Saskatchewan livestock gets help from Ontario producers

Mennonite charity helps Saskatchewan livestock producers get much needed hay donations from Ontario farms.

By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com, Photo by Lena Myzovets on Unsplash

We’re all in this together through good times and bad.

A simple enough refrain, but it’s one the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada is using to seek help for livestock producers in Saskatchewan who are still trying to locate feed.

MDS is the disaster relief organization under the auspices of the Mennonite Churches in Canada and the United States. While it usually responds to such natural disasters as tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, floods, and earthquakes, but it has now looking to help out farmers suffering from weather.

With the scorching weather out west burning vegetation, Saskatchewan farmers are now faced with the dilemma of not having enough feed for their livestock through the winter.

MDS is helping Saskatchewan farmers connect with Ontario producers willing to donate hay. While 24 farmers have already requested and received a load of donated hay, more than double that are still waiting for help.

Although mainly seeking to provide help for family farms, producers can still apply to the MDS program for approval.

Getting the donated hay from Ontario to Saskatchewan—while an issue—is not the chief concern, it’s knowing there is hay available to feed the livestock.

MDS noted that if a farmer can’t pay for the transportation from Ontario, it will take on the cost itself—though it did state that donations from across Canada are also welcome to help defray transport costs.

Visit www.mds.org to donate.