The Central Alberta Foodgrains Project is looking for land to grow a crop on this upcoming growing season.
"This is a big year for us, it's year 30," said committee member Doug Maas. "As of this moment, we don't have any land available to farm this spring but we're constantly probing, searching, talking to landowners in Lacombe County about prospects."
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Maas says the size of land they use to grow a crop varies from year to year.
"In the early years of the project dating back to 1996, we used to get 160 acres but lately the parcel pieces have been smaller," he explained. "Last year we had two parcels, one small 20-acre parcel and then another parcel of 120 acres."
Canola was grown on both of the fields last year raising $91,000 for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. The Canadian government has an agreement in place where it will match 4 to 1 any donations up to $25 million per year in emergency food aid assistance.
Maas says they like to grow canola because it can sit in a swath for a few weeks without deteriorating, whereas other crops like wheat and barley lose quality over time.
He says with the current political climate in the U.S., aid agencies in Canada have to do more to help countries around the world that are suffering.
"The administration there has pulled back U.S. aid, which is the biggest aid supplier to developing countries in the world," explained Maas. "That U.S. aid with it being cut back substantially, now it's up to other aid organizations in the world to try to pick up that slack and try to do as much as we can. We've always had a prominent role through the Canadian Foodgrains Bank but maybe even a little bit more prominent now."
Maas notes there are about 200 growing projects across the county.
Anyone with land to donate can call Doug Maas at 403-318-5733.
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