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Deep Roots Food Hub has built a community-funded, off-grid, above ground root cellar, on NCC land just east of Kanata, to benefit local, small-scale farmers wishing to store post-harvest root crops. By capturing the ground's geothermal energy and using solar panel collectors to power energy-efficient air circulation fans, very low operational costs are incurred.
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We are an expanding group of Ottawa-area residents striving to achieve a more locally-resilient food supply network involving small-scale food producers, community food distribution organizations, and nutritionalists focused on increased availability of healthy and locally-grown vegetables.
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Our History |
Deep Roots Food Hub began in 2015 when members of the local small-scale farming community and health-focused individuals got together to promote healthy eating habits and growing and distributing nutritionally-rich foods grown in the West Carleton area. As months passed, a focus developed on storage of root crops, into the winter months, to prolong the availability of locally-grown root crops. Research was done on building a root cellar and now (2021), five years later and with significant community funding, a unique rood cellar has been built, just east of Kanata, and is in its first year of operation.
The beginning of the current winter (2020/2021) provided a period of unusually warm temperatures that provide a challenge, but we were able to maintain the near-optimum storage temperature range of +2 to +5 C through high-tech monitoring and physical efforts. This was possible thanks to the building's heavy insulation and solar energy, from three small solar collectors, to power air circulation fans which brought into the building cool night-time air and dispersed warm air rising from the constantly-warm ground beneath the building. Our challenges going forward are to optimize the volume of vegetables that we can store and develop a guide for users of our root cellar to follow so that their produce arrives at our facility in optimum health and ready for storage. |
Donate Now
There are two donation options:
1. To make a small donation involving no receipt for tax filing, click on the Donate button below.
2. a) To receive a receipt for tax filing purposes, double-click on the following: "Carp Health Access" and then click on the provided link. This takes you to our supporting partner's Donation button. - Click on their Donate Button to (at the bottom of their page) and make your donation. Be sure to specify, in the provided box, that your donation is to go to Deep Roots Food Hub.
2. b) Send a cheque, made out to "Carp Health Access", with a comment that the deposit is to go into Deep Roots Food Hub's account.
Thanks to BigSteelBox for the donation of a storage container for non-produce materials. For more on BigSteelBox's community support see: https://www.bigsteelbox.com/location/ottawa/ |
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