By Curtis Galbraith

2021 Bear Lake Growing Project crop seeded

May 11, 2021 | 12:32 PM

GRANDE PRAIRIE, Sask. – This year’s Bear Lake Growing Project crop has been in the ground for just over a week.

Wheat was seeded last Monday in a field located at Emerson Trail and Range Road 72 last Monday.

The rent cost of the land was provided by Gary and Jeanette Beyer. The field was seeded by Greg Sears.

“First of all, it’s a great cause. Second, I think it’s really a good opportunity to have a community-building activity get together and work with your neighbours, kind of like the old days when you used to raise a neighbour’s barn, but we don’t do so much of that anymore. I think there is a lot of value in the community-building aspect of it,” says Sears.

Sears adds he believes this being a community project has kept the it going all this time.

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“We’re all from the area around Bear Lake, probably within 10 miles of Bear Lake. The cause is what starts it and the community is what keeps it going I think because you get to work with your neighbours and work with people that you don’t see on a regular basis, which I think is gratifying.”

The proceeds raised from selling the crop will be donated to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Sears says people who want to sponsor an acre can check the Bear Lake Growing Project Facebook page.

As for seeding progress in his area, Sears says, generally speaking, it looks like farmers are ahead of schedule.

“I think we’re all really happy to be actually a little bit ahead of normal around this area. I think most of the area in the Peace is ahead of what you would call normal and having a decent change to get the crop in the ground early and not having to battle spring harvest and all the work that was associated with that last year.”

Sears adds seeding conditions are good, but subsoil moisture is lower than the last couple of years. He says people are sticking with crop rotations, although some wheat acres have been switched over to barley because of good pricing opportunities for feed barley.