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Forgotten MCC project for Interlake raises $20,000

When Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Manitoba stepped in to help some desperate farmers in the Riverton area 17 years ago, no one knew the resulting small project would keep going and going and going.

At the time, MCC raised more than $130,000 in money and seed to help farmers whose livelihood was threatened by inadequate land drainage and years of bad weather. Some of that money, along with a grant to MCC from the provincial government, went to purchase three land scrapers and surveying equipment to support on-farm drainage work.

Over the years, the project faded from MCC's memory. But year after year in this Interlake region, farmers would use the scrapers to improve the drainage in their fields and contribute $10 per hour of use to a growing rent money fund.

Then last fall, Delmer Kornelsen, one of the key members of the Interlake Emergency Farmers Fund, called up Ken Reddig, executive director of MCC Manitoba, wondering what to do with more than $20,000 raised from scraper rentals.

What scraper rentals?

At the time, Kornelsen's query elicited puzzled looks in the MCC Manitoba office, but slowly Reddig pieced together the details of the forgotten project. So he traveled to Arborg in March to meet with members of the emergency committee. Six farmers and a couple of provincial ag reps met with Reddig and Henry Visch, who had helped coordinate the project for MCC back in '84.

"When you called me I had no idea what you were talking about," Reddig said to Kornelsen, with a laugh. "That to me was the funniest part."

It had even faded in Visch's memory. "Once in a while it came to my head and I wondered, 'What in the world happened to those scrapers,'" he said.

Back in '84, a series of abnormally wet years pushed numerous farmers in the Riverton area to the brink of bankruptcy. A group of Mennonites from the area approached MCC for help. And eventually, 42 farmers from the area, including non-Mennonites, received emergency assistance--up to $5,000 per family. As well, the scrapers were purchased to help improve the drainage.

Delmer Kornelsen's son Ken said without the help of MCC, and use of the scrapers, he wouldn't have made it as a farmer. "It has helped me stay in farming, basically," he said. Gerald Huebner, now a crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said since that time the provincial government has done considerable drainage work in the area. "Looking back I think this effort, this aid, was a stimulus to a lot of that happening," said Huebner, who was part of the emergency committee from the start. "Like many problems, it hasn't been completely solved, but progress has been made."

Pulled by a tractor, the scrapers--two can move eight yards of earth at a time and the other six yards---have seen considerable use over the years.

"It's kind of eye opening how many people have actually used it," said Delmer Kornelsen. "I would say it's safe to say at least 100 or even 125 (people) that have used them."

And these Interlake farmers aren't ready to give up the project yet. Over coffee, they said they still use the scrapers, and want to continue on with a committee of younger farmers. But they also agreed they want to use at least some of the $20,000 to help fund a new MCC project--either to help farmers struggling elsewhere in the province or to support a water project overseas.

And they agree it's time to drop the "emergency committee" handle. "We don't want to be called a disaster area anymore," said Kornelsen.