Good-bye to a champion of Ontario agriculture

Thursday, August 4, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

Some of the light and laughter has gone from the world due to the death of professor emeritus David Sparling of Western University’s Ivey Business School. The 64-year old chair of Agri-Food Innovation at the university died July 31 after an almost two-year battle with brain cancer.

As a researcher and chair of Agri-Food Innovation, Sparling’s passion for agri-business “resulted in work that positively affected agriculture and all who practice it,” Ivey Business School Dean Bob Kennedy says in an emailed statement.

“As a friend and colleague, he touched us all with his sense of humour and extraordinary personality,” Kennedy notes.

In addition to his top-notch research work, Sparling’s interest in his students at the Ivey Business School “was always evident.”

Sparling was born and grew up in Shawinigan, Quebec. After graduating from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, he began his working life as a broiler chicken producer on a farm near Cambridge. He decided to return to school and completed a PhD at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business in Hamilton.

He worked with government and industry in the agri-food sector and “made significant contributions to both,” according to his obituary from Circle of Life Cremation and Burial Inc. of Dundas, Ontario.

John Cranfield, chair of the University of Guelph’s department of food, agricultural and resource economics in the Ontario Agricultural College, worked with Sparling during his time at that university.

Sparling was a faculty member in the department and was someone “who was a very significant mentor to me and a number of other faculty members before he moved to the college of business and economics in the mid 2000s,” Cranfield says.  

“He was a collaborator, a colleague and a really good friend, and someone who, I think, is going to be missed by a large number of people throughout Canadian agriculture,” he notes.

Cranfield says Sparling always brought energy, enthusiasm and excitement to whatever he did. “He was also a really warm, genuine guy. He cared deeply about people. He also cared deeply about the organization he worked for and represented.”

The agricultural and food industries have lost a bright light, he adds.

Cranfield says Sparling came to the University of Guelph in the mid 1990s and left in 2008. The two professors taught in what was called the agricultural economics and business department. Sparling was an agri-business economist, and Cranfield was an agricultural economist who had one foot in agricultural business and one foot in agricultural economics.

“We taught the same course for a number of years so we had a lot of close interactions through that course. We also advised a number of students together and we co-authored a number of papers together,” he says.

As he went to school and was a professor, Sparling also ran a couple of companies and was very entrepreneurial, Cranfield notes. “He was also very strategic in terms of his thinking.”

As an exceptional mentor, Sparling helped Cranfield see “you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously, but when you roll your sleeves up to work, you work hard. He also had fun with life and he really had this infectious enthusiasm.”

Cranfield says the past couple of days have been hard for him because Sparling was so meaningful to him on both a professional and personal level. “There a scores of people across Canada who are feeling the same thing.”

“It is truly a loss to Ontario’s agri-food sector with the passing of Dr. Sparling,” said Deb Stark, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in a prepared statement. “He was a true innovator, collaborator and contributor for the sector, and will leave many accomplishments as his legacy. From his work on the effectiveness and optimization of organizational design in agri-food industries, to a variety of projects focused on productivity, performance and competitiveness in agri-food, Dr. Sparling was a key contributor to Ontario’s agri-food industry. My sincere condolences to the Sparling family at this difficult time.”

Sparling is survived by his wife, Jane, along with their children and grandchildren.

A reception to honour Sparling will be held at the Whistle Bear Golf Club in Cambridge on Thursday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. BF