Does NFU represent the average farmer? Some interesting characters on their board.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I knew very little about the NFU, other than what Grassfarmer posts here, and having met Darrin Qualman and Peter Eggers once. Someone here suggested some unflattering remarks about NFU membership, so I tried to find out how many members they have, which apparently is a closely guarded secret.

But what I did learn was interesting, doesn't appear to be many if any actual farmers involved. Here are some quotes from profiles of various board members from the NFU website. italics are my comments:

is a landless farmer whom meanders between several locations

is interested in cooperative movements, trading metal mix-tapes, what other ***** folk (LGBTQQIP2SAA) are doing to the soil, and supports the opposition to Site C

an organic, small-scale farm (a very common theme, I didn't bother copy and pasting every time the word organic is used, since it is mostly all of them, nothing against organic producers, but Inote that they appear to be over represented amongst the NFU board members)

As the feedlot became less profitable due to corporate control of the cattle sector, he ended the feedlot to focus on cows and high quality, high protein Hard Red Spring Wheat. That ended with the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board.(Which is odd, since that was opposite to most wheat growers experiences)

true desire for social justice

need to refocus governments’ views away from the pro-corporate, profit agenda

undergraduate degree in Nutrition and Food Sciences and Food Policy where the topics of environmental stewardship and social justice captured his attention

is also a social worker and therapist.

was the co-director and founder of Sole Food Street Farms, a social enterprise that provides jobs and agricultural training for people in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.

the idea of owning land in unceded territories ... seems kind of messed up.

is an actor and theatre instructor

Bachelor of Environmental Studies

worked as a forestry technician with a local conservation authority

has spent the past several years working on organic farms

all farmers no matter their gender, age, or race

teaches Yoga at her local community centre

along with three (sometimes) helpful farm cats, they make a living selling organic vegetables and cut flowers


Other noteworthy items from their website,
They are very much opposed to hydro power, specifically site C dam in BC, which doesn't exactly square with the desire for renewable energy which they also support, not sure what site C dam has to do with farmers?
Lots of anti GMO
Lots of support for UN initiatives
Supporting climate change initiatives, including the carbon tax
Anti pipeline, pro First nations soveriegnty
Anti free trade/NAFTA/CETA
Pro bilingulism/Francophone (noteworthy that the only region without an NFU chapter is Quebec
Pro Pharmacare in Canada
Promoting prison farms
Anti growth hormones
Many media releases about gender
NFU is proud to endorse Idle No More’s “UNsettling Canada 150” Call to Action ( wouldn't that involve kicking farmers off the land, not sure if they thought that one through all the way?)
They are against property owners defending their own property or lives against criminals, but the entire cause of the problem is not enough women in the right positions
Solidarity with natives in US blocking pipelines
Concerned about Brazilian and Palestinian farmers rights
Concerned that the government of New Brunswick isn't doing more to help farmers due to low wild blueberry prices( at least it is almost farming related, but not sure how you farm a wild plant??? Can't it be one or the other?
They sent condolences to Colten Boushie
Supports migrant workers
Endorses LEAP Manifesto
Supported ALberta's bill 6, farm safety bill brought in by NDP, which was universally opposed by all in the industry
SUpported Lawrence Macaulay, previous federal ag minister
Concerned about support for Libraries
Against TPP
Pro supply management ( at least it is ag related)
Still lamenting the fall of the CWB, and longing for the good old days.


I will leave most of those uncommented, but I will ask, do most of these have anything to do with Canadian Agriculture, do you support these issues, and are these really the biggest priorities facing farmers right now? They are purporting to speak for all farmers when they put their support behind anti-business policies such as the carbon tax, but do they really speak for even a small minority? The board members appear to be almost exclusively from hobby scale organic type operations, and all appear to be against conventional or larger scale farms.

And the bigger question, if farmers don't share their views, how do we counter that, and get our voices heard? Do non farming Canadians and bureaucrats believe that NFU really does represent average farmers?

[malleefarmer]

I dare not criticize from afar but seems at times your a little unorganized with farmer representation at province level and federal level.

Each state here has a lobby body. Ours is called ppsa primary producers south australia.
Then sub committees livestock sheep/beef livestock pig/poultry graingrowers dairy and wine/horticulture

One independant chairman overlooks the whole group.

2 national bodies grain growers australia and NFF national farmer federation. PPSA has two reps on each.

Some of our grain levys go to ppsa.

Also a national wool growers body as well again ppsa has one rep.

Seems to work well.

[grassfarmer]

What a joke that post was. Selectively picking segments of some of the directors profiles, often quoting their interests or hobbies and omitting their agricultural qualifications. Lots of commercial farmers - conventional grain and livestock producers included throughout the ranks of the NFU directors and members.
If you think I'm going to waste my time further countering your ridiculous claims in this thread you've got another thing coming. I've better things to do with my time even if you haven't.

[bobofthenorth]

The NFU hasn't been anything more than a loose collection of whacky kooks as long as I've been around ag in western Canada. And that's longer than I want to remember.

APAS & Keystone are the only genuine farm lobby organizations that I can think of off the top of my head but I assume there must be something similar in Alberta. I don't think government pays much heed to any of those organizations anyway. I used to be very involved with the national ag retail organization. We had to muscle our way onto the federal radar. They very rarely came looking for our opinion and only occasionally listened when we forced ourselves on them.

The mystery to me is why farmers put up with the myriad of checkoffs that they pay. I understand that some of that money actually gets spent on research and market development but a lot of it gets pissed away on administration which is a wonderful word that covers a lot of sins including travel, meals and booze.

[15444]

I have never met an NFU member that continually stayed on his meds; I would really like to meet one.

[Herc]

Whats an NFU?.....

[Quadtrack]

They don’t represent anyone. Won’t say how many members they have as it’s probably so few it’s meaningless. Where does the money come from? The two I have met, both on the board, are the type that would only attend something if someone else is paying.
They did manage to get an ‘organic’ research cluster set up and lay claim to about $600k in federal funding. Crock of crap. One project is researching how to control Canada thistle with a cultivator. Seriously. Maybe plotting the moon cycles vs time of tillage.
A completely irrelevant group that whines about how good things used to be in the CWB days.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Whats an NFU?.....

It is what you get when you combine an NFG with a SNAFU.

[Herc]

It is what you get when you combine an NFG with a SNAFU.

I was gonna say NFG with FUBAR but yours will work....

[sumdumguy]

They don’t represent anyone. Won’t say how many members they have as it’s probably so few it’s meaningless. Where does the money come from? The two I have met, both on the board, are the type that would only attend something if someone else is paying.
They did manage to get an ‘organic’ research cluster set up and lay claim to about $600k in federal funding. Crock of crap. One project is researching how to control Canada thistle with a cultivator. Seriously. Maybe plotting the moon cycles vs time of tillage.
A completely irrelevant group that whines about how good things used to be in the CWB days.

I went on an organic field tour and we were taken to one of the thistle plots that they were cultivating- solid Canada Thistle.

[seldomseen]

Just the Ag arm of the NDP. I won't go anywhere near them now but I a have short history with them.

When i was just getting started farming i had a couple of real strong NDP neighbors and they were also strong supporters of the NFU. About the time I was leaving high school these two older neighbors would always try to get me to come to their NDP or NFU meetings. Being young and naive I decided to go check it out even after my Dad said he wouldn't go. When I got to the meeting they told me it was going to be a membership drive. There was a house full of other people and we were going to get paired up and go around selling memberships. Wayne Easter was the head of the NFU at the time and somehow I got paired up with Wayne. So my day turned into driving Wayne Easter from farm to farm while he tried to sell memberships. I somehow managed to disappear after the meeting without buying a membership and have never gone to anymore NFU meetings. These same neighbors got me to a NDP meeting one time and met Allen Blakeney and I got out of that one also without a membership or a donation.
The old pickup that I drove Wayne in ended up parked broken down and rusted out behind the yard and my kids would play in it sometimes. Then watching the news Wayne Easter would show up and i would tell my kids "You see that guy from the government he spent a day riding in our old pickup" I don't think they ever believed me.
Sorry for rambling.

[macdon02]

Seldom, i went to a recent NFU, EPR meeting, mostly out of curiosity to see the other view. NFU said they asked 40 other farm organizations to join them lobbying govt. Here's our first problem, wtf is going on that we're needed 40 organizations to represent us? Apparently the take is getting a little rich if there's that many, representing "farmers". Second, they want all the genetic dna given to the universities. Now i have zero issues with public funded genetics, in fact i encourage it, but giving universities exclusivity to all the breeding material is asking for a disaster. Let them wage war against the Bayers and Cortevas of the world to keep them in check. There needs to be a balance between the 2. There will be more money in owning grain on paper the next 10 years then actually producing it as the corruption in govt is putting regulation in place making production unprofitable, the oligopoly will thrive as is.

[dalek]

Still No F$&@ing Use

[Oliver88]

Wow, quite the list of priorities from these loons.
The list of items they endorse would basically end all agriculture in Canada and kill our economy.



Other noteworthy items from their website,
They are very much opposed to hydro power, specifically site C dam in BC, which doesn't exactly square with the desire for renewable energy which they also support, not sure what site C dam has to do with farmers?
Lots of anti GMO
Lots of support for UN initiatives
Supporting climate change initiatives, including the carbon tax
Anti pipeline, pro First nations soveriegnty
Anti free trade/NAFTA/CETA
Pro bilingulism/Francophone (noteworthy that the only region without an NFU chapter is Quebec
Pro Pharmacare in Canada
Promoting prison farms
Anti growth hormones
Many media releases about gender
NFU is proud to endorse Idle No More’s “UNsettling Canada 150” Call to Action ( wouldn't that involve kicking farmers off the land, not sure if they thought that one through all the way?)
They are against property owners defending their own property or lives against criminals, but the entire cause of the problem is not enough women in the right positions
Solidarity with natives in US blocking pipelines
Concerned about Brazilian and Palestinian farmers rights
Concerned that the government of New Brunswick isn't doing more to help farmers due to low wild blueberry prices( at least it is almost farming related, but not sure how you farm a wild plant??? Can't it be one or the other?
They sent condolences to Colten Boushie
Supports migrant workers
Endorses LEAP Manifesto
Supported ALberta's bill 6, farm safety bill brought in by NDP, which was universally opposed by all in the industry
SUpported Lawrence Macaulay, previous federal ag minister
Concerned about support for Libraries
Against TPP
Pro supply management ( at least it is ag related)
Still lamenting the fall of the CWB, and longing for the good old days.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

What a joke that post was. Selectively picking segments of some of the directors profiles, often quoting their interests or hobbies and omitting their agricultural qualifications. Lots of commercial farmers - conventional grain and livestock producers included throughout the ranks of the NFU directors and members.
If you think I'm going to waste my time further countering your ridiculous claims in this thread you've got another thing coming. I've better things to do with my time even if you haven't.

It would be bad enough if I'd had to selectively cherry pick to find such gems, but the truth is, there was only about 3 board members who didn't state something so ridiculous in their bio's that it warranted including in the list. Perhaps all the members who's bio's are blank are better, or perhaps their bio's are so far out there that they don't dare publish them. And the really scary part, I did include their agricultural qualifications, refer to the list above. And those are the board members, assuming that the cream rises to the top, imagine what the rank and file must have for qualifications and beliefs?

Not sure why you took this so personally, or why you believe it is should be your responsibility to defend them, it wasn't directed at you. And none of them are my ridiculous claims, they are either direct quotes from NFU board member bio's, or paraphrased synopsis of their press releases, most of which are beyond being defensible.

Not sure how an organization which purportedly represents farmers was hijacked ( or perhaps always was?) by primarily radical left anti-everything eco/social justice warriors, or what motivated them to get involved, but I can't help but wonder if one followed the money, that it would lead back to the same sources as Vivian Krause found to be behind the other anti-industry groups attempting to destroy Canada's productive industries.

Is it our own fault for not getting involved, which allowed this small but vocal minority to take over and pretend to speak on our behalf? Or is it the presence of such ignorant anti agriculture type people that drove well intentioned actual farmers away? As long as they are irrelevant and not taken seriously by governments, as stated by other posters, then perhaps it is safe to just ignore them, and let them back themselves into a corner of obsolescence, perhaps politicians will (or already did) eventually notice that there are no farmers amongst their membership, and ignore them too.

Only problem is that their message is exactly what certain politicians love to hear to justify their anti-industry policies. Our current federal Liberals, and soon to be deposed Alberta NDP specifically.