After two years at the helm of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Canada’s largest provincial farm group, Geri Kamenz has decided to move on.
The 48-year-old mixed farmer from Spencerville, south of Ottawa, said Nov. 6 that he will turn down an attempt to nominate him for another term when the OFA holds its convention in Toronto Nov. 24-25.
At that convention, delegates are expected to approve a proposal to radically reform the organization, reducing the board of directors to 18 from 100 and creating a policy advisory council.
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“When you have that massive a change, there is something to be said for continuity of leadership but also an argument for new leadership for new circumstances,” he said. “I’ve done just about everything you can do in this organization and I see it as a wonderful time to allow a new generation of leadership.”
Kamenz did not indicate what his next career step would be, other than returning to his 1,000 acre farm that features a contract hog operation, a small cow-calf operation, corn, soybeans and pedigreed seed.
But he said he will not entirely abandon farm politics.
“I intend to continue making contributions to the organization.”
When Kamenz won the presidency in 2006, he pleaded with farmers to change their attitude, to see the optimistic side of farming despite income and market problems.
“At the convention as I looked out, a lot of the faces I looked at showed people in survival mode,” he said two years ago. “We need to change our attitude, begin believing that this is a great industry with a great future. I think we have gotten into a defeatist mode that is a bad image of the industry to reflect to the public.”
As he prepares to leave, he continues upbeat.
At a recent OFA directors’ meeting, Kamenz says he asked if they were not glad to be farmers.
“When farmers look at what’s going on around the world in just about every business, they are justified to be pleased with their chosen vocation,” he later wrote in an October OFA commentary. “With banks collapsing everywhere and governments scrambling to prop them up, farmers have an unusual feeling of personal security – there’s always a job to do and food for the family.”
He said recent higher prices have been a boon.
“While we are seeing volatility, generally shortages of food in many parts of the world have resulted in prices at a level not seen in recent memory,” he said. “In today’s marketplace for most commodities, we are able to sell our products, pay our bills and have money left to put back into improvements on our farms, an ideal situation we would like to see continue well into the future.”
Kamenz left a job as a pilot to start farming in the 1980s, got involved in the OFA and eventually was hired as a senior Toronto-based manager. A conflict with the then-OFA president led to his firing.
Instead of turning away from the organization, he bought a farm in eastern Ontario and became an OFA activist as he built up his operation. By 2006, he occupied the office of the man who had fired him.
Kamenz also has maintained strong Liberal ties. His farm was the site of the 2002 launch by prime minister Jean Chrétien of the agricultural policy framework, a program that farm leader Kamenz later denounced as inadequate and poorly designed.
