SWOT Analysis: Implementation Of Community Greenhouses

Implementation of Community Greenhouses – SWOT Analysis Food insecurity is highly prevalent in First Nation communities. Skinner, Hanning, Metatawabin, & Tsuji (2013) suggest that improving food security in remote and northern communities should include “revitalization of traditional harvesting practices, the adoption of sustainable agriculture, and local food production” (p.2). In Fort Albany First Nation (FAFN), they implemented a greenhouse to enhance food security. By implementing greenhouses many strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) became relevant.
Strengths
Implementation of greenhouses in northern First Nations communities brought about numerous potential strengths for the community. Firstly, the greenhouses increased
A major weakness is the time it takes to implement the greenhouses. From the time they broke ground to the time they completed one full harvest was approximately 2 years. This was something the community feared would result in vandalization of the greenhouse. Although vandalization did not happen in this community, the potential in others is there. There was a lack of clarity of who owned the greenhouse. Some in FAFN thought the school owned it or the champions rather than it being a communal structure. Another huge weakness of the implementation of greenhouses is that the community did not receive any prior education on how to care for their produce. Further, they were not taught how to preserve or can produce once it’s full grown. This does leave much to be desired since it is left on a trial and error basis. This can lead to more plants dying therefore, having a less prosperous harvest. Lack of preservation and canning abilities during the research period meant that the community only has food security during times of harvest. This has lead to some individuals researching winter harvest once again resulting in a trial and error phase. Finally, the community had a lack of school support. Majority of the teachers never took their students to the greenhouses. Therefore, these children did not learn how to care for plants and may result in a lack of sustainability as the generations
A huge threat to the community is that the Canadian Government provides a one-time seed funding. If a disease were to go through the greenhouse there would be almost no way of restarting the greenhouse. The threat for disease is even greater because the community does lack knowledge and have been learning as they go. If a disease were to go through the greenhouse the First Nations people may not know the signs of the disease or how to treat it which would lead to the plants dying due to disease spreading. There is also a threat with the care of the greenhouse. A lot of the care is currently placed on the champions. If they lose motivation with keeping up with the greenhouse there is no other person with the knowledge and experience of taking care of the greenhouse. There is also the downfall that the greenhouses are unable to sustain many people. Therefore, to attain food security there is a need for multiple greenhouses to support the community. As previously stated, greenhouses take a long time to build meaning that food security for the whole community will be costly and take a long time to create. They can act on this by getting more help and working faster on building the greenhouses. Finally, food security is only obtained during times of harvest since the FAFN community do not know how to preserve or can their produce. This leads to families