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In The News & Speaking Engagements

Who knew that farming was such a sexy story? We've been lucky enough to garner attention from some incredible food bloggers and magazines as well as many well respected mainstream news organizations. Please note that articles prior to 2017 refer to us at "Urban Digs Farm." We rebranded Blue Sky Ranch in 2017. We've also been invited to speak at a number of food related events around Metro Vancouver. Here's a collection of all of the above:

Julia Speaking on "The Future of Food"

To learn more about us, what we do, what we believe in and how you can "Occupy Your Food System," watch Julia's opening talk before keynote speaker Joel Salatin at the Langley Sustainable Agriculture Foundation's event, "The Future of Food."


Julia Smith: Occupy your Food System from Julia Smith on Vimeo.

 

Julia Speaking at Burnaby Food Matters Forum

Speaking to a group of food industry professionals and conscious consumers just up the road from our 3 acre Urban Farm where we got our start:

 

Edible Vancouver

We are so thrilled to be featured in this beautiful magazine. Read about how a backyard homestead on Vancouver's West Side grew to become Urban Digs Farm and now Blue Sky Ranch.  Includes some beautiful photography too!

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Vancouver Sun

Artisanal Meat is the #1 Food Trend for 2017. Boutique butchery, heritage protein — call it what you want — it’s what people want. In B.C., chefs and caring-home cooks increasingly look for pasture-raised meats from smaller producers such as Urban Digs Farm....

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CBC Early Edition

CBC's Margaret Gallager visited us at the farm in Burnaby as part of the new Burnaby Big Bend Farm Tour.

Start listening at 1:29

CBC The Current

Not long ago, the biggest moral dilemma would-be meat eaters faced, was whether or not to put meat on their forks. Today, with the proliferation of options like "humanely raised," "grass fed," "free range," and on and on, there's a lot more to chew on. Our own farmer, Julia Smith is featured with Dr. Temple Grandin & others in this radio documentary.

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Vancouver Sun

Dave Matthews Band eat locally grown foods on tour
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It's to Die for Vancouver

Burnaby's Urban Digs Farm all set to feed Dave Matthews Band
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Vancity Buzz

Small Bites: Burnaby's Urban Digs Farm fed the Dave Matthews Band
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Burnaby Now

Dave Matthews 'digs' local farm
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Breakfast Television

We visit Urban Digs Farm and talk to a local leader in the ethical and sustainable farming movement who helps us separate fact from fiction and make informed choices about the food we buy.
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Vancouver Courier

Canada Day recipes including the Urban Digs' Canada Day Maple Bacon Burger
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VancouverScape

While today’s blog isn’t a discussion for vegetarianism, the idea of community farms and knowing where your food comes from, is.
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Burnaby News Leader

Burnaby's Urban Digs Farm is celebrating the launch of its artisan butcher shop with a charity fundraising event on Friday, June 26.
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Cooking By Laptop

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I am a big supporter of food that is locally grown, and seasonal. I also tend towards food that is made from scratch, with whole ingredients.
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Vancouver Sun

Slow meat takes commitment — to organic principles, to sustainability, to treating animals ethically and to slowing your own life down enough to enjoy food again.
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Western Living

In the high-end, sustainable meat game, it’s all about quality over quantity. That’s why the new artisan butcher shop, Beasty Shop, has opened its doors in Vancouver’s deep southwest neighbourhood with just one butcher—Felipe, formerly a stockbroker in his native Brazil— and a self-imposed limit to how much bacon patrons can make off with each week.

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Vancity Buzz

To better serve their clients and to meet the demand for true artisanal-style butchery in Vancouver, Urban Digs Farm has expanded their territory to include a standalone wholesale butchering facility in the city called the Beasty Shop.
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Vancouver Sun

Julia Smith of Urban Digs Farm will head to Denver, Colorado, this week for Slow Meat 2015, a conference dedicated to sustainable meat production
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The Province
We are featured in this story about increasing consumer demand for ethically raised meat. Check out our boar "Will" on the front page! There is a great video that goes along with the story if you click through.
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Slow Food Canada

Slow Food Members to represent Canada at the Slow Meat Event in the US.
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Burnaby News Leader

Cute video made during an early season visit to the farm. Great shots of the animals.
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Burnaby News Leader
Reporter Wanda Chow got the scoop on the story of our new meat shop. Read all about it!
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Montecristo Magazine
Sandwiched between ads for sparkling diamonds and luxury cars is a surprising article about how Urban Digs is reducing food waste and raising happy pigs and delicious pork along the way.
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#trulyethicalBC Farm Tour
Food writers Catherine Roscoe Barr and Erin Ireland have set out to visit local farms and see with their own eyes how they operate. We were their first stop.
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The Bounty Hunter
Melissa's account of her visit to the farm is a real treat thanks to her stunning photos!
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Eat Magazine
Amidst office buildings and residential homes in the Big Bend area of South Burnaby sits three acres of agriculture property known as Urban Digs Farm.
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Global TV News
The news crew caught up with Julia on a delivery to Fable Kitchen and wanted to know what why we love the new We Heart Local Ap.
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Vancouver Observer "My Five Faves"
Julia's top picks for the very best “farm-to-table” restaurants sourcing from small-scale, local farms employing sustainable and ethical farming practices.
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CBC Early Edition
Lindsay from Re-up BBQ chatted with Rick Cluff about The Beasty Box.
Listen at 2:01:30 to hear the interview!
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CTV News
A local farm has identified consumer wishes of online shopping convenience and the Buy Local movement and is trying to meet demands — with meat.
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The Province
Burnaby’s Urban Digs Farm is preparing for their spring Beasty Box program, which will provide subscribers with weekly boxes of sustainable meat, including beef, pork, lamb, chicken and duck. 
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Buy Local Eat Natural
We recently had the chance to chat with Julia Smith, owner of Urban Digs, and a huge advocate of the “buy local” movement. We talked about what urban farming really is, why it’s important, and what Urban Digs is up to in our community. 
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FoodLine Radio
Trevor Bird, head chef and owner of Fable Kitchen and Urban Digs' own Julia Smith joined the nice folks at FoodLine Radio on Monday for a chat about "Nose-to-Tail" butchery, sustainable meat & delicious recipes. You can listen to the 
podcast here.

"The Smart Foodie" 
Tasleem interviewed Julia about "what does it mean to ethically raise animals?" See Julia's answers
 here.

Vancouver Sun
At Urban Digs, a new-old approach to agriculture puts the care and compassion back into pork. 
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Burnaby News Leader
Cool story about our many partnerships and relationships with like minded local businesses who are trying to operate more sustainably. 
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Vancouver Sun
Julia stopped by the Vancouver Sun studio for a chat with Randy Shore and co-host Mike Bell about urban farming, CSA's, gardening tips, foodie headlines & more. 
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Food Talks
Well, not really news... more of an event. Food Talks brings together speakers with different backgrounds and roles from within the food community. Julia was a speaker at a recent event and you can watch her presentation online.
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Burnaby News Leader
Our 2013 harvest box program was featured in the News Leader. So happy for the exposure in our new community!
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Burnaby News Leader
Wanda and Mario dropped by to check out Burnaby's newest farm (us!), meet the critters and chat about urban farming
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Globe and Mail
One of our super volunteers, Theresa, was interviewed about her experience volunteering with us for this story in the Globe. 
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Vancouver Sun
Chatting with Randy Shore about the summer bounty and transitioning from summer to winter crops.
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Vancouver Sun
Our chicken farm manager, Ann was interviewed by Randy Shore at the Vancouver Sun on the subject of ethical meat.
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Vancouver Mom
Earth Day is just around the corner, and gardening season is in full swing here in Vancouver. Little green shoots are popping up all across the city, in community gardens and back yards and sometimes even where they’re not wanted. This seemed like the perfect time of year to talk local food on the VancouverMom.ca podcast, and we found just the Vancouver mom to do it with.
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Vancouver Sun
Prepaid contracts with local farmers mean B.C. families can skip produce aisle 
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Vancouver Is Awesome
Today we introduce a new video series we’ve partnered with. Produced by Fire and Light Media Group, “Meet Your Urban Farmer” is a series that takes an in-depth look at different urban farmers in greater Vancouver, bringing you a little bit closer to the food you eat! 
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Rabble.ca
In an effort to renew our connection to the food we eat and to confront an increasingly unsustainable global food economy in the most neighbourly of ways -- the urban farming movement is gaining popularity in Vancouver. 
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CNN
Future Cities continues to explore why Vancouver continually tops the liveability index charts, this week looking at the city’s commitment to local food production. We meet the urban farmers who are growing tons of food in tiny spaces, all part of Vancouver’s ambition to among the most sustainable cities in the world. 
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Vancouver Sun
Thousands of B.C. families will skip the produce aisle at the supermarket this summer and instead buy their whole season's worth of fresh vegetable from local farmers, paid up front. 
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Watershed Sentinal
Amidst the concrete and skyscrapers of the city sprouts a determined group of folk who are turning backyards, balconies and vacant lots into a green oasis of food. 
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CBC's Early Edition
CSAs have become trendy. Community Shared Agriculture is when you purchase a share in a farm (like Urban Digs in Vancouver) in the Spring and from June through Fall you receive boxes of freshly harvested local produce.  Now the idea has caught on with  CSFs or Community Supported Fisheries (like Skipper Otto's Community Supported Fishery)  Is it a thrifty deal? 
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Fire & Light Media Group
Meet Julia and Ludo of Urban Digs Farm in this first short film in our Meet your Urban Farmer series. This is the extended interview version.
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UBC Thunderbird
Commercial farming on residential plots remains illegal in Vancouver, despite the fact that local food production forms a key pillar of Vancouver’s plan to become the world’s greenest city by 2020. Insurance companies don’t cover operations that contravene municipal by-laws. It’s a by-law the city’s commercial urban farmers say needs to be changed. 
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Vancouver Sun
A former organic farm may be returned to production under a deal between local urban farmers and a Burnaby religious group. 
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Master Gardener Association of BC
Food deserts are typically most prevalent in low socio-economic minority communities but as it turns out, the nature of Vancouver’s west side is such that a combination of lower density housing and zoning that deters food business has put us in a vulnerable position where local food security is concerned. 
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Globe and Mail
Vancouver's growing urban farming movement. 
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Pressreader.com, Vancouver Is Awesome, Notey.com