Sara Wooden and Ethan Wallace share their visions for his or her subsequent time period
Revealed Nov 29, 2024 • 4 minute learn
Sara Wooden (Handout) Photograph by Trina Koster
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The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) will proceed to boast native illustration from Huron and Perth counties in 2025 after its board election this week.
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Sara Wooden, a Perth County farmer, was re-elected to a three-year time period as director-at-large and, after being elected vice-president final 12 months, will serve a second 12 months within the function. Ethan Wallace of Seaforth was additionally elected as a vice-president, whereas Drew Spoelstra, a dairy and crop farmer from Binbrook, was re-elected to a different one-year time period as president.
Wooden, a fourth-generation farmer who grew up within the space, initially had no intentions of constant within the household enterprise.
“I was going to pursue other avenues. I realized rather quickly that I missed the farm, and I had a real passion for the farm, which drove me to come back to the farm,” Wooden stated.
Agriculture is her life’s calling as a result of it’s completely different day by day, stated Wooden, who, alongside together with her husband and son, develop a number of money crops and have a broiler barn for chickens
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“I love the challenge. I love that I get to work with my hands and what we grow and raise, not only our family, but families across Ontario and the world. I get to be part of an industry that feeds the world, and that is really a passion,” she stated.
One “huge success and a huge win” that Wooden has seen over her previous three years on the OFA board is its encouragement of younger leaders within the sector. This contains inviting 5 of those younger leaders annually to attend the OFA’s advocacy day at Queen’s Park. Wooden highlighted how she was capable of watch the youth develop as leaders, each at their native OFA boards and their native commodity boards.
“Just watching them grow and be leaders in their communities is a huge thing,” Wooden stated.
On this new time period, Wooden is seeking to proceed talks and collaboration with authorities and between the completely different agriculture commodities. Nevertheless, she can be seeking to work with industries which can be outdoors the “agriculture box.”
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“The more we can learn from each other, the better we can be as an industry. And for so long, we’ve been so focused on just our commodity or just agriculture that there are things beyond us that we can continue to learn,” she stated.
She pointed to the mining business as one the agriculture sector can be taught from and share information with. That business might help inform considerations, resembling environmental assessments and the carbon tax, whereas farmers might help with the cleanup of a pit or a quarry.
“We may not be experts in that field, but farmers are experts in looking at soil health and rejuvenation of soil health, and so the more we can work together, the better we are,” Wooden stated.
Wallace seeking to have interaction politicians from city ridings
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Wallace, a fourth-generation dairy farmer and the third era to dwell on his household farm, the place they milk just below 100 cows, has been concerned within the native OFA department for round 15 years and joined the Huron County milk committee round 12 years in the past as a Huron County Federation of Agriculture liaison.
He rose by way of the ranks of each teams and was elected as a board member three years in the past.
Not solely does the College of Guelph graduate have a ardour for agriculture, however he has a “passion for sharing the ag story with those that may not understand it completely.” This contains partaking each MPs and MPPs on the similarities between what’s already out there in city areas, and what rural Ontario wants.
“It’s never not been there in urban Ontario,” he stated.
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“When we think of some of the infrastructure needs – when we speak of the mental-health services needs, when we speak of the health-care needs in rural Ontario, and then when we talk about the tax burden – I mean, it’s something that all Ontarians, all Canadians, can understand,” he stated.
Wallace pointed to the potential 25 per cent tariff that will come when U.S. president-elect Donald Trump takes workplace once more as one thing that may impression everybody.
It’s a symbiotic relationship between city and rural Ontario, Wallace emphasised.
“I can’t produce food for someone that doesn’t exist, and they can’t eat without people like me, so we need to understand that for Ontario to be strong, we both need to be strong.”
Wallace is particularly involved with land-use planning, on condition that solely about 5 per cent of the soil in Ontario is able to rising meals.
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“Land-use planning has been a massive talking point for the OFA over the last number of years, simply because, without good urban planning, we’re going to eat up all the available land in Ontario to put houses on,” he stated.
Specifically within the subsequent three years, Wallace is seeking to assist politicians perceive why we’d like agriculture. He additionally desires them to know the business is greater than main agriculture. Agriculture can be the grocery retailer, the native restaurant and the native brewery or vineyard, he stated.
“At OFA, we talk significantly about the agri-food system, and the economic contribution of the agri-food system: $50 billion in provincial GDP is generated by agriculture or agri-food in the province of Ontario,” he stated.
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