Farmers help fight hunger for the holidays

Tis the season when feasts usually weigh down the tables, but this year a much greater number of cupboards in Manitoba are bare.

Food bank use has never been higher in the province, according to Harvest Manitoba CEO Vince Barletta.

The Winnipeg-based charity supports about 360 rural and urban food banks. Barletta said those food banks are providing monthly support to about 15,000 households, or about 40,000 people.

“We’re seeing huge demand,” he said. “Obviously, price inflation, the pandemic, these are things that are impacting the day-to-day life of just about everybody and, of course, have hit people with low incomes the hardest.”

Why it matters: Inflation, faltering supply chains, international conflict and failed crops globally have compounded into one of the worst food crises that aid organizations say they’ve ever seen. Manitoba farmers have something to say about that.

Inflation, food security and general affordability are major public concerns as consumer prices for food and fuel rise. Canadians this year saw higher food prices than they have seen in decades, outpacing inflation.

Price increases for food topped 10 per cent in all three months between August and October, according to a Statistics Canada article published Nov. 16. In comparison, Canada’s consumer price index in the same window lingered between 6.9 and seven per cent higher, year-over-year.

Winnipeg food banks have seen twice as much use this year as in 2019, before the pandemic, according to Harvest Manitoba’s 2022 Harvest Voices report. It noted that the unemployed are not the only ones seeking the service. Almost a quarter (24 per cent) of those accessing food banks in 2022 were holding down jobs, about 50 per cent more than users in the previous year.

This year alone, demand across Harvest Manitoba’s network of urban and rural food banks increased 40 per cent over 2021.

Worldwide

Food security is a pattern playing out across the globe, including regions where it was already an ever-looming problem.

Julie Derksen, supporter relations manager with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, said the organization has noted particular need in the Horn of Africa.

“I know Somalia has been in the news… and that’s something we’re grateful that attention is being drawn to the situation in Somalia, because it’s really heartbreaking,” she said. “But there’s also difficult situations in Ethiopia, that’s experiencing a long-term drought, and South Sudan, where they actually have flooding. We’re finding that there is an increasingly increased need in the world that we’re responding to.”

In early August, the World Health Organization estimated that 37 million people in the Horn of Africa were facing acute hunger, with emphasis on Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and South Sudan.

The UN World Food Program has described the global food crisis as “the largest in modern history,” as the number of people facing acute food insecurity more than doubled in the last three years. The organization estimated that 345 million people fit that category in 2022, compared to 135 million in 2019.

“Millions are at risk of worsening hunger unless action is taken now to respond at scale to the drivers of this crisis: conflict, climate shocks and the threat of global recession,” the organization has said.

Stepping up

One slim, silver lining for Harvest Manitoba, as it faces greater demand, is an increase in support from the agriculture sector.

Producers and farm groups have kept food flowing to Harvest Manitoba for distribution where needed, Barletta said. Peak of the Market, Dairy Farmers of Manitoba, Manitoba Chicken Producers and the Manitoba Pork Council, among other sector groups, make regular and key contributions to their food banks, he added.

“Without the support of Manitoba’s ag sector, without the support of the producer groups and co-operatives and marketing councils, Harvest Manitoba simply wouldn’t be able to exist. Period,” Barletta said. “That is how important the ag sector is to the work that we do here.”

In October, for example, Manitoba Egg Farmers supplied 12,000 dozen eggs to the charity, the highest monthly donation it has ever made to Harvest Manitoba. The group has made regular donations for years, including two pallets of eggs each month throughout 2022, along with a promise of two other pallets sold at cost.

Peak of the Market provides more than one million pounds of potatoes each year. It is a large contribution from the vegetable marketer, according to CEO Pamela Kolochuk. Second Harvest, an organization devoted to diverting surplus food from the landfill, provides more than 2.5 million pounds of produce.

Other ag sector initiatives include support of Food Banks Canada and a program specific to Peak of the Market and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. In February 2022, Peak of the Market officially teamed up with the football club in a program to pack and distribute produce every month to local groups who need food donations.

The response took Kolochuk aback.

“We knew we were going to have people within the community that had need, but that need was significant,” she said. “We’re giving more through the Winnipeg Blue Bomber program than we are to Harvest [Manitoba.]”

The program caters to organizations in Winnipeg that have difficulty sourcing from Harvest Manitoba and now come directly to Peak of the Market. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers pack out event on Dec. 13 saw double the usual donation drop-offs for that day, Kolochuk said.

The Manitoba Chicken Producers is entering the fourth year of its Caring for Communities Program, which has a goal to provide about 1,000 whole birds to Harvest Manitoba each week.

Jake Wiebe, Manitoba Chicken Producers chair, says most of the approximately 115 registered producers contribute to the program. Each producer determines their level of donation.

“It’s been a very good program,” he said. “Producers have overwhelmingly supported this, so it’s been a real good news story amid the pandemic.”

The chicken sector’s two main plants also donate processing and delivery to facilitate the program.

The first deliveries in 2020 arrived just in time to take strain off Harvest Manitoba, which found itself suddenly operating under pandemic conditions. The program was in its fledgling stages during the first wave of COVID-19.

It stemmed from an already established but smaller-scale relationship between Harvest Manitoba and the province’s chicken producers. Harvest Manitoba approached the organization to gauge interest in a more regular injection of chicken that the charity could distribute.

“They were asking if we could help with fresh protein… It was a good opportunity for us to be involved in the communities where we live and work as well,” Wiebe said.

“But not just that, it’s really province-wide, so we just felt this was an opportunity to put wholesome food into the hands of the people in the province who needed it.”

Barletta said Harvest Manitoba is further bolstered by individual producers who donate surplus produce and other commodities.

Holiday giving

Other farm groups have announced initiatives for the holiday season, both in partnership with Harvest Manitoba and with other community groups.

On Nov. 28, Harvest Manitoba received 1,000 pounds of ground pork courtesy of the Manitoba Pork Council.

The producer group linked the donation to Giving Tuesday, a global philanthropic movement usually set for the Tuesday after the American Thanksgiving weekend. Community well-being is a key part of the pork council’s sustainability focus.

The donation echoes similar contributions it has made in the past, although community engagement co-ordinator Kristen Matwychuk says this one resonates differently, given the rising cost of food.

“There’s quite a few Canadians and Manitobans facing food insecurity and so the need is higher than ever, and so we’re happy to do our part to contribute positively in that way,” she said.

A separate donation was scheduled for early December to bolster a food bank in St. Anne, Matwychuk noted.

“There are a couple of other food donations that we’re doing this holiday season. We want to encourage those who are able to, to also make donations if they can or help support groups in Manitoba that are doing some of this great work.”

In another case, 25 turkeys will be sent to schools in Winnipeg this December. The Manitoba Turkey Producers says it was approached to provide turkeys for several school holiday hamper programs.

Earlier this fall, the group provided 500 turkey dinners to health care workers in Steinbach, at Seven Oaks General Hospital and at Niverville’s personal care home.

The goal was to “give back to our health care workers that do so much for our communities,” a representative from the farm group said.

Another $50,000 is bound for over a dozen food banks and breakfast clubs in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Minnesota, courtesy of Manitoba-based pork processor HyLife Foods. The cash donation is in conjunction with 2,400 items raised through the company’s Holiday Helpers food driver. It’s the second year HyLife has operated the initiative.

Armande Leclaire, manager of the Accueil Kateri Centre — a food aid charity based in the RM of Ste. Anne — said the windfall was “an early Christmas gift.”

“HyLife has been generous towards Accueil Kateri in the past, not just for us but for various non-profit organizations. They are great corporate citizens,” Leclaire said.

The organization has heard “heartbreaking stories,” of need in the community.”

Trending up

The Canadian Foodgrains Bank is cautiously optimistic about proceeds from activities in Manitoba, said Derksen.

Some growing projects couldn’t be seeded this spring due to excess moisture but as of Oct. 31, the charity’s revenue from Manitoba fields was about 20 per cent greater than last year. Thirty growing projects were seeded this year.

“It’s actually, so far, looking like a really great season,” Derksen said. “Of course, we’re never sure, because things are a little volatile in agriculture right now, with weather challenges like water this year, drought last year. We really weren’t sure how it all would fall out.”

A significant amount from the projects usually arrives during December as producers market grain and as holiday donations come in.

The foodgrains bank has reported increased revenue every year, even as global demand continues to balloon.

“I wouldn’t claim that we’re keeping up with the need but we are seeing people respond very generously when they see that there’s need in the world,” Derksen said.

As for people served by Harvest Manitoba, Barletta suggested that things might get worse before they get better.

“What does the future hold? Who knows? All I can say is this, that one thing that allows Harvest [Manitoba] to breathe a little easier is knowing that, come what may in the economy, with other issues that might be there that are going to impact people with low incomes, that we can continue to count on the support of our agricultural producers in Manitoba to help Harvest [Manitoba] do our work.”