Hi everyone! My name is Andria and I am a new student intern working with Growing Chefs for the Fall! I am beyond excited to be working with Growing Chefs, especially as we navigate our new online world and find new ways to keep creating community. Food is a huge part of my life, and I am very passionate about food literacy and creating sustainable food systems.
Agriculture has always been a large part of my life! My grandparents live in Saskatchewan where they run multiple commercial greenhouses, producing fresh veggies to sell at farmers markets and through local distributors. Since I was young I’ve always spent time in my summers working in the greenhouses. I loved picking tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers but my favourite time was working at the markets. Since I was little I was so amazed by the wonderful community created between the vendors and purchasers at the market. Local agriculture brought so many people together!
Since spending many summers picking and growing veggies at the greenhouses my interest in food led me to attend UBC to study in the faculty of Land and Food Systems. Land and Food Systems allows me to study interdisciplinary programs to learn all about my focus on international development and sustainable food systems. Through Land and Food Systems I also learned about international agriculture and had the opportunity to travel to Indonesia to take courses at an agricultural university south of Jakarta.
This amazing experience even allowed me to tour various agricultural systems such as tea fields and cassava fields. More locally, my courses have also taught me all about food literacy, which further encouraged me to pursue education in my future and hopefully teach in elementary schools. I am currently in my fourth year at UBC and I am really looking forward to bringing the knowledge I learn from Growing Chefs and what I’ve learned in the classroom together to help create food literacy and more sustainable food systems!
In my spare time, I love going on walks, watching the sunset at the beach and of course curling up to watch a movie with lots of snacks!
