“I’ve always felt agriculture was on the back burner in a lot of ways,” said Bill Small, a farmer from Craven, Sask.
Small has spent most of his life working to change that, and that led to his induction in Canada’s Agricultural Hall of Fame.
Small was involved with agricultural organizations at a young age.
“I was in Junior Club work. That was before 4-H, and I showed my first 4-H calf in our club at the Regina Winter Fair in 1939.”
When he started farming, he followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a Shorthorn breeder. In 1972 he switched to Simmental cattle, and eventually became president of the Canadian Simmental Association, one of the organizations to nominate him for the Hall of Fame.
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Small was also involved with starting the Canadian Western Agribition, the West’s major agricultural event held in Regina each autumn.
When the idea was brought back from a stock show in Denver, Colorado, Small threw his support behind it.
“What we needed, I felt, in the cattle industry was a show where you could show all breeds,” and have less restrictions in classification, he said.
“We also included the commercial competition for commercial cattle, which was a first in Canada.”
Small served on the board of directors for the first year, and was vice-president and president in the years after.
He was also the driving force behind the Canadian Farm Progress Show. While president of the Regina Exhibition Association, he resurrected an idea that had never left the ground: a machinery show. By chance, he met the president of John Deere and explained the plans. Once word got out that John Deere was involved, others jumped in and the show took off.
Small spent 15 years as a 4-H leader and chaired the first two years of 4-H judging at Agribition. “I’ve always felt you have to put a little back in, you just can’t take everything out,” he said.
To that end, Small, his wife Agnes and their three children opened up their farm to urban school children.
“We had hundreds of kids come out by the busload,” for a morning or afternoon, he said. “It kind of showed a lot of the kids what was going on on a working farm.”
Still growing grain
Small no longer raises cattle, but he and his wife run a grain farm. “I was told many years ago, if a farmer quits, within two years he’ll be in his grave because his mind can’t adapt to it. You have to learn to retire before you have to retire.”
Small will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at Toronto’s Royal Agricultural Winter Fair on Nov. 9.
This year’s other inductee is the late Ross Butler, from Woodstock, Ont., recognized during his lifetime as the pre-eminent authority on farm animal portraits.
He published a History of Breeds book, and was active in Oxford County agricultural organizations.
