THORNDALE, Ont. – At the best of times, farming is an act of faith but Bob Bedggood is one of several thousand Ontario farmers who takes it a step further.
Like other farmers, he has to have faith that seeds will germinate, the rains will come, the weather will hold through harvest and the markets will be there to justify the investment and the work.
But Bedggood also incorporates his Christian faith into his farm business plan. He is one of close to 4,500 Ontario farmers who belong to the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario.
Read Also
AgriStability updates offer stronger support for farmers
One of the most significant updates to the AgriStability program for the 2025 program year is the increase in the compensation rate.
“I really embrace the concept that your faith and your farm are intertwined, inseparable,” Bedggood said. “For me, it really centres on good stewardship and our responsibility to the resources we’re in charge of. It’s a God-given resource and we have to look after it for those who come after us.”
The word “stewardship” figures prominently in a conversation with the 63-year-old farmer whose family moved to the London area of southwest Ontario almost 170 years ago and who bought his current 250 acre cash crop farm in 1975.
But he means it in a broader sense than just environmental stewardship. It also implies supporting policies and farm practices that keep farm families on the land and their local communities prosperous.
It means supporting local businesses and trying to convince local businesses to support local farmers.
Bedggood illustrates it with a story about his Presbyterian church and its annual strawberry social.
Several years ago, his wife Sandy assumed responsibility for running the June event and discovered the church bought its strawberries from a large discount chain store in nearby London because they were cheaper than from local farmers.
Bedggood described them as grown in California, likely with heavy doses of chemicals, probably tended and harvested by underpaid immigrant labourers and then trucked across the continent to Ontario.
Meanwhile, a local farmer grows strawberries.
“When Sandy was in charge, we bought our strawberries locally although they cost a bit more. She’s not in charge this year and we’ll see if they go back to Costco.”
He joined the CFFO 14 years ago after becoming disgruntled with Ontario Federation of Agriculture policies and intrigued by mailouts from the Christian group. The emphasis on stewardship, community and spiritual values appealed to him.
At the time, he farmed more land, operated a farrow-to-finish hog operation and a red veal beef operation. His grain crops provided feed for his livestock and the manure was his fertilizer.
“It was a pretty closed system and that is a good way to farm, providing your own resources and not wasting what you produce,” he said.
But he got out of livestock five years ago and now concentrates on corn, barley and soybeans.
Bedggood said he feels uneasy about growing corporate concentration, which results in buyers preferring to deal only with large farm operations and government policy focusing on larger farmers.
It is not CFFO policy, but he said he believes government farm supports should target maximum benefits to medium-sized family farm operations as a way to support rural communities.
If a farmer decides to become bigger than that model, government support should be capped so all of that additional production is not subsidized.
“Getting that big would be a business decision and society has no obligation to support that decision,” he said.
“CFFO safety nets policy is one that emphasizes community and not greed and the individual.”
And unlike the United Church of Canada that he once belonged to, he said the CFFO does not have a policy against use of farm chemicals or genetically modified varieties.
“I use some Roundup Ready and we don’t think stewardship means organic but we also think farmers should have a choice and increasingly, the pressure is to use GMO varieties.”
He said the Christian Farmers Federation, one of three farm groups eligible for farmer support under the provincial stable funding law, was the first industry organization to begin analyzing the idea of public funding support for the environmental and ecological services farmers provide.
The CFFO was started in 1954 by Dutch immigrant farmers who had limited English skills and were receiving little advice about farming.
Over the years, it has evolved into a general farm group with policies, a website that offers daily devotional lessons and a vision statement that stresses an agricultural sector that is productive and designed to keep family farms viable and protect natural resources.
Bedggood said fewer than half of the organization’s members now are Dutch Reform Church members. He was the first non-Dutch Reform president several years ago.
He said the CFFO message is attractive to many more farmers than have joined.
“But people are very self-conscious about publicly defining themselves as Christian,” he said. “Without that, I believe this group would have much broader support.”
That’s faith.
