A group of Toronto students will spend the summer in Nunavut, building a greenhouse where they hope to grow fresh produce for local people to eat.
Food is hard to come by in Canada鈥檚 North. The cold climate and short growing season don't allow most plants to grow, so there are few options for those living so close to the Arctic Circle.
Produce has to be transported in by boat or plane, leading to prices most southerners would consider exorbitant. Fresh fruits and vegetables generally cost about four times as much as in the rest of Canada.
After visiting the small community of Repulse Bay in central Nunavut, a group of Toronto university students decided they would help make affordable, fresh, local food a reality in the tiny hamlet.
"Traveling to Repulse Bay, it felt like we weren't even in Canada," Ryerson University student Sonya Noronha told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday.
"The amount of poverty and food insecurity that is seen in the community was just heartbreaking."
Noronha said many parents told her they forgo eating in order to feed their children.
"We knew we needed to do something," she said.
They've called the project "Growing North."
"It's something that hasn't been addressed sustainably in our Canadian society, and it's about time," Ben Canning, another member of the group, said Wednesday.
Last summer, the students visited the hamlet of Repulse Bay, which will revert to its traditional Inuktitut name Naujaat on July 2. They said they spoke to approximately 10 per cent of its 750-person population, and most people loved the idea.
It will become part of the curriculum at a nearby high school, Noronha said.
"They're just really excited to participate."
The community has donated land for the greenhouse, and put in requests for potatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes.
The students have raised $239,000 to start the project, with donations from Ryerson, Brookfield Institute, other corporate donors and a .
The greenhouse parts are scheduled to arrive by boat on Aug. 15, and will take about a week to put together. Food will be sold in the community at approximately 50 per cent of the current costs, and any money made will go back to maintaining the greenhouse.
If the project is successful, the group will look at building similar greenhouses in four nearby communities.
