By TERRY PUGH
Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFB) volunteers in Saskatchewan are making valuable contributions in the campaign to alleviate global hunger, according to CFB Saskatchewan Coordinator Rick Block.
“Over the last 46 years, the Sask Valley Foodgrains Bank charity group has generated just over $2.5 million dollars through their fundraising efforts to help those in need in countries around the world,” said Block in an interview April 29. “This area has a long tradition of supporting the CFB; and it goes back even further to an initiative known as the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) food bank. We’re looking now at the third generation of volunteers organizing fundraisers for hunger relief.”
These local efforts are more important than many people realize, said Block, because global hunger is a problem that just keeps getting bigger.
A CFB report released in late April estimates that 266 million people around the world are experiencing “acute food insecurity,” with over 39 million people in 32 countries at risk of starvation.
“Conflict is the number one driver of food insecurity,” said Block. “War creates sudden massive food shortages. Part of our mandate is to be present and provide life-saving emergency food assistance.
“As a faith-based organization, the CFB’s mandate is to be a ‘Christian response to hunger’, which is based on the idea that all people are created in the image of God, and deserve to have the same opportunity to access food.”
Food security is a cornerstone of peace, he added.
“In regions of conflict where there is severe hunger, people need to have food in their stomachs before there is any chance of peace.”
Solomon Janzen, CFB’s Director of Human Resources and Administration, said providing emergency food assistance to strife-torn countries is a critical part of the CFB’s mission, but it’s not the sole, or even the main, focus for the organization.
“Political instability is always a challenge, because it can quickly result in markets collapsing and food shortages,” said Janzen, who grew up in the Sask Valley area and now works at the CFB’s head office in Winnipeg. “The CFB has many international partner agencies, and when a political conflict breaks out, member agencies that are already in that community quickly shift into providing emergency assistance.
“Once the immediate crisis is averted, then the focus shifts to developing sustainable agriculture practices for farmers with small plots of land so they can feed their families and produce a small amount of surplus to sell.”
He said the majority of the CFB’s work focuses on long-term, sustainable solutions to chronic food shortages through its ‘Nature+’ program.
“In Kenya, for example, we have several local agriculture projects aimed at rebuilding soil fertility,” said Janzen. “In parts of Africa, when the rains come, they come hard and if there isn’t enough strongly-rooted vegetation in the soil, then it quickly washes away, and the land becomes barren.
“There are places where this process has been happening for decades, and huge ravines have been carved out in fields that once produced healthy crops.”
The CFB is working on the ground with partner agencies at the community level to build terraces along the hillsides where native grasses are planted in an effort to stabilize the soil and rebuild fertility, said Janzen.
“This has proven to be a low-cost, low-tech, but highly-effective way to stop soil from being eroded,” he said.
Janzen explained that inroads are also being made to overcome another major problem – drought – during the dry season.
“A simple but effective method is to build ‘sand dams’ as a way of stopping rivers from washing out,” he said. “These are small and inexpensive concrete dams. When the rains come and wash the topsoil down, the highly-saturated soil becomes trapped behind the dams.
“During the really dry season, people are able to dig down a couple of feet into the saturated sand behind the dam to reach water that they can then use for their livestock and to water their gardens,” said Janzen.
The CFB is also working with partner agencies in African countries to help local communities understand how to prevent soil erosion through overgrazing by cattle.
“Planting native grasses and fruit trees can make a big difference in a relatively short period of time,” said Janzen. “In one village the people showed me a place where a spring that had been dry for 30 years started flowing again because of the remedial action that had been taken. It’s a small spring, but it has enough water for the community to use for its own purposes, and that’s a huge success story for this generation and generations to come.”