Seeding for the World

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Bob Johnson on the lines and Fred McDiarmid assisting as the teamsters seeded barley using horsepower provided by (from teamster’s left) Boots, Sam, Ace (who is stone deaf) and Shadow, McDiarmid’s four matching black Percherons

Put together a good charity and good teamsters, and you’ll have an event that helps feed the world.

In late spring, horsemen converged on a field near Rosemary, Alta., and spent the day
seeding barley for the Newell Foodgrains Project.

“It was a great day,” says Fred McDiarmid. Fred’s four-horse hitch has been seen by millions in multiple appearances in the Calgary Stampede Parade and at Draft Horse Town on the Stampede grounds, but most often his audience is the hawks and magpies as he does field work at his home near Veteran, Alta.

The Newell Foodgrains Project is just one of hundreds that happened across the prairies for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Founded in 1983, Canadian Foodgrains Bank is a partnership of 15 church and church-based agencies working together to end global hunger.

The Newell Project also seeded a quarter to wheat, and the 3.5 acres they seeded to barley with the Percherons received $2,300 in donations. The Canadian government not only matches the donations received but quadruples it, so that small bit of acreage garnered over $10,000. Also at the Newell Project were Dennis Dyck and his team of black Canadians, who gave wagon rides to spectators.

For more information, visit the Canadian Foodgrains Bank website.

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