The trucks rumbling out of the yard didn’t seem to be hauling anything special, but the 3,000 tonnes of split peas that reach refugees in Sudan will save lives this winter.
That means a lot to Willy Reimer, who has seen the camps in Darfur, Sudan.
“This will be enough for the protein needs for one month for 11/2 to two million people,” said Reimer about the Canadian Foodgrains Bank project that collected peas from southern Manitoba.
“It’s very helpful and very heartening.”
Reimer toured the Darfur region of western Sudan in July and August, when 1.2 million displaced people lived in refugee camps, victims of a brutal ethnic civil war.
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At that time there was hope that the United Nations and the African Union could convince the Sudanese government to stop Arab militia groups from attacking the black farming population, but those hopes have died.
Another 250,000 refugees have poured into the camps since Reimer was there.
“It’s gotten a lot worse,” said Reimer, who works for the Mennonite Central Committee in Winnipeg.
But on this sunny and warm November morning, he was beaming, thrilled to see so much donated Manitoba crop heading to where it is needed.
Not only does the food save lives in the camps, it encourages Sudanese organizations to keep going underappalling conditions.
“Whenever we tell the story about people here being interested in the plight of the Sudanese, (the Sudan Council of Churches) feels supported as they work with their own people,” said Reimer.
Arnot, Man., farmer Harold Penner said some crisis situations need money more than food, but right now in Sudan food is vital, so the Canadian Foodgrains Bank is ideally suited to gathering it quickly.
“It’s the right approach,” said Penner, who co-ordinates the charity’s Manitoba operations.
Foodgrains bank logistics co-ordinator James Alty said this shipment of split peas will be trucked to a rail line, shipped in containers to Montreal, loaded onto an ocean-going freighter, rerouted in Europe for Sudan and reach the Darfur region in six to eight weeks.
Carl Dyck of Carman, who showed up to see the donated peas being split and bagged at the Carman Agricore United pulse plant, was pleased at how quickly the food aid is getting through the system.
Dyck, who presented plaques to three local grain elevators for gathering 20,000 bushels of donated wheat, said farmers can do great good by donating comparatively small amounts of crop.
Local farm supply and service businesses often provide most of the inputs for a donated crop, and the Canadian International Development Agency also matches and sometimes quadruples the donation.
Dyck said a project two years ago of 115 acres of canola netted $26,000, which grew to $130,000 after receiving CIDA matching.
“It’s a very effective program,” said Dyck.
