by BETTER FARMING STAFF
Grain Farmers of Ontario isn’t wasting any time replacing director Arden Schneckenberger, Cornwall, who resigned his directorship earlier this week.
Delegates of District 14, comprised of Prescott, Russell, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, will meet next week and elect a new director, says Grain Farmers chairman Don Kenny of Ottawa Carleton.
Schneckenberger predicts it won’t be hard for the new grain growers’ organization, which boasts a membership of 28,000 corn wheat and soybean growers, to replace him. “We have a number of delegates who have expressed interest in being director for this area,” he says.
Schneckenberger, who is 52 and has been involved in farm organizations for 30 years, cited “no real burning issue” behind his resignation only two months into his term. He did say that the task of strategic planning that lies ahead looks daunting. “I thought more of that would be done ahead of time” by an interim board, he says.
“A guy has to be fully enthused” about an organization, he says. Two months into his time as a director “I don’t have that enthusiasm anymore,” says Schneckenberger, whose father helped start the Ontario Corn Producers’ Association.
He did not connect his resignation to an earlier announcement that Dale Petrie, Grain Farmers’ vice president of strategic development, was leaving at the end of this week. Petrie was the general manager of Ontario Soybean Growers before the merger with the corn producers association and the Ontario wheat board which became official at the beginning of the year.
Kenny says Grain Farmers will hold its first strategic planning session on April 13 and expects to wrap up its plan by Aug.1. BF
Comments
Now lets see if I have this right ... we merged 3 boards to get more lobby voice with strength,
*we had an interim board for a year to get us from three boards to one,
*cut cost and have better relations with government being near 1 Stone rd,
*The vote was a manipulated majority at best
*The interim board in a year was not able to accomplish an interim plan or long term vision,
*we have no support program anything like Quebec, and it's only going to take till Aug to have a strategic plan ... fully 1 month after Ritz is to meet on BRM programs in July which we do not have now.
*GFO have lost a large percentage of market,feeding hogs and beef, *Many resolutions from the producers were scraped and not acted on, or included in long term strategic plans
*No mention in budget speeches makes you wonder what effective lobby communication if any has taken place
Can anyone spell "no plan, no goal, no leadership?" and a lack of enthusiasm and committed participation to get here?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The GFO's newish CEO should look hard at this definition and take heed because he is now the head of a board that is worthy of derision and mockery.
Like the Catholic church, it is an 'arrogant' board full of arrogant people who are unaccountable to no-one but their friends. The sanctioned continuance of the wasteful spending for RMP lobby efforts is sickening, morally repulsive, but not surprising.
The recent GFO conference should have been the forum to debate and establish short (1 to 2 years); medium (3 to 5 years); and long-term (5 to 10+ years) plans of actions with the input from the grassroots members. They could have been posted to the GFO website for all to see and debate. This is a wasteful organization that needs some oversight.
It is good to see the above online visitor with the passion to tell the so called truth as he looks at this new organization. Too many years we have had leaders play with farmers economic net income policy, poor legislation, poor accountabilty ,not in farmers best interest. The above poster needs to be thanked for breaking the ice to farm organization folly. It is unfortunate and with guilt or hoplessness,that in some cases the real problem solving management thinking farmers are too busy manageing their farms and won't run as organization directors, resulting in aclaimed voted year after year leaders tunnel vision.
Name calling or accusing others doesnt help but farmers have waited too long for real economic non research results
3/28/201
Letter to the Editor
Re: Grain Farmers of Ontario / Its Inept Board
How do you spell frustration? Could it be GFO? Try getting coherent factual answers to grain producers’ concerns from the new Grain Farmers of Ontario. It is next to impossible. They definitely do not answer questions from emails. The boards policy seems to be if you ignore it long enough it will go away. Sadly, you have to write to the Ag Minister to get any prompt action. Which brings up the question, why are we paying them? Please, someone remind me why we wanted this amalgamated grain board.
- Wasn’t it to save administration costs? It can’t be. The new board recently voted themselves substantial pay raises before they delivered anything of value to the producers. The total administration and operating costs must be in the $2M plus range now.
- Wasn’t it to have a Chair with experience leading the way? It can’t be. The current chair does not yet have a vision or a plan or innovative idea for the future. He must surely recognize that he is in over his head and should step down from this key position.
- Wasn’t it to have a united voice too large in number to be ignored? It can’t be. We were not mentioned in the latest provincial budget at all.
- Wasn’t it to get a 100% RMP payout from the province for all grain farmers? It can’t be. Unbelievably, the GFO’s safety net committee is demanding 40% from the provincial government. However, the overpaid lobby group efforts to date have been abysmal. We are getting zero! You are not surprised, are you? There must be another reason that this GFO board is hanging on so tightly to the Daisy Group.
- Wasn’t it to give the grassroots members a greater say and voice? The farmers agitated and rallied for it. It can’t be though. Anyone who dares to ask the board hard questions are told to shut up and then treated like a pariah by the old boy’s club. Their conduct is so childish and unprofessional, it is almost laughable. Unfortunately, the board’s ineptness financially hurts all members.
- Wasn’t it to have better communications with its members and the Media? It can’t be. The CEO does not use the various social media tools (that are cheap) to update anyone. He could broadcast information via the GFO website, set-up a podcast, or set-up a webcast, etc. He is definitely not leadership material – what a disappointment.
If I had to grade the efforts by the GFO board (like the OFA president did for the provincial budget), it would be a D- for the CEO, an F for the Chair, and an F for the Safety-Net committee. Overall, the GFO board’s efforts on behalf of its membership have been a sorry failure.
It is hard to imagine a more thankless job than that of elected director on a farm commodity board. Thousands of members and about that many opinions, most directly contradictory to one another. An endless supply of would be advisors who know about 10 percent of the issue but have 110 percent of the solution. Perhaps some of those who repeatedly rail at current directors might wish to consider that it is precisely the kind of abuse they heap on their representatives that keeps well qualified individuals from wanting any part of taking a seat on a commodity board.
"know about 10 percent of the issue" Sounds like an accurate portrayal of the secrecy and sanitized minutes of the boards. Within that 10% they know there are no results, no program. As for producers having "110% of the solutions", well that too would be about right since the program we had after months of expensive lobbying took us from a poor program to no program at all.
If you sir, feel the job is thankless, do not make a martyr of yourself. Martyrs are out of style, but we do have space for the remembrance of the likes of you in the agricultural hall of shame.
All we asked for was results, no more than any other shareholder expects of the directors of any corporation they have an investment in.
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