A popular program that helps Makkovik seniors grow their own food is sprouting — er, expanding

A program that provides free supplies and compost is helping Makkovik seniors grow their own vegetables to help overcome a lack of access to fresh vegetables on Labrador's north coast. 

People have been gardening and composting in Makkovik for generations, but the community government wanted to help make it accessible to new gardeners.

So in 2020, the Makkovik Inuit community government received funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to set up some backyard gardens for seniors during the pandemic with help from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

"It was doing quite well. So we applied for funding through the New Horizons for Seniors program hoping to expand, and that's what we did," said Barry Andersen, Makkovik's Angajukkâk, or mayor.

Now the program has grown from 15 senior gardeners to almost 30 and distributed compost bins. 

"Hopefully with all the backyard gardeners we have here now, we'll see a lot of their own crops being harvested in the fall," Andersen said. "That will go a long way to helping the people supplement their food."

Andersen said they've been growing strawberries, carrots, potatoes, kale, baby tomatoes and more. Even his own father has been able to see things come out of the soil, he said.

"He's just like me — he never grew too much, but he's quite proud of what's coming up in the ground there now," Andersen said. "So it's good to see that."

Gardening in the remote, northern community comes with challenges, including a relative lack of soil.

Erica Oberndorfer, a cultural botanist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, said the small amount of soil in the area can be acidic and nutrient-poor, so people have been using seaweed and their own compost to enrich it.

"Even before growing things in Makkovik, people are pretty creative about how they're trying to have enough soil to grow things in," Oberndorfer said. "There's a lot of local sources in Makkovik in the environment that can amend those soils and that have produced this great variety of crops."

Oberndorfer said seeing seniors in their gardens is the best part of the work. Some are lifelong gardeners, while others are growing things for the first time, she said. 

"What's been so rewarding is seeing the network of people informally that likes to talk about things and get together," Oberndorfer said. 

The program is expanding this year with a new Agriculture Canada position. Oberndorfer said there's now a food systems research technician in Makkovik to help support seniors in their growing dreams.