Canadian Foodgrains Bank

Donations from Dow AgroSciences Help Hungry People Around the World   

$465,000 of products donated to Canadian Foodgrains Bank since 2001.


Mehrrin (pictured) is a poor Pakistani woman who lost everything during last year’s terrible flooding in that country.  Cam Klapstein is a farmer in Leduc, Alberta who cares about the plight of needy people around the world. 

 

These two people live in different countries, but one thing brings them together:  Canadian Foodgrains Bank, a partnership of 15 church groups and church-related aid agencies working to end hunger.

“This area was very beautiful before the flood,” says Mehrrin of Pakistan’s Swat Valley, which was hard-hit by the flooding. Now, she says, “all things are washed out.”

After the flood, which destroyed her home and livelihood, she received a food kit provided by the Presbyterian World Service and Development, a Foodgrains Bank’s member agency.

It was welcome relief after they had lost everything, and were struggling to meet their basic needs, she says.

That response was made possible by people like Klapstein, who helps organize the Leduc & District Growing Project for the Foodgrains Bank.

“I've done a little travelling, and I've seen people around the world struggling to feed themselves,” says Klapstein. “In this country, we are blessed and have an abundance of food.  As a farmer, this was one way I could get involved.”

Klapstein is one of about 30 farmers in the Leduc area who donate their time, land and equipment to plant and harvest a crop for the Foodgrains Bank.

Through the project, local farmers plant a crop on donated land. After the harvest, they take the crop to local grain companies and sell it. The proceeds are then donated to the Foodgrains Bank, which uses it to buy food and seed for needy people when disaster strikes—for people like Mehrrin.

Over the past 12 years, the Leduc project has raised $876,000 for the Foodgrains Bank.

Fundraising efforts like this are made possible by the generosity of corporations like Dow AgroSciences, says Charllene Pedersen, who leads corporate fundraising efforts for the Foodgrains Bank.

“We are grateful to Dow AgroSciences for the way it supports growing projects by donating inputs,” she says. “Donations like that make it possible for farmers to keep expenses down, so they can give everything they raise to the Foodgrains Bank to help hungry people.”

Since 2001, Dow AgroSciences has donated $465,000 of products such as Frontline XL, Frontline 2,4-D, PrePass  XC, Prestige  XC, Vantage Plus Max II, and Maverick III to growing projects that raise funds for the Foodgrains Bank.

Altogether, over 200 growing and community projects across Canada raise about $4.5 million for the Foodgrains Bank each year.

Founded in 1983, the goal of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank is to enable Canadians to share their resources to end global hunger. It does this by responding to food emergencies and disasters, by helping people produce food for themselves, and by increasing and deepening the involvement of Canadians in efforts to end hunger.

Each year the Foodgrains Bank provides about $35 million of assistance to over two million people in the developing world.

For more information on the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, or to get involved, please visit www.foodgrainsbank.ca