Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize two constituents, Wendy and John Taekema, who have been involved with local growing to support the Canadian Foodgrains Bank for the past 14 years. Their local group rents 280 acres of land just south of Leduc, and in 14 years the growing project has contributed just over $1.1 million to this program.
John and Wendy even went to Kenya and Rwanda to see the impact of their local growing project and distribute food to drought-stricken people near Voi, Kenya. The Kenyans were very thankful for the food provided by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank with the help of CIDA.
John and Wendy also spent two nights in a small village in Rwanda providing pineapple seeds for a local growing project, teaching better farming practices and enabling the village to become a model for others to follow. As they stated to me, they affirm the work of CIDA and sincerely hope that CIDA will continue to have an emphasis on food security, particularly for supporting smallholder farmers.
I thank the Taekemas for taking the time to share this success story with me and congratulate the Canadian Foodgrains Bank program for the valuable work that it does internationally.