Alida Burke

A double threat, Alida, and her partner Corey, provide not just local and sustainable food – but the unique systems and technologies to grow it, displacing emissions from air freight in the process. The organization they co-founded – The Growcer – empowers communities, retailers, and organizations to grow local produce anytime and anywhere; in places as remote as the Arctic Circle with their hydroponic modular farms. Of 17 current deployments, over half were within Indigenous communities, and 14 were in food-insecure communities in 8 provinces and territories. Collectively, these deployments have produced over 400,000 vegetable servings between January 2018 and March 2020 and the over 20 systems deployed will annually create over 600,000 servings annually going forward – including greens consumed at 3 university campuses! Having been among the first to deploy year-round commercial farming systems in the Canadian Arctic, they now have their sights on several exciting projects to scale their growing social venture!