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Article: National Farmers' Union of Ontario
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National Farmers' Union of Ontario - Jon Radojkovic
In the early 1960's Wayne Smith from the Lakeside area of Ontario had enough of not being able to get a good price for his milk, so he decided to demonstrate his displeasure, placards and all, with his tractor.
Neighbours, at first reluctant, began to come and mount their tractors as well and joined Smith in his protest for better milk prices, becoming what was the first tractor demonstration by farmers in Ontario.
"I wasn't going to be farming long unless something happened," said Smith, now in his 80's. As tractor demonstrations increased, with 25,000 farmers in 1967 protesting in front of the Ontario Legislature in Toronto, Smith finally got his wish.
"As a result of all this I was able to farm and make a living the rest of my life," Smith acknowledged. "I thank the Ontario Farmers Union for all their help," he added.
This part of the OFU farming history and other pieces, from 1952 until 1969, are part of an exhibition now being shown at the Bruce County Museum and Culture Centre, in Southampton, entitled For the Love of the Land.
"This exhibition is to show the relentless changes and challenges of farming and how persistent those problems are and how the Ontario Farmers' Union dealt with that," said Bruce Dodds, the curator of the show.
The exhibition only came about because Dodds, when he was a Farmers' Union organizer in 2001, came across something that changed his life for the next six years. When visiting farmers across Ontario, he met a widow whose husband had been an OFU board member of the farm organization during the 1960's. She showed Dodds a small room in the driving shed that held 60 boxes of OFU papers and photos from the '50's and '60's, when the OFU had up to 25,000 members. The boxes contained minutes of meetings from 399 Ontario locals, letters to federal and provincial governments, photos of directors and politicians. In fact it was the history of this important farm movement, that helped create farm co-ops, supply management, single desk marketing and fair prices for farmers left behind as people flocked to the cities to make more money.
Those boxes indicated how important Grey and Bruce counties were in the formation of the movement, which openly challenged provincial and federal governments on how they were addressing agricultural crisis.
The first local of the OFU was formed in Grey County, the first convention was held in Grey and the first OFU provincial office was in Grey. Bruce County followed closely, with some of the first locals formed in Ontario and active members fighting for fair prices especially in the battle for supply management.
Dodds, who had never mounted an exhibition before, thought the best way for people to see this part of Ontario farmers' history, was through a museum exhibition. Bruce County Museum curator Barb Ribey was glad to help.
"Most farmers' historical exhibitions are shown through old equipment and old photos, but this is about the people," Dodds explained. Part of the seven viewing stations at the exhibit show women in farming, Smith's tractor demonstration and lots more.
After Dodds found the boxes, he traveled across Ontario, from Sudbury and North Bay, down to the heart of Southern Ontario and out east, interviewing 130 farmers originally part of the Ontario farmers' Union in the turbulent years between 1952 and 1969. The organization changed its name to the National Farmers Union in 1969, almost disappeared, and was revitalized in 2002 as the National Farmers' Union of Ontario, much of it due to Dodd's amazing organizing efforts.
"The OFU taught farmers lessons in civics," Dodds says. "They provided the muscle where other organizations wouldn't go," he added. Dodds explained that these were not radical people, just plain ordinary decent farmers who had had enough.'
During the 1950's, farmer's incomes plummeted by 35 percent, and an income crisis ensued with many leaving the land. "Sounds familiar," Dodds quipped, comparing today's farming problems with the past, like the present income crisis farmers are facing.
"It's not the next generation we have to worry about, it's this one," said Grant Robertson, a Bruce County NFUO director.
"We have a shared history of farmers and trade unions fighting for better prices and wages," David Trumble announced, head of the Grey Bruce Labour Council. "And we are facing a shared future as well," he added.
Meanwhile Smith is all smiles at the opening of the exhibition last week. Here is something that acknowledges his troubles as a farmer and how he, with the help of other OFU members overcame those problems by working together for a common goal. "We did enough talking back then and it was time to do something. Looks like today it's time to do something too," he said.
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