A Halfmoon Bay mother of three has an idea she hopes will fill the Sunshine Coast's grocery stores with local sustainable produce all year round.
Nicole Huska, a born-and-raised Coaster, has approached retailers about her idea to take under-used land on the Coast and turn it toward producing locally grown organic produce.
"Anybody who has an acre or two in their backyard that they're currently not using, the company, Nicole's Farm, would go and install the farm infrastructure and hire and train a farmer," Huska said.
From that point on, Huska's company would tend to the harvesting and planting of crops throughout the season, using methods geared to the Sunshine Coast's own growing abilities.
By offering up small plots of their land to be farmed by the company, landowners would reap the tax benefits of having their lands considered farm space, as well as reaping a share of the profits at season's end, Huska said.
She hopes the idea will also create living-wage jobs for locals who enjoy gardening and have a talent for producing quality organics.
"I am very socially motivated," Huska said. "I think that business, small business and entrepreneurialism has a profound ability to provide solutions to problems in life."
Huska said she has teamed up with a not-for-profit "business accelerator" to take the enterprise to the next level, once the proof of concept is established, a project that is presently underway.
Many of her inspirations have emerged from the idea of social enterprise, that the benefits of entrepreneurialism can be turned toward social goods like environmental, economic and charitable initiatives.
To this end, Huska has launched an on-line crowd sourcing campaign through Indie GoGo that can be seen at www.nicolesfarm.com where she maintains a blog with tips and ideas for local farming.
"I'm very confident it can be done and I can get it done," she said. "What you grow close to home tastes so much better and is so much better for you than what you get from the store that comes from Chile or California or China."
Huska also has the backing of local grocers who say demand for local produce is very high on the Sunshine Coast.
"It will sell," said Bob Hoy, owner of Gibsons Marketplace IGA. "I believe if she's able to produce a good quality product locally on the Sunshine Coast, I think we'll be able to sell it no problem at a fair market price."
Pointing to the demand for local produce, Hoy said the thing grocers and customers crave the most is the availability of local produce year-round.
"We're going to support her as much as we possibly can," he said. "It's very exciting what she's doing."
