Manitoba grows food on a huge scale, yet food bank use in the province has doubled over the last five years, and farmers have become a big part of the response, the Manitoba Co-operator's Miranda Leybourne reports.
Harvest Manitoba's 2025-26 Impact Report, released on September 24, says 61,188 people used a food bank in March of that year alone, and nearly half of those who rely on food banks each month are children. The year was the highest on record for the non-profit, with an average of 24,880 households visiting a food bank each month. It collected 8.75 million pounds of donated and rescued food, valued at $31.85 million, bought 4.64 million pounds more, and distributed it through a network of 400 food banks and partner organisations.
More than two million of the 13.4 million pounds distributed last year came directly from the agriculture sector, said Vince Barletta, Harvest Manitoba's president and chief executive. Peak of the Market alone handles more than a million pounds of produce for the network, and hundreds of thousands of pounds more come straight from farms. Donations follow the seasons: potatoes, cabbage, squash, zucchini, carrots and onions, with mushrooms and greenhouse tomatoes all year.
Livestock groups give too. Manitoba Pork has long helped equip local food banks with freezers so they can store frozen products, pork included. Manitoba Egg Farmers has donated since 2020 and in May 2025 doubled its monthly gift from 1,800 to 3,600 dozen eggs; it counts more than 100,000 dozen donated over several years. The eggs are inspected, graded and packed at a federally registered grading station before reaching more than 86 food banks in Winnipeg and others in 45 communities. "Eggs are one of the most requested food items at Harvest Manitoba because they are nutritious, versatile and familiar to families," said general manager Jillian Einarson.
Not every farm product can go straight to a food bank. "Much of what farmers produce, like grain, canola and livestock, can't go straight to a food bank, and many farms are also far from urban centres," said Jill Verwey, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP). KAP backs the proposed Manitoba Food Transformation Centre, a 100,000-square-foot food reclamation facility with flash freezing, processing, cold storage and distribution, aimed at the 1.2 million tonnes of food Harvest Manitoba estimates is wasted in the province each year.
A provincial spokesperson said data on donated and rescued food was not available, and named infrastructure, logistics and co-ordination as the most pressing issues in moving perishable farm surpluses into food banks. Manitoba Agriculture sat on Harvest Manitoba's food transformation committee, and the province's Food Development Centre has worked with the charity on reducing food waste.
Photo: Trevor Bauer / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Manitoba Co-operator
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