Jan 05, 2007 - 04:03:57 CST
A nonprofit group that seeds crops for farmers in need is accepting applications for its second planting season, and some of the farmers who got aid the first time around are ready to help spread the word.Farm Rescue helped 10 farmers last year and hopes to increase that number this year, though it depends on the amount of money available, said Bill Gross, an airplane pilot who founded the nonprofit group. Farm Rescue relies on donations, volunteers and corporate sponsors.
"We want to increase operations by at least 30 or 40 percent, and we're hoping we can also provide some harvesting assistance this year," Gross said Thursday. "Everything is based on funding."
Volunteers with the organization help farmers who are ill or injured and meet certain size and gross sales guidelines. The deadline for farmers to apply for the coming crop season is March 15.
Lowell Hartvikson said Farm Rescue volunteers last year seeded 700 acres of wheat, soybeans, dry peas and oats for him in three days after he lost an arm in a baler accident.
"That really took the pressure off," the Willow City farmer said. "I probably would have had to call on neighbors ... and at that time everybody was busy doing their own thing."
Hartvikson, along with a few other farmers who received aid last year, have volunteered to staff Farm Rescue booths at farm shows this month in Jamestown, Fargo and Minot, as a way of giving something back to the program.
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