What Do You Do With Grain You Are Not Allowed to Sell?

In the late seventies and early eighties, Mennonite farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba had grain they could not move. Wheat Board quotas meant it was not going for export, so it sat. And on the six o'clock news they were watching famine.Their conclusion was that sitting on piles of grain while that played out did not square with what they believed. So they found a way. The grain was bagged, set aside, kept separate from what the Board was moving as commodity, and shipped.Rick Block of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank traces what that became. Five agencies came together formally in 1983. There are fifteen now, working alongside a long-standing partnership with the federal government, on two fronts: emergency food assistance, and the slower work of helping families grow more and better food on one or two acres.What's Inside- How the Foodgrains Bank started, and the quota problem that made it possible- The two channels the organisation runs on, and why hunger in a displacement situation becomes urgent within the first day- What smallholder farming actually looks like at one or two acres, and why scale there is counted in families rather than in acres- The upstream work: conservation agriculture training, reducing post-harvest loss, nutrition, and the learning curve when a subsistence operation starts rotating crops- Why village savings and loan programs sit alongside the agronomy- What the organisation means when it describes itself as a Christian response to hunger Connect with Rick: Website: https://foodgrainsbank.ca Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CanadianFoodgrainsBank X: https://x.com/Foodgrains Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foodgrains Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/foodgrainsbank  Connect with Growing the FutureWebsite: growingthefuture.caYouTube: Growing the FutureInstagram: @growingthefuturepodcastLinkedIn: Growing the FutureSubscribe to the Growing the Future Podcast wherever you listen, and register for Convergence Conference 2027 at convergence.ag. Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.