SASKATOON – Chen Shiqin’s farm is a little larger than the average Saskatchewan operation. Instead of 3.3 mouths to feed, her farm has to generate enough food for 10,000.
Chen lives on a state farm in the province of Jiangsu, China. The 35-year-old is part of a group of 10 Chinese farmers who have come to Saskatchewan on an agricultural exchange program.
She is staying with Doreen and Wayne Walker on their mixed farm near Langham, west of Saskatoon. Chen has tried to tell the Walkers about her farm back home, but communication has been a problem. Like many in her party she will learn more through her eyes than through her ears on this trip.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
A common reaction from the group is a sense of awe over how few people occupy such a vast space, said Canadian organizer Ross Korven. He remembers a comment from a Chinese farmer who took part in the exchange a few years ago.
“He woke up in the morning and met three people. He got up the next morning and saw the same three people. And he got up the next morning and saw the same three people. In China he might have seen 2,000 people go by his window on bicycles while he had breakfast,” said Korven.
Korven’s group, the Federation of Production Co-operatives, has been a part of the exchange since it began in 1979. Funding for the program was initially provided by the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan in conjunction with the provincial government, but that ran out in 1983.
The program lay dormant until 1989 when the Federation of Production Co-operatives found a new sponsor, the Canadian International Development Agency.
CIDA pays $4,000 per person involved in the exchange. The Canadian participants raise an additional $2,000, at least half of which is to come from sponsors in their area. Room and board is provided by the host families.
This is the fifth exchange since the program’s resurrection. Up until now the swap has been with Saskatchewan’s twin province, Jilin. This year it’s with the province of Jiangsu.
Korven said the visitors are impressed by the sheer size of the fields and the big farm implements. A lot of them only have one or two acres of land to farm and it’s all worked by hand.
Here since April 29, the visitors leave this week. The Canadians will be gone July 1 to Aug. 26.
