Once again cattlemen are being encouraged to take part in the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Beef Drive Campaign for the Province’s food banks.

One of the highlights of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Annual AGM and Convention this week was a $10,000 donation from Elanco.

Elanco’s Beef Business Unit Manager Gord Roger is pleased to see the money from their 100 communities’ initiative going to such a worthy cause.

"We had a program that was initiated North American wide last year called the 100 Communities Initiative," Roger said. "It's a program designed to break the hunger cycle in 100 communities by the year 2020 and we are well down that path. We had some meeting in Ontario last years and realized we weren't really that active in Saskatchewan, so I worked with a colleague who's been making these similar donations in Ontario and he helped me with the process."   

Stock Grower President Shane Jhanke says the $10,000 donation will be used to cover processing costs involved in the 2017 Beef Drive for Food Banks around the province.

"It's going to be huge," Jhanke said. "We did that beef drive last year and it exceeded our expectations ten fold. With this $10,000 that Elanco has given us to help with processing cost, it's going to help us take our beef drive to the next level."

Last year producers donated over 8500 pounds of ground beef with a retail value of $48 thousand dollars to food banks around the province.

Elanco’s Beef Business Unit Manager Gord Roger says the money should help cover the processing costs on about 30 head.

Elanco is committed to helping break the cycle of hunger in 100 communities across the world by the end of 2020.