The Manning Co-operative Seed Cleaning Plant may be older, but the community is working together to upgrade and keep it going.
When it comes to the Manning Co-operative Seed Cleaning Plant, it wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for those in the community stepping up. When the plant needed a new manager, Darlene Friesen stepped up, and when they needed new board members, Linda Schmidt stepped up.
“I love my job. I just love associating with the farmers and they’ve got lots of good old stories they tell and that and I just love it,” Friesen says in a phone interview.
Friesen has worked as the plant manager for eight years. She mainly works by herself, and during busy times she will get help — a local man Bob Ressler will come in and work with her.
The plant located in Manning, Alta. cleans peas, wheat, barley, and oats. One year Friesen cleaned some rye, which was a new experience. The plant only cleans seed/grain and is open from September till May, although Friesen will clean the odd load of grain if asked during the off season.
During the 2019-2020 growing season the Manning Seed Plant cleaned over 300,000 bushels of grain.
“Every year I’ve been here I’ve gotten a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more every year… we’ve had a lot of customers coming back,” Friesen explains.
Friesen has become popular with the customers over the years, having forged relationships making for repeat customers.
“When Darlene came on board, it was really good because she’s really enthusiastic to try and keep things going. She’s really good at keeping up the maintenance and cleaning, and really good with customers,” Schmidt says in a phone interview.
Schmidt joined the board of the plant in 2013, at the time they were looking for new members. Schmidt and her husband Ed were regular customers of the plant and attended the annual general meetings of the seed cleaning cooperative.
Schmidt now serves as the board’s secretary and has taken an interest in keeping the plant running for future generations. She even reached out to the provincial archives in order to learn more about the history of the plant.
“I’ve gotten some stuff from the Alberta archives here a while ago, the stuff that had been filed years ago, like who was the original directors and presidents and stuff from way back,” Schmidt says. “It was really interesting to see the people and what all they had done to try and get it going and keep it going.”
The Manning Seed Plant has been operating for more five decades having been built in 1969. Since then various boards have been formed with people from the community stepping up to keep the plant running.
For the locals keeping the plant running is important, otherwise they’d have to truck grain to be cleaned to the next closest plant in Grimshaw, Alta. which is 80 kms away. This would increase operating costs for those in the farming community, and also take up precious time they could be working in their fields.
It’s not easy to keep the plant going, though. Technological advancements and aging equipment are wearing on its viability.
“It’s hard to keep it going with all the modern technology and everything. But then to build a new one is extremely expensive,” Schmidt says.
The board and Friesen, joined together to discuss the future of the plant. They weighed the pros and cons of repairing the plant versus building a new one. Rebuilding’s an expensive venture, and with the plant not being operational year-round, it didn’t make sense to build a new one. Friesen keeps it in good working order and they have started upgrading equipment piece by piece on the current plant — which is now over 50 years old.
“We had some ongoing projects that we’re doing some equipment upgrades now. We just want to keep working at it to try and we want to make it better for them. Try and keep something for the next generation,” Schmidt says.
This year they are replacing the indent with a new one currently ordered. In order to finance the new indent, the board made a presentation to their local county, Northern Lights, who provided them with a loan and grant to purchase the new indent.
“We thought, well we’ll start with this particular piece of equipment was needed the most. And then we’ll go from there as to what’s the next project,” Schmidt explains.
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