UFA in Alberta has taken stock off its own shelves to donate to frontline health care workers.

The President and CEO for United Farmers of Alberta Co-operative, Scott Bolton says they managed to get a shipment of N95 masks.

"One of the items that we stock in our stores typically through our regular merchandising program are N95 masks. These are the medical grade high quality masks that 3M manufacture in Minnesota," Bolton explained. "We started to notice at the beginning of the crisis that these masks were starting to sell more frequently and we were soon out of supply and there's now a world wide shortage of the product.

In the crisis we're in the primary consideration is to make sure that our health professionals have enough of these masks for their use because as we've discovered these masks are the best quality and have the medical grade technical features for use in medical fields, on the front lines so they can deal with combating this virus."

He says unexpectedly they were able to get a shipment of 4,800 N95 masks and decided as a team to call Alberta Health Services about donating them, which AHS gratefully accepted.

Bolton says farmers do use the masks.

"They're very helpful if you're working with seed treating or around a grain bin where there's dust, these masks can be helpful and we are working extremely hard to find alternative supplies of masks that will be suitable or useful for our members," he says.

He says there's been very positive feedback from customers and members.