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Arborg, Man.
Forgotten MCC project for Interlake farmers raises $20,000


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

Delmer Kornelsen, Frank Plett and Henry Visch (L-R) with (inset) the six-yard scraper parked for the winter in Kornelsen's farm yard in Mennville, Manitoba. MCC news photos by Carol Thiessen, photo composite by Bruce Hildebrand

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 Manitoba’s 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.

Last fall, Delmer Kornelsen, one of the key members of the Interlake Emergency Farmers Fund, contacted Ken Reddig, executive director of MCC Manitoba, and inquired what to do with more than $20,000 raised from scraper rentals.

At the time, Kornelsen’s query elicited puzzled looks in the MCC Manitoba office, but slowly the details of the forgotten project were pieced together. Reddig and Henry Visch, who had helped coordinate the project in 1984, met with six farmers and a couple of provincial agricultural representatives in March.

In 1984, 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 42 farmers from the area, including non-Mennonites, received emergency assistance – up to $5,000 per family. Scrapers also were purchased to help improve the drainage.

Kornelsen’s son Ken said without the help of MCC, and use of the scrapers, he wouldn’t have made it as a farmer.

Gerald Huebner, now a crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said since that time the provincial government has done considerable drainage work in the area.

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. Between 100 and 125 farmers have used the scrapers, said Kornelsen.

But these Interlake farmers aren’t ready to give up the project yet. They agreed to use 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.

 – Carol Thiessen, for MCC Manitoba

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Last modified May 17, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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