food security have in common?

It’s a more appetizing connection than you would think.

Like any greenhouse initiative in Nunavut, sourcing the soil is half the battle — the cost of shipping bags of soil north by plane or even sealift can be costly.

When the Arviat Wellness Society launched its greenhouse project in 2013, the group began experimenting with local material and home-grown compost to cut that cost.

After testing a number of local fertilizers, like seaweed and caribou stomach, the greenhouse group looked to the abundance of goose poop in and around the Kivalliq community.

You could call it the manure of the North, and it’s proven to be one of the best sources of local fertilizer for the Society’s greenhouse project, now enjoying its third harvest year.

Just ask greenhouse project co-ordinators Keenan Lindell and Megan Gavin, a Grade 12 student at John Arnalukjuak high school.

The pair have already been pulling up fat radishes and crisp lettuce, with beets and spinach on the way.

“We had a bunch of kids help us plant seeds and they kept coming back to see how the plants are growing,” Lindell said. “It’s a great feeling to see how excited they get. We hope that this will encourage people to eat more vegetables.”

Once the produce is ready, the group announces it on radio and posts photos to a local Facebook page, so residents can come by to pick some up.

The group usually saves some produce to deliver to the local elders centre.

But the greenhouse project is outgrowing its walls this year.

When the project first launched, the Arviat Wellness Society had distributed grow boxes to locally families, with the goal of encouraging small home gardens.

That aspect of the project got a boost this year, when a Memorial University-based program called SucSEED donated 12 hydroponic bins to the initiative.

The compact bins use a LED light so crops can grow year-round.

Lindell said there are now 12 Arviat households growing vegetables. Once they start to harvest that produce, the SucSEED program can help those growers sell their produce to Arviat stores, he said.

Lindell estimates the bins cost about $3 a week in power, and use 90 per cent less water than regular soil-grown produce.

“If these bins work out then the potential impact they could have is enormous,” Lindell said.

“Imagine every community in Nunavut had several [households] growing produce that they sold to the local stores?

“This will be a source of income for the growers as well as be less cost for the stores to buy locally, which also means the produce would cost less for consumers.”

While lettuce might not be the most sought-after food item in Inuit communities, Arviat’s Wellness Society surveyed the community to find out what they wanted as far as access to produce.

Community members responded by saying they don’t buy produce because it’s expensive and often not fresh, Lindell said.

“People also said that they would buy more produce if they knew it was grown locally and by people they know,” he said.

“I would love to see these bins in every community in Nunavut.”