SPIN Intensive: Urban food for health and profit

Ladies and Gents,

Due to some recent feedback and changes to our schedule this course has been redesigned from it's 3 day intensive format to a one day workshop. Our aim is to open the course to wider range of people and increase the accessiblilty in term of time and commitment.

Hope to see you in class!

Grow urban food for your family, your

livelihood & your life.

Is growing food in the city for profit and health a pipe dream?

Is it crazy talk?

Not from this man...

Curtis Stone, a musician, tree-planter, composer and up until 2 years ago had never even touched a seed.

For real.

Two seasons later he makes his living, employees a farm hand and is now a leading voice in the field of urban agriculture all because of 4 little letters...

SPIN Farming

An acronym for:

Using the benefits of urban living (front and back yards, as well as organic matter) to create organic produce that provides a healthy life and a healthy living, Curtis will pass on his knowledge in a 3 Day workshop on not only the hard skills of growing food but the highly essential and commonly overlooked soft skills of farming as a business.

This will be his one and only workshop on the west coast this year.

For those of you itching to find out all the details of his workshop...

Nuts and Bolts of the Event

When: 

Sunday April 22, 2012

9-5pm

Where:
 

Fernwood Community Centre 

1240 Gladstone Avenue, 
Victoria, BC V8T 1G6 

Free parking is available on both sides of the street in front of the community centre. There is also free parking on Pembroke St on the side next to William Stevenson Park. There are a couple parking lots on Gladstone Avenue that are connected to Victoria High School. These may be free in the evening and could also be used.

Cost:

$110+HST

Payment can be made in full using credit card. Click on the Register Now button below or contact us for alternative payment methods. There is non-refundable $50 fee for this course. Click here to learn more about our refund policy.

Course fees include all classroom instruction, field trips and course materials including the SPIN Farming BASICS.

Alright, now that you've got the basics let's go into why you want to spent the time, money and resources to come out and learn from someone who's not only growing incredibly tasty food (to which I can attest) but someone who's making his living off growing food and providing for an employee.

Why take this course?

• learn how to grow more food in less urban space

• learn how to MARKET, ORGANIZE, SELL, DISTRIBUTE, BUDGET and ACCOUNT your farm

• connect with others in the urban food production movement

• learn more of the skills needed to grow and sell your own produce

What specifically will I learn?

SPIN farming one day workshop outline

General Topics:

An introductory look at the basic concepts and practices behind SPIN farming. This section starts with a walk through of a working urban farm.

•  Introduction + Green City Acres
•  Intro to SPIN
•  Basic Ideas
•  Land Base
•  Basic Investments
•  High Road/Low Road Concepts
•  Work Flow
•  Work Rate

Production:

A more extensive view of the day to day field operations of a SPIN farm, from planting and harvesting techniques, to farm layout, design, and soil discussions.

•  Bed and Plot Preparation
•  Types of Beds
•  Planting
•  Harvesting
•  Work Station
•  Soil Issues/Fertility
•  Pest Control
•  Season Extension
•  Irrigation

Marketing:

This section covers all the fundamental market streams, income, as well as market strategies, planning, and promotion.

•  Marketing Channels
•  Pricing
•  Farmers Markets
•  Marketing Weeks
•  Self Promotion

To finish off we have the...   drum roll please...

The Top 5 Reasons you'll love being in this course

(Lets be honest there's probably 10 reasons but we wanted to keep this short...)

Reason #5: SPIN Farming - It's agriculture revamped for the city.

SPIN is the first organic-based production system for land bases under an acre in size, and it can be implemented by aspiring and practicing backyard, front lawn and neighbourhood lot farmers everywhere. All you need is to equip yourself with the right gear and a radically new understanding of what it means to be a farmer. SPIN provides everything you’d expect from a good franchise: a business concept, marketing advice, financial benchmarks and a detailed day-to-day workflow. By offering a non-technical, easy-to-understand and inexpensive-to-implement farming system, it allows many more people to farm commercially, wherever they live, as long as there are nearby markets to support them.

Reason #4: The Permaculture BC Advantage -

Retention, Inspiration & Application

Permaculture BC is being known as a company that offering learning opportunities from the student's perspective. Our end goal isn't to have an instructor talk in front of you for three days, it's to provide every possible opportunity for information retention, inspiration and application. Simply, we want you to succeed and we'll do everything without our learning tool box to promote your learning.

Reason #3: The Instructor - He's been there, made the T-Shirt and wore it out farming.

Curtis Stone, here's a farmer who before venturing into SPIN had never touched a seed. If he can do it... so can you. He's experience and perspective are worth the price of the course alone, however you'll walk away with more then just that. You'll hear how he prepped his community, created relationships with local restaurants, sourced his organic matter, and how he did this all on a bike... a teacher who's actually worked in this field and accomplished something spectacular in a short time. Doesn't get better then having a SPIN Farming Yoda provide what you want to learn without all the backwards speech, "Learn farming, you will. Hmmmm". 

Reason #2: The Materials - A farmer is only as good as her tools... here they are!

Curtis will be reviewing the tools of the trade. Not only of production but also in marketing and transportation. A great review of the tools, software, marketing methods and even a little bit about bicycles... everything he uses to ensure that he produces, provides and presents valuable and tasty food to his customers.

Reason #1: Timing - Timing is everything...

Maybe you're following stock prices and their volatility, the amount of national food storage and price of food, the Occupy Movement or just generally seeing the decline of natural systems and supply lines. It's what we in permaculture call "The State of the World" and it's a motivating factor (if not THE motivating factor) for what we do. Growing food for ourselves and for profit is just a smart move when you come right down to it. Not to mention if you grow and sell food you always have a market, as I hear those homo sapiens sure do like to eat.

Well there you have it ladies and gents, our explanation of why we think you'll not only benefit from this course but how you'll actively become part of the solution towards a regenerative sustainable future that's productive and profitable for you and your family.

We really look forward to having you in class.

Be Fruitful and Mulch Apply,

Javan "SPINing with ideas of urban food" Bernakevitch