New faces at the helm of OFA

Monday, November 24, 2014

by MIKE BEAUDIN

Don McCabe, a Lambton County cash cropper, is the new president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

McCabe was elected on a third ballot Monday at the OFA’s annual meeting in Niagara Falls, beating outgoing president Mark Wales 147 votes to 106 votes.

McCabe takes over the office in 2015. Wales will remain on the general farm organization’s board of directors as the elected representative of Zone 4, Elgin and Oxford.

Two other candidates, Debra Pretty-Straathof of Renfrew County and Keith Currie of Collingwood, were eliminated in earlier rounds of balloting.

This was McCabe’s third run as president of Ontario’s largest farm advocacy group. Wales beat him by a single vote in 2011.

“I’m honoured and appreciative of the support of the 37,000 standing delegates,” said McCabe, who has served as a vice-president of the federation since 2008. “My challenge is to move the ball forward every day.”

Currie, a crop farmer from Simcoe County, and Peggy Brekveld, a Thunder Bay area dairy farmer, were elected as first and second vice president.

On Monday, Brekveld was elected as a director at large for a three-year term (previously she had been a director for zone 15, which is northern Ontario) while Patrick Jilesen, a sheep farmer from Bruce County, was elected to his first two-year term. In total, there were nine candidates vying for the two positions.

Mark Reusser a Region of Waterloo turkey producer, was elected as the board’s fourth executive member.

The board has 18 members in total.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, McCabe said the six years he served as a vice-president gave him insight into the needs of the federation’s members on every scale.

“The challenge is to make sure the opportunities are there and our members see a profitable and sustainable future for themselves,” he said.

His more immediate concern is supporting farmers struggling to harvest their 2014 crops after an unexpected mid-November snowstorm. “It’s really ugly out there,” he said.

McCabe congratulated Wales, a farmer from Elgin, who has served on the board since 1994 and was elected as its president at the organization’s convention in 2011.

“He put in a lot of hard work and moved us forward over the past three years,” said McCabe.

A self-described no-till corn, soybean and wheat farmer from Inwood, McCabe has a doctorate-level education in soil genesis and classification from the University of Guelph, and a chemistry degree from the University of Western Ontario.

He is a leading advocate for environmental farm stewardship in the areas of air, water, biodiversity and climate change.

McCabe sits on the Thames Sydenham and Area Source Water Protection Committee. He is also a third-year president of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, vice chair of the Bio-Industrial Innovation Centre and serves as fire chief to the Inwood fire department. BF