by BETTER FARMING STAFF
She won’t run for re-election this year but Bette Jean Crews, Ontario Federation of Agriculture’s president, says she will return to the board table as the acclaimed zone director for Northumberland, Hastings, Prince Edward and Lennox and Addington Counties.
Crews announced her intention to step down from the province’s largest general farm organization in a Sept. 26 letter on the Federation’s website. On Thursday, she explained it was time to focus on the farm business.
“I’m 10 or 11 years into this,” she says of her involvement on the OFA executive. “We had organized things at home with the son coming into the farm and all of the support with my husband and the other kids to enable me to do the OFA time commitment. We were doing pretty well with that . . . But over three years bit by bit I knew things would be better if I were back home contributing like I always used to.”
Update: The organization budgets 42 days a year to pay each director, 200 days for its president, 135 days for vice presidents and 90 days for executive members, writes Neil Currie, the organization's general manager, in a Sept. 30 email. BF
Crews says there have been many highlights over her three years as president. She’s pleased with the way so many industry organizations came together to push for risk management: “For me that’s a huge success because it’s a change in the way we do things.”
Maintaining that unity and fostering its spread to other organizations may well prove challenging, she says. “We came together under OASC (Ontario Agriculture Sustainability Coalition) because there were a lot of crises and disasters and we really needed each other and when things are going well there’s less of a tendency to talk to each other.”
On a personal side, she says she enjoyed attending local meetings and meeting farmers. “That might sound sappy,” she says. “There’s just something in the personalities and the outlook on life and even when they’re frustrated, there’s a sense of community there.”
Crews says she will miss representing the organization at meetings with government ministers as well as the challenge of helping members understand the OFA’s policy on different issues.
photo: Mark Wales
Mark Wales, OFA vice-president, says he plans to run for the president’s position. Elections will take place during the annual meeting November 21-22.
“I’ve been vice-president now for three years so it’s time,” he says.
Wales says one of the biggest challenges the organization faces is a four-year “era” of government cost cutting. The industry’s challenge will be to make sure governments understand “agriculture and agrifood and agribusiness are the biggest job creators in this province as well as a huge job creator in this country.”
Don McCabe, OFA vice-president, could not be immediately reached for comment on whether he planned to run for the top job. McCabe ran against Crews for the president’s position last year.
Wales notes that changes to the organization’s board model means that only those on the board are eligible to stand for the position. Nevertheless, there may be a number of people who decide to add their name to the election ballot, he says.
Crews’ words of advice to her eventual successor are to remain optimistic, trustworthy and true to your word: “I never lied to a minister and I never lied to a farmer. That’s key.”
The general farm organization represents about 37,000 farm families across Ontario. BF
Comments
RMP is no barn boomer success story and have we got value for 200 days a year wages?
Questions are would Stable Funding of OFA be cut off if an OFA president and board spoke up strongly and didnt always agree with OMAFRA.
We have to Guess it depends if the liberals or conservatives form the next provincial government if she gets a reward appointment position
Hopefully who ever becomes the new president will shake some things up. OFA is stagnant. It needs rejuvenation and revival.
The new president can also not be seen as being in bed with whatever party wins on Thursday. That has been a problem with the last couple of presidents. It undermines the credibility of the organization.
Absolutely OFA must work with the winning party, but have the courage to also push back if what it is OFA's membership is looking for is not being met. This can be done respectfully.
OFA needs to also work with the Opposition - very important - 'cause you never know when the Opposition becomes the party with the majority.
Time will tell whether BRMP will be as useful to the farmers as the current OFA president and the Liberals claim it is. Certainly some changes/tweaks need to occur.
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