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Canada 'Sunflower Capital' Has Another Claim to Fame
The Sunflower - USA National Magazine
1/1/1999
The southern Manitoba community of Altona was the site this fall of the unveiling of a 24x32-foot likeness of Vincent van Gogh's 1888 classic "Fourteen Sunflowers in a Vase." The painting (shown at left) is secured to a huge easel constructed of steel tubing and standing more than 76 feet tall. Approximately 27,000 pounds of steel were required to complete the easel.
The sunflower painting was accomplished by Winnipeg artist Cameron Cross. The canvas consists of 2 sheets of 3/4-inch plywood, laminated together into four 8x24-foot panels. Each panel was coated with fiberglass and then sealed with an automotive primer.
Altogether, 17 gallons of high-performance paint were required to complete this giant work of art.
The project was sponsored by the Altona and District Chamber of
Commerce in recognition of the Altona area's historic sunflower reputation. That connection dates back to the latter 19th century and immigrant Mennonites from Russia. Those settlers brought with them the seed of the Mammoth Russian 9so named for the large seeds it produced) variety of sunflower and planted them in their new Manitoba gardens.
Several decades later, in the mid-1940's, a group of Manitoba sunflower growers formed Co-op Vegetable Oils, Ltd., and build a oilseed sunflower processing plant in Altona. That plant later operated under the ownership of CSP Foods Ltd. and then CanAmera Foods.
On the production side, Canadian scientists had been breeding new
higher-oil varieties since the 1930's. Following the opening of the Altona crushing facility, commercial sunflower production became focused in Manitoba. About 60,000 acres were being grown there as of 1949,though the acreage later declined due to diseases and other problems.
As of 1998, the figure was back up to approximately 125,000 acres of
sunflower grown in southern Manitoba - as many of them confections - and an estimated total of about 165,000 acres across Canada.
www.sunflowernsa.com
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