Foodgrains Bank helps churches feed the world
The Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFB) is marking 30 years of staving off hunger in poor countries by mobilizing Canadian farmers.
CFB’s first project took place in Carrot River, Sask. Today, CFB is composed of 15 church agencies representing 32 Christian denominations and more than 17,000 congregations.
In a CFB grow project, someone generally donates or rents a chunk of land and one or more farmers participate by contributing work, seed or other necessary products. Seed is sometimes donated by a seed company. In the fall, any number of farmers participate in the harvest. The grain is usually sold and the money donated to the CFB rather than being physically sent overseas.
Wilfred Buhler of Osler, who has been involved since CFB’s inception, explains shipping costs to a place like the interior of Afghanistan, for instance, would be prohibitive. Instead, the CFB will use donated money to purchase locally grown grain, a practice that benefits not only the hungry people but local growers, as well. In many places, rice or beans are the dietary staple rather than wheat.”
Buhler recalls CFB started with Mennonites who were doing humanitarian work in India in the 1970s.
“They were seeing a great deal of hunger and starvation in India, while Canada was harvesting huge grain surpluses and experiencing diminished markets. Some Mennonite farmers bagged up grain and shipped it to India. Later, it made sense for they and other denominations sending food aid, to band together so the shipments could be more substantial. They officially established as the Canadian Foodgrains Bank in 1983.”
Buhler says the CFB had the full approval of the Canadian government, which offered to partner financially — matching the value of the donated grain four times up to $5 million a year.
Last year, the CFB raised $12 million; the government bumped that to $25 million.
“When individuals make donations to charities they’re always concerned about where their donation ends up and whether it’s used or abused. The amazing thing with CFB is that the losses are less than five per cent,” Buhler says. “One reason is that the actual distribution is done by churches and church agencies who know who the neediest people are. This can happen because through all the years of mission work, there are churches in almost every country of the world.”
He says another reason is that the Canadian government demands a great deal of responsibility in recordkeeping to ensure the right people are being targeted with the food aid.
“If we can’t monitor our donations, we don’t participate,” Buhler says.
In the early years, CFB grain was donated almost exclusively by farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Today, with farmers partnering on growing projects, Ontario sees the most grain donations. There are currently 250 growing projects across Canada, including 30 in Saskatchewan.
For 12 years, Buhler set aside 340 hectares for the Foodgrains Bank.
“We raised $750,000 for CFB,” he says. “With the government match, that became a significant amount.”
The CFB is not just about giving food to the hungry.
“If you give someone seed and teach them how to grow it, you’re increasing your donation not four times, but maybe 30 times,” he adds.
As a result, CFB is involved in several farm education initiatives, including projects that bring water supply systems to land that sees rain only two to six weeks of the year.
Buhler and his wife, Ruth, have had more than a passing involvement in CFB. Wilf Buhler served on the national board for six years and, at one point, Ruth Buhler organized In Exile For A While, a simulated refugee camp experience to help young people understand and appreciate what it’s like to be a refugee. The CFB wrote the curriculum, which allows high school students to experience mock refugee exile. They go through a border, are attacked and harassed, navigate minefields and, when they arrive in the refugee camp, are required to fill out a form in a different language. They must also cope with refugee rations and inadequate food.
In 1993, the Buhlers travelled to Ethiopia, Kenya and Zimbabwe on a CFB study tour (accompanied by CBC Country Canada TV crews) to follow a donation from a Canadian donor’s truck to its destination in Africa. It was, Wilf Buhler says, a lifechanging experience.
Why is he involved? “For me, it’s a Christian conviction that those of us who have extra are beholden to share. As Menno Simons, the founder of the Mennonite movement, said, ‘True evangelical faith cannot lie sleeping. It feeds the hungry, clothes the naked and shelters the destitute.’”
The annual CFB fundraiser sale will be held on June 29, on a farm north of Osler. For more information, call 306-863-2727.