STRATHMORE, Alta. – Farmers set aside their own harvest work on a recent cool, cloudy fall day to help a worthy cause.
Travelling in a convoy, 43 combines and six super B trains arrived at a field east of Strathmore, Alta., Oct. 4 to harvest 149 acres of canola for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. In less than two hours the 65 bushel per acre crop was off the ground and heading for ATL Terminals in Calgary.
Nearly half the combines were donated by local Hutterite colonies, which provided machinery, labour and encouragement.
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The project was sponsored by the Cheadle Lions Club, a service club of 31 members who wanted to help, said Sonny Warrack. This is the second time the club has run the project, which received a Calgary Stampede Legacy award for innovation for its community project last year.
“It seemed like a no brainer project for us to do,” he said during the event.
“We are a rural club and we had a lot of interest to do this.”
Interest was so great that the club oversold sponsorships at $250 per acre with 180 sponsors coming on board. The club used the money to buy seed and rent land from Strathmore farmers Mardy and Janet Skibsted.
Warrack said the foodgrains bank will receive at least $100,000 from the sale of the canola. Any fundraising money that wasn’t used to grow the crop will top up the final donation.
The foodgrains bank is a partnership of 17,000 Canadian churches and other agencies that work in developing countries to end hunger.
Last year more than $8.4 million in cash and grain donations were made from across Canada. In the west, British Columbia donated $243,400, Alberta gave $1.9 million, Saskatchewan $1.2 million and Manitoba $1.6 million. Ontario made the largest donation, $2.5 million.
