Everybody needs food, but for some people, actually being able to afford that food is a challenge, and one they can’t always meet. The God’s Little Acre project, now in its second year in Yorkton, is a community-based movement to feed the hungry in the city by raising produce, and recently held a potato planting event to start the 2015 growing season.
Jas Singh began the God’s Little Acre project in Surrey, BC. He says it began as he made a major shift in his priorities, moving from the corporate world into growing food for people. The project has significantly expanded since it began, going from potatoes on three acres to 70 acres on five farms.
“I grew up on a farm, and I decided to go back to farming, and some personal changes in my life meant I am following a different path now, and that path lead me to do a lot more community work than before,” Singh says.
“You’re looking at a guy who lives in a basement suite, owns no property and is giving away 150,000 lbs of product this year alone.”
The project in Yorkton is trying to go in the same direction as the B.C. original, beginning with potatoes and then steadily expanding to more crops and more land.
The Yorkton expansion was created from a series of fortuitous chance meetings. He met someone in Regina at an Airport who had heard of the project after deciding to visit the province. They just happened to both be headed to Yorkton, and after being invited to church by this person, he met most of the main group running the show in Yorkton, and they quickly decided to move forward with the project.
“In my life I don’t believe anything is a coincidence... I think it was all planned long before I showed up here.”
Singh says that he provides the seed, whether that means the literal seeds or the experience of doing the project in B.C. He says that the local crew is what makes the local version work, and their hard work, and their contributions make it work. One of those local people is Dwayne Kruger, the farmer who is providing the land. He says it made sense to support the project with land because that’s what he has and can contribute, and he believes in Singh’s vision. Kruger says that the project has brought together the neighbours, as the tractors were all provided by the neighboring farms and families.
“We’ve got a really good community out here rurally... It’s about cultivating the land, but cultivating relationships and community,” Kruger says.
The first year of the project was a success, in spite of a difficult growing season which included flooding, limiting access to the land and causing concerns over the health of the crop.
“Somehow, our potatoes were protected, and we were able to pull out ten or twelve thousand pounds of potatoes to give away.”
Singh says that for him personally, he believes everyone has a responsibility to help their fellow man, and this is how he can help. He does not make a profit on the project, as he doesn’t believe profits should be in the equation when it comes to feeding the hungry, saying that expenses are handled through farmers markets and it’s otherwise entirely volunteer based.
“I think whether you’re a religious person or not, you will hopefully be at a point in your life where you will be lying down and asking “what did I do with my life?” I want to make sure I have an answer to that question... To say I did good, to say I did the right thing, that I didn’t let my brother or sister starve here. That’s very basic, how you can lift people out of poverty if you can feed people. It doesn’t matter if they are addicts, it doesn’t matter if they are street people, it doesn’t matter if they’re drunk, we need to feed them first and motivate them second, and if we follow that path I think we are doing the right thing.”
It’s hard work, and it’s for a good cause, but the Singh says it has also been a fun project, and he invites people to follow along with what they’re doing at www.godslittleacrefarm.com.
