Nutrition Month Story Spotlight Webinar: Land of Dreams Urban Farm & Community

What does it look like when a farm becomes a meeting place between cultures, generations, and ways of knowing? In this story-based webinar, regenerative urban farmer Rod Olson shares the journey behind Land of Dreams: a living farm and cultural space in Calgary where newcomers and Indigenous people grow food, build relationships, and heal together on shared land. Guided by Indigenous wisdom and built on the simple idea that you don’t have to be a farmer, you just have to want to touch the soil and belong, Rod will walk through the origin, partnerships, and honest lessons learned along the way. Whether you’re dreaming of a community farm, working with the Indigenous community, newcomers, or looking for a model where land and people grow together, this is a story about turning complexity into action.

About the Founder, Rod Olson:

Rod is the original Urban Farmer in Calgary, is a founding farmer member of the YYC Growers Cooperative and mentors new farmers at the Land of Dreams community farm, a project that combines welcoming newcomers, building relationships with our Indigenous community and together regenerating a former construction site to increase biodiversity and grow culturally relevant food. He is passionate about local food and particularly food grown in healthy soil soil. He comes alive when he talks about the soil and its potential as a compelling, living system to take us confidently into the future. As a Certified Nutrition farmer he utilizes regenerative practices building his own data on their impact for increasing water-holding capacity, reversing climate change, increasing biodiversity, and increasing the nutrient quality and flavour of our food. He believes in the saying, ‘we are what we eat’ and when you eat food grown with love that aligns with nature that food will be a source of healing.