The Hornby Island Farmland Trust Society was incorporated as a not-for-profit society in 2013. Our mission was to acquire land and build a community garden. After securing 12 acres along Sollans Road on Hornby Island, our first project, the Donny Farris Community Farm and Garden, began in the spring of 2017. 

 

Since then the garden has expanded 3 times. Currently there are 44 allotment gardens covering 1 1/2 acres, served by an underground gravity based irrigation system.  Six cisterns with a capacity of 30,000 gallons are supplied with water from two surface ponds.  A drilled well is only used after the ponds go dry in late summer. 

 

In 2022, the Society obtained charitable status with the Canada Revenue Agency, making the Society eligible to receive money from charitable foundations, and the ability to issue charitable tax receipts in return for gifts of land and money from individuals.

 

Our second project, building a food storage and food processing facility, began after receiving a grant in 2022 from the Community Economic Recovery Infrastructure Program.