More farmers vie for OFA's top seat

Monday, October 31, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

The race is on to determine who will lead Ontario’s largest general farm organization as two new candidates have announced their intention to run.

Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice president Don McCabe and director-at-large Wayne Black of Huron County have joined vice president Mark Wales in seeking the president’s position. Current president Bette Jean Crews announced in September she won’t be running for another term. Elections will be held during the federation’s annual meeting Nov. 21-22. Voting for the president will be on the afternoon of Nov. 21.

McCabe says one of his main concerns is achieving sustainable prosperity for Ontario farmers. There may be fairly good crop prices currently but in the past seven years production costs have doubled. Farmers producing red meats are still attempting to get fully back on their feet.

Growing Forward 2 negotiations with the federal government are currently underway. That set of policy programs, slated to begin in 2013, “will impact farmers’ bottom lines going forward,” says McCabe, who has served as federation vice president since 2008. He operates a no-till corn, soybean and wheat farm near Inwood in Lambton County.

He also plans to work on improving communications both within the federation and between the federation and other organizations. His plans here include ensuring ideas are flowing both to and from the federation’s executive from grassroots farmers so that “at the end of the day the best policies are put forward that have the consensus of our membership and commodity organizations.”

It isn’t the federation’s job to tell growers how to farm, he says. But it is the federation’s job to ensure farmers have the “widest choice of tools available to farm with.”

Black says in his bid for president he has broad based support from people across the industry and province. “They have faith in how I present myself. They have faith in my ability to make the organization work as a well-oiled machine to do better than we could individually on our own.”

Why should people vote for him? Black says one reason is because he’s able to communicate positive agricultural stories to both urban and rural residents using social media, mainly Twitter and Facebook, and by building relationships with the media and policy makers.

“There’s a whole avenue of untapped sources that we can use to get the message out,” he says.

Recently the cash crop farmer was featured in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article on farmers using social media. Black says through that contact the urban-based writer of the article has become more interested in doing other stories about agriculture. In addition, others who read the article and know the writer expressed an interest in reading more pieces about farming.

Other reasons Black says people should vote for him include his history of using a team building approach and getting people within the organizations he’s involved with to work together. It’s important to tap into the skill sets of the 18 people on the federation’s board “to work together as a whole to achieve a better solution,” he explains.

Black operates a cash crop farm and works on his father’s dairy operation. He was elected as a federation director-at-large in 2010. He’s past president of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture and has served as Ashfield Township director from 2004 to 2006. Currently he sits on the Sustainable Huron Steering Committee and Taste of Huron Committee. BF