It’s harvest season. For some, that means garden fresh vegetables for every meal (and zucchini that never seems to end), but for others, it is a season of working around the clock on the fields to ensure that all the crops are harvested and sent where they need to be. The latter is what the farmers involved in the CHUM foodgrains project are working on, but this harvest is destined for a special cause — it will be donated to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
“We're taking off 150 acres of Starbuck wheat,” says Isaac Froese, who is one of the farmers in the CHUM project. “We had this seed donated to us by Janzen Seeds in Plum Coulee.”
Froese says that leading up to the harvest, the wheat was healthy. He expected an above average crop.
“The rains have been good, the sunshine has been good, the heat and everything came together,” says Froese. “A few times we thought it might be a bit too wet, but I think it'll be fine.”
Ian Forrester is another farmer who lent his efforts to the project this year. He says that 4 combines (supplied by Green Valley Equipment, Penner Farms, the Neufeld family, and H&M Farms) came out to take off the wheat.
“We're thinking we can do 15 to 20 acres an hour. It'll take us a bit of time,” he says. “We've got trucks from all over the place. We're hauling the grain to Richardson in Letellier. They've got room for us and they're going to leave us a door open so we can come straight in, which makes everything flow so much better.”
CHUM stands for Communities Helping Undernourished Millions. The group consists of farmers from Plum Coulee and the Emerson-Halbstadt area with a passion for helping where it is needed. The wheat taken off from the field located between Rosenfeld and Altona will be sold off with the proceeds going to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Gordon Janzen, a representative with the bank, says that community groups across Southern Manitoba like CHUM are responsible for half its donations in the entire province.
A Community Effort
For Forrester, at this time of year, community networks become most visible.
“We've had lots of help all season with people. GJ [Chemical] . . . out of Altona did most of our spraying for us and scouting and assisted us in chemicals and that kind of [thing],” he says, adding that the local Co-op also gets involved each year.
“We have good support for this project. It's always a juggling game because we go ask a couple of people about everything, and then one of them may say yes, and one of them [may] not, but it always comes together and we get things done,” says Froese. “Ian loves to go talking to a lot of the people around here. He's close by, so he gets a lot done for us. The support has been good. A lot of the businesses know us well already and so they [give] annually.”
Forrester adds that the CHUM project, which has been growing and donating crops for two decades now, would not continue without the help of the community.
“It's huge, because we don't have equipment ourselves. I'm retired, so we have to rely on everybody that is around us to get us assistance in some way,” he says. “The local farmers, whenever they can, have been fantastic in helping us over a lot of years.”
Froese says that everything that is donated to the project translates to that much more for the Foodgrains Bank.
“Every dollar given in cash, every dollar given in chemicals or fertilizer automatically transfers to a dollar given there,” he says.
The federal government multiplies each dollar made by groups like CHUM by four, so the project generates a significant amount overall.
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Sharing gifts
Because the Pembina Valley has a tradition of farming, it is sometimes forgotten that the knowledge that famers have — both its technical side and the intuition that grows through experience — is not exactly commonplace. The fact that such a concentration of people with this unique farming skillset use it to help others seems especially anomalous.
“I guess because this is basically what I've done my whole life, for me, it's the natural thing to try and contribute through,” says Froese. “Writing a check and sending it in is always very easy, [but] getting involved and doing the work is much more rewarding . . .. Being able to use what I've learned over the years and trying to make it successful and good for somebody who doesn't have what we have — that's pretty big.”
For Forrester, involvement in CHUM is also connected to family tradition.
“The Foodgrains Bank organization has been part of our farm in my dad's day and our day. We've always contributed in some way or another, and this is a really neat way for me to stay involved in farming and stay involved with the friends and families that I know around, and contribute in a really positive way,” he says. “We've got a good group. We've donated a lot of money over the last number of years, and it's fantastic.”
To read other stories about how the Pembina Valley is helping the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, see the articles linked below.
~With files from Candace Derksen~
