Agriculture committee  You're absolutely right. There's a huge cost not only to the resources of all that goes into the farming, packaging, and transportation. I think the committee is well aware of all those problems and will certainly find out through other presenters. I'm not sure I have the ans

Agriculture committee  Yes. Think of organizations like the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, the Mennonite Central Committee, World Vision; those are some of the bigger ones. We operate with smaller ones as well. They're on the ground in those countries throughout the world helping with relief and aid. They p

Agriculture committee  Packers are where the vegetables are packaged for market distribution. Large farms, and not just large farms, even small farms; we'll take whatever they have. Perhaps there's some hail damage to a crop. A farmer recently dropped off about 100 bushels of peas he had left over. He

Agriculture committee  We don't provide the transportation ourselves. The aid organization, such as World Vision or Canadian Foodgrains Bank, will be responsible for the transportation and the distribution in the overseas country. I'm sorry, what was the first part of your question?

Agriculture committee  That's correct. They put the request in to us, and it's usually wherever there's a major natural disaster in the world. That's not always the case, but usually that's where the bulk of our product has gone.

Agriculture committee  Each of our gleaner facilities would have one employee. You need somebody to be there and be responsible. Other than that, it's all volunteer.

Agriculture committee  The backbone is our volunteer.

Agriculture committee  If you could promote dialogue with packers and producers, and in some way encourage them, make them aware of what we can do, this would help immensely. There is still some reluctance on the parts of major producers and packers to donate to us. We know we can process a lot more of

Agriculture committee  We haven't been pushing for it, but there is growing interest and we are getting requests. Actually, there's a group in P.E.I. that has approached us asking if we can assist them. There's another one, I believe, in Nova Scotia. I mentioned that there are a number that have shown

Agriculture committee  We have received frozen produce in the past. For example, not too far from us in the city of Lethbridge there are packing plants that take sweet corn for the frozen corn market. We've received that from them in the past, and frozen green peas. Most of what we receive is fresh,

Agriculture committee  The standard we've adopted is it's in a bag with a three-pound quantity. The bag would be thirteen inches high by six inches wide.

Agriculture committee  It's strictly through donations. Not only do our volunteers give of their time, but they open up their wallets as well. We are a charitable organization, and of course through this work, we can issue tax receipts for any donations we receive.

Agriculture committee  The bulk of it actually goes for foreign relief and aid. We make it available to soup kitchens and food banks here in Canada, but the simple answer is that it's not well received. It's very basic food, whereas most food banks in Canada have food that our citizens are more accusto

Agriculture committee  Once it's cooked up.... It's probably more common to go to soup kitchens whereby it is made into a soup and the cooks there probably have the skills to know what to do with it, whereas maybe some of the patrons of food banks are not as familiar with cooking dehydrated vegetables.

Agriculture committee  We would be happy to partner with anyone, home economists or dietitians who would be willing to educate people on that.