Salvation Army sees significant increase in the number of children needing food bank support

Nov 15, 2022

TORONTO, - People are struggling. The combination of on-going economic uncertainty, inflation and impact from the pandemic is being felt acutely on the front line of social services. The Salvation Army has seen a 30 percent increase in families with children who need our help and are concerned this need will continue to increase over the winter months.

"It's a tough time for many and those hardest hit include families with children. We're seeing more and more families asking for our assistance for the first time. With the threat of a recession, we anticipate this number will continue to grow," says Lt-Colonel John Murray, territorial secretary for communications for The Salvation Army. "Now more than ever before, we are here for people who need us."

Last year, the organization saw a national increase of 500,000 people who looked to The Salvation Army for assistance.

The overwhelming need underpins the organization's annual Kettle Campaign fundraiser. This year's campaign, entitled, Her Only Meal, focuses on providing support to hungry children and families during the Christmas season and hopes to raise $22 million. Thanks to an anonymous donor, the campaign includes a matching gift up to $100,000. Donors can double their impact and provide twice as much food and hope. Donations to the campaign will support programming that provides food, clothing, gifts for children and other necessities.

Contributions to the Kettle Campaign allow The Salvation Army to provide practical assistance for all who need it, throughout the year. This includes meals, food banks, children's breakfast programs, housing supports, substance-use recovery, and care for women and children fleeing domestic violence. Every donation to any of the 2,000 kettle locations across the country remains in the community in which it was given, to support local needs. Most units across Canada offer a safe and simple tap-and-go payment option to donate.

Each year, The Salvation Army relies on the support of thousands of kettle workers who give their time and energy to collect donations at kettle locations across the country. Furthermore, the campaign would not be possible without the support of numerous corporate partners, including Walmart Canada, BellMedia, Loblaw Companies Limited, Costco, BC Liquor Stores, LCBO (in Ontario), Canadian Tire, Cadillac Fairview, Oxford Properties, Ivanhoé Cambridge, Morguard, Metro, Safeway, Save-on-Foods, Sobeys, Bass Pro Shops, The Salvation Army National Recycling Operations (thrift stores) and many more.

Source : Newswire.ca

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”