Farmers reap 'very rewarding experience' as Yazidi newcomers harvest potatoes from family land

Early-fall snowstorms have delayed harvest seasonsfor many Prairie grainfarmers, but there's at least one crop that was able to be pulled from the ground this Thanksgiving weekend for a good cause.

A group of Yazidi refugees and farmers got their hands dirty at a farm near Portage la Prairie where theyheaved up wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of potatoes.

Volunteers from Operation Ezra,which sponsored many Yazidi families that settled in Winnipeg,have beenworking with the refugees to grow potatoes for their families since this summer.

They sowed 200-300 potatoplants at the farm in June, and on Sunday the Yazidifamilies reaped the benefitswhen they harvested an estimated 3,000 potatoes.

Yazidis, farmers get hands dirty at Portage la Prairie potato pull

6 years ago

Duration 1:14

Farmers helped Yazidi refugees harvest potatoes on a farm near Portage la Prairie Sunday.

Farmer Ross Tufford offered up a patch of of his farmland for the project that is too small to farm commercially, andworked with the families to grow the crops.

"It is a very rewarding experience," he said Sunday. "You can tell that they're grateful and they're very interested in the soil and the farming."

Tuffordsaid his family used the small portion of land to grow vegetables when he was young but has been unused for years.

"It's very good soil," he said. "Shame to let that go to waste."

About 10Yazidifamilies were privatelysponsored by Operation Ezra two years ago, part of a wave of thousands to leave their homes in Iraq beginning in 2014 when ISIS began targeting the local religious minority.

FaissalNaso, aYazidiwho moved to Canada from Iraq 18 years ago, has been helping them get settled and grow the vegetables.

"I can imagine how it was like when I [was new] here," he said. "I see these guys in my shoes, so we try and help them out every step of the way."

Farming is common and widespread amongYazidi people, Naso said, and the newcomers havebeen excited tolearn the differences betweenIraqi and Canadian soil and weather patterns.

"They were telling me about the different types of soil they used to grow different crops, different times of the season,so they have a lot of experience and knowledge in the farming industry," Naso said.

Tufford's niece Megan Sodomsky, a volunteer with Operation Ezra,came up with the potatoplan.

She and others with the group started running food relief benefits after learning some government-sponsored refugeesdidn't have access to enough food and other resources to support their families.

Running those benefits or "food drops" became expensive, Sodomsky says, so they started brainstorming other ways they could get food onto the tables of Yazidi refugees.

It dawned on her that her family would probably let the Yazidifamilies plant on their farmland near Portage la Prairie.

"I spoke to my dad and my uncle the next week and they said, 'Yeah no problem,'" recalled Sodomsky."About a week after that we were here with seven guys planting."

Her dad and uncle, who have been farmers their whole lives,dug a trench with their tractor. The Yazidi families did the rest.

"Really they did this all themselves," said Sodomsky. "It's really incredible to see everyone working together."

The final step of the day was togive the potatoes a good cleaning,bag them and get them off to families in need, she said.

Operation Ezra hopes to acquire some land closer to Winnipeg next year.

With files from Pierre Verriere