The Nipissing First Nation community is celebrating the launch of a new project called Mnogin Greenhouse, located on Jocko Point Road. This greenhouse was announced in December and is growing lettuce and other leafy greens as a way to solve foot shortages and food insecurities.
Tending to the plants inside the greenhouse is manager Makenzie Jones, who knows this operation is going to play a role in supplying herbs and lettuce. The greenhouse opened with its first seeding in late June.
"We actually just had our first harvest this week, and we're slowly starting to ramp up," said Jones. In 2016, when Indigenous communities started facing food security issues, the idea of opening such a greenhouse started to sprout and grow.
"Food security was on the radar, but it's really in our face now," said Nipissing First Nation Business Operations Manager Gen Couchie. "It's extremely exciting to have the capacity." Mnogin Greenhouse is made up of four trailers. Two of them are already up and running with vertical row-on-row growing of different lettuces and herbs. A third trailer will be launching soon for more produce growing, while the last trailer is set up for packaging and distribution.
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