LAST WEEK, veteran Canadian farm leader Glenn Flaten died at age 78 and his unexpected passing couldn’t help but stir speculation about the nature of farm leadership and the value of experience.
Flaten was a Regina-area farmer who through the 1960s was involved in organizing and operating Saskatchewan’s hog and chicken boards, in the 1970s was president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Agriculture, from 1981 to 1985 was president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and from 1986 to 1990 was president of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers.
It is not an insubstantial record of service for a Weyburn, Sask., farm kid.
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The closest contemporary equivalent is fiery Ontario farm leader Jack Wilkinson who served as CFA president, Ontario Federation of Agriculture president and now is in his third term as IFAP president.
There is, in the farm lobby industry, something to be said for continuity. Leaders who have been around the block more than a few times have some memory of what went off the rails and why.
Stewart Wells, National Farmers Union president, and Bob Friesen, CFA president, come to mind. They have been around for years and understand the system.
They also know where the failed policy orphans are buried as well as the political skeletons.
All of that leads to wonderment about the astonishing change in leadership that is happening or will happen in many farm organizations across the country within months.
The failure of 14-year veteran and widely respected Quebec farm leader Laurent Pellerin last week to keep his job set the tone. His replacement at the Union des Producteurs Agricoles, dairy farmer Christian Lacasse, has farm organization skills after many years in the trenches but Pellerin’s experience will be missed.
The tradition at the UPA is that there is little role for past presidents so Pellerin’s future influence is far from certain.
Move west to Ontario and OFA president Geri Kamenz is just in his second year.
In Manitoba, longtime Keystone Agricultural Producers president David Rolfe is stepping down.
In Saskatchewan, Agricultural Producers’ Association of Saskatchewan has had revolving leaders and staff over the past several years. Glenn Blakley has recently been elected president after taking the job in May on an interim basis.
In Alberta, Wild Rose Agricultural Producers president Bill Dobson is stepping down and he is vowing to exit the board of directors as well.
“I’m going to step right off the board, get out of the way and let (the new board) manage the organization the way they see fit,” he says.
In Ottawa, veteran CFA president Friesen is considering whether to run for another term in 2009. And the federation is looking for its second executive director in just over a year. Justin To left last week.
It reflects a tremendous amount of change in farm leadership at a time when new five-year national farm policy agreements are being negotiated, a relatively new Conservative government is pushing an agenda and significant policy issues are being decided.
In any organization, renewal and intergenerational change is inevitable and positive. But at the moment, it seems a bit over the top.
