At the End of the Day

   
     At the end of the day as they say... or at the End of the Year...  I want to say thankyou to all those that were able to contribute to Kernels of Hope in any way in 2015... at the End of the year... we know we made a difference in such a postive way to so many people in the Congo...  the end of something always means the beginning of something.   This will allow many people to begin to support themselves through their own farming and begin to allow them to flourish as families... It can mean the beginning of  proper nutrition,  the beginning of education for youth ... the beginning of being proud of what they can do for themselves...
 Thank you for allowing beginnings !

May 2016 bring you and yours Health, Prosperity and Peace.
Ray the Grain Guy

The Malio Project for 2015 in DR Congo

TOGETHER

     It's all coming together !  
Our real farmers have been working hard and often battling the weather conditions but things are coming together.  We often had rain when it wasn't wanted especially this fall when the crop was ready to harvest.  Some say it builds character... I know though when we put it all together every year it builds families and better lives for them...Building Hope....

   Tween Lakes at Hyas have the Kernels wheat in the grain Cart now...they just finished harvest this week...  Gerald and Darla of Kinistino ha better weather this year and pulled off a sweet 55 bushels per acre of wheat  on their 50 acres designated to Kernels !   Ron VanHeyst with Earls help grew a whopper of a canola crop getting 50 bushels per acre on his 6 Kernels acres.  We found a great unused contract and got $12.15 per bushel for those 300 bushels....  Canola is usually $10 / bu the past 2 years . $12.15 is at the top of any price in that time.  Grant of Jardine Farms has 500 bushels of wheat ready to come to market from his 10 acres.... Grant had good quality wheat using his green thumb for others too !   Steve and Loni of West Elton Farms at Brandon have been real Kernels farmers longer than anyone and they will be hauling soon.   Their friends Tim and Heidi Penner from Justice ( the most appropriate address for Kernels possible )  brought in 528 bushels of wheat from their Kernels field.  Don't forget that the federal Govt  matches much of our produce 4 to 1    So 528 bushels is 2640 bu !     Go back and work out the canola at Rons with this formula... Making a difference one kernel at a time. No news yet from Prairie Soils at Norquay but there will be good things happening there as always...  The Nelson of Alberta will also let us know how the crop was there... drought ?  maybe   maybe not !
   If you were wanting to help this year to fund our Malio project that helps to improve food production and consumption for  600 farming families from 8 villages in Beni Territory, North Kivu Province in the DR Congo ... its not too late....  if you or anyone in your family history has ever been really hungry you'll know that waiting till next year isn't a good option ...   Stay tuned for the years wrap up !
   Many Thanks & Blessings ,
Ray the Grain Guy

Early Morning September 29 at Ron's field by Brandon... the canola has been harvested...  the field is empty ( like many peoples dreams and food cupboards in The Congo)   The sunrise here is like what you are doing for the people there...  Providing nourishment which leads to health and the ability to produce their own crops and to provide dreams and Hope !   Hope... the short word that is so huge for all of us ! It's a new day.

Lined up and ready !

The Canola at Ron's has been swathed for about two weeks...  You cut it after it starts to mature and you let it dry up in the swath to be ready for harvest.  As you swath it often you pull a roller behind the swather that pushes it gently down into the stubble so it anchors it against most wind.  You wouldn't want it blowing to the neighbours field !
This swath has turned brown since I took the picture and is ready and willing to be put into a combine and then a truck and then the grain elevator so it can help people in our Project in the Congo with food and seed and tools... The canola seeds are so little but they do so much !  Just like us !

Greetings Fellow Farmers!   

      Just wanted to show you the crop stage development of Ron's Canola field at Brandon.
The pods are plentiful and the top picture shows the color change.   Its important to check the seed color change before swathing canola.  Patience is a virtue (As in many things in life ) in timing your swathing ...  The right time gets you larger yield and better quality...  Too early can limit the size of the seeds and lock green inside the seed reducing the value...waiting too long can get you losses from shattering pods or bad weather that could blow your swaths all over the field ... or frost that could also make it low quality....         Things are looking good !

Sunday, August 16 was a great day !  Pugeni ( who many of you have met ) now lives in Winnipeg and works for MCC in Manitoba.  The Mennonite Central Committee has many CFGB tradional growing projects connected to it ... At a boring Blue Bomber game 2 years ago Pugeni stressed the need for MCC to have something like Kernels going to touch people connected through MCC who would like to help in raising crops.  I knew the perfect farmer for this and with a perfect location within 20 miles of the MCC offices... After some preliminary contacts in the spring Pugeni and I visited Grant Dyck of Artel Farms and after 2 minutes he said... (Just like Dragons Den)  I'm in !   MCC worked on their website and systems to accommodate and this year they launched the program... It is a clone of Kernels and has captured the imagination and Crop Input dollars of a lot of people in Winnipeg.  They are now connected with 6 churches and as of Sunday had 192 acres sponsored for this crop year.  They call it Grow Hope.  They also were pleased to get a prominent Virtual Farmer named Cindy Klassen to be a spokeman for the project.  She is an Olympian with many medals and she does things right!   She was so happy to help others in this way.   Some people have called Pugeni and I clones ( in our personalities at least ) and we were both super excited to see us become contagious and spreading this method of farming to a whole new denomination !  Grant is the other person pictured below.   

Grant Jardine

   Grant Jardine of Jardine Farms is one of our real Kernels farmers this year...
  Grant had a chance to help harvest Andrew Dennis' Kernels canola field a few years ago and has been an avid supporter all along...  this year he said he would seed 10 acres for us.   He is also already working on some neighbours to contribute this way in 2016 !...  His is a long term farm that has been feeding people for many years !  Thanks for lending your expertise to us Virtual Farmers and making a Difference to so many!

  Grant's field can be seen on the Brookdale Highway just north of Brandon.

Heavy Crop coming in Manitoba !

     A rough start to the season once again seems to be being ignored by the crops... most on the east 1/2 of the Prairies are doing just fine !  Even our Alberta Kernels farmers the Nelsons have great looking crops at Wetaskiwin.  Prices are coming down as the crops in the US and around the world are doing just fine too !

    This is a picture of the VanHeyst Kernels field by my elevator...  It made me think that there must be a really heavy crop coming !   (  Really they were just doing some maintenance on the pipeline that runs below the field)  
    The pipleline is also a good way of thinking of our Kernels  project...  We put in the resources at our end and refine it into something that is valuable and useable and feed people and enable them to feed themselves ... right around the world !   We get directly to places of need and most people don't even know it is happening !  Just like a pipeline,  working quietly all the time...  

More later !
Ray the Grain Guy

Ron VanHeyst Canola

This canola field by Brandon got off to a slow start.. if you look close you will see some canola plants... by the end of the week you  could see the rows from the highway...  We are making progress !

June Early and Late

     Our fields in the Prairies got off to early starts for the most part.   But early turned into late for some...  frost killed off lots of canola if it was up and out of the ground in the east side of the Prairies. Cereal crops like wheat seemed to survive pretty well.  Extreme dry weather in the West meant that canola which is seeded very shallow and not always down to the moisture was very slow to start...  Flea beetles who like to chew holes in the canola leaves were happily eating any canola plants they could find !
They can cause huge damage until the plants can get larger and outgrow the beetles damaging appetites.  Wheat started fine in the west too and even if the soil is pretty dry it can set its roots deeper to reach moisture which is very good for later in its life.   Just like people !     We have added a new Kernels real farmer this year.   Hudye Soil Services who have been such a large supporter of Kernels by quarterbacking and connecting the producers near Norquay in the Helping Feed the World initiative have passed the torch on to Prairie Soils...  Parker and the crew are up for the challenge of helping our friends in the Congo to produce more food for their families this year...  
    We have great potential of making a huge difference again for people in need...
        The adventure continues !

     Ray the Grain Guy

Spring is Sprung !

We are off to a good start...in most areas of the Prairies the fields are passable. Most often the earlier you seed the better the yield will be.  Much of the wheat is seeded and canola is soon to be.  We have many return Kernels farmers and can use more if you have been thinking about it !  We have finished the Project we have been working on and leaving people in a much better place in life than they were. 
   As of yesterday we were able to find another project in a nearby part of the Congo.  I will give you more news on all of the 2015 Project soon !

Till next time,
Ray the Grain Guy

Not taking Harvest for Granted

   This is a short video from our project in North Kivu of the Congo.  They just harvested the Irish Potatoes and are thrilled.   What a difference we have been able to help with in variety, quality and quantity of their Harvest...

    This is the way our Kernels Fields looked for much of the winter,   Most of the Prairies looks like this every winter for awhile... The hard working , good producing field takes a rest... it pulls up a nice white winter blanket of snow over its soil bed and looks like its doing nothing...  Under that blanket there are still good things happening !   Some diseases and bad insects get stopped dead and eliminated  in the winter in our Canadian Climate... Nutrition is being created from the breakdown of organic material like grain straw.  Everything is getting ready for the warmth of spring sun and rains to wake up the soil and take the snow blanket off and get producing  crops for the worlds 7 Billion people !    Farmers and virtual farmers usually pay less attention to the field during the winter but there are plans being made for getting the right combination of seed, nutrition , crop protection products, equipment and weather to get the most out of that field we can .  An acre in Canada can now feed about 120 people.  Wow !  
    As I have thought recently... There are many important vocations... Doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants,   We need all of them at times but how often do we need farmers ?   Every single day !
   Thanks to our real farmers for thinking about being a real farmer for Kernels this year and thanks for thinking about being a Virtual Farmer this year.  We need all of you for helping people in the Congo get their food production in growing...   Grow With Us !              Ray the Grain Guy

Waving good bye to 2014

.

Its like the wheat is waving good bye to the 2014 grain growing season.  Many farmers are happy to do the same.  It was a rough year for weather  in many areas !  Same with Grain Prices !  We survived the adversity quite well though. Having fields in each Prairie Province almost always allows us to have at least some fields in areas with good crop growing weather.  All of our crops have now made it to market and been turned into money. Helping Feed the World at Norquay was again one of our biggest contributors by gathering $18,500 worth of crops for Kernels from their group > WOW>

     We didn't do as well as 2013 but I still talk to farmers that say they will never in their lives have a better crop than that year.  Tim Penner who has one of our Kernels fields near Brandon said that he always picks a different field for his Kernels plot and it always turns out to be his best crop ! 

This year we (together) were able to raise $322,000 after all expenses and after the Cdn Government match.  It will be used by the Canadian Food Grains Bank and World Relief Canada to finish off our project in North Kivu of the Congo.  We have helped them so much growing crops by supplying seed and tools and some training .  They have been successful at raising Irish Potatoes too !

On behalf of the people of the Congo, World Relief Canada , CFGB, ECCC and especially me ,  we say thank you for being a real and or a virtual farmer in helping create Hope where there was often none.  Stay tuned for plans for a project ( likely in the Congo) to help with again as we Grow again in 2015 .  I heard a quote recently saying "  You can't take money with you when you die,  but,  You can send it ahead.  This is a very good way of doing that !

 

Thanks again !  

 Ray the Grain Guy