By OCA Executive Director, Dave Stewart
Changes
What a difference a year makes. Serving as a voting delegate from
Wellington County at last year's annual convention, I would have never
guessed that 12 short months later, I would be serving as OCA's
Executive Director.
I came to OCA in March as Assistant Manager, to fill the position
vacated by Isabel Dopta when she moved into her new position of Policy
Advisor. At the end of July, Mike McMorris left his position as
Executive Director and I assumed his duties at that time. Mike did a
superb job shepherding OCA through the difficult issues of Walkerton,
restructuring, and BSE. I appreciated the chance to work with him,
albeit briefly. Mike brought passion, foresight, optimism, and a wealth
of knowledge to OCA.
As I said on my first day, "It's great to be here" and I still feel the
same way despite the challenges we're facing as an industry. This job is
exciting, interesting, and challenging.
One of the best parts of this career, to date, has been the people I get
to work with on a daily basis and so, in this space, I'll take this
opportunity to talk about some of the other staff changes that the
association has gone through in the last few months.
In November, Paul Stiles moved from working as a coordinator of the
Quality Starts Here program, to the position of Assistant Manager. Paul
has hit the ground running, and has been a great asset to OCA and to me.
Many of you will have met Paul at regional meetings, barbecues or county
annual meetings.
With that change, Dan Ferguson accepted sole responsibility for
delivering the Quality Starts Here - Verified Beef Production program.
Dan, who also operates a beef farm in Northumberland County, has been
highly visible at county meetings promoting the QSH concept, and is a
good ambassador for this important initiative.
Last March, Sandy Sorbara accepted the full time position of OCA's
Market Information Coordinator after previously sharing the role with
Melissa Johnston.
Melissa has decided to spend more time with her young family and we're
indeed lucky to have someone with Sandy's knowledge and dedication as
she takes on the responsibilities associated with this critical role.
Finally, it was with great sadness that we recently accepted the
resignation of our Communications Manager, Kelly Daynard, effective at
the end of this annual convention. Kelly put her heart and soul into her
job at OCA for the past six plus years.
You, as producers, are well aware of the tremendous improvements which
Kelly has made towards keeping you informed. The weekly e-mail updates,
the 600+ page web site, and a first class magazine are all testaments to
Kelly's positive impact on our organization. We'll miss her, but we wish
Kelly well with her new challenges.
Quality Starts Here (QSH) Verified Beef Production
We know that we have a huge marketing job to do to reduce the risk
associated with our dependence on one major customer. I'm convinced that
we all need to participate in and support this program. Being able to
assure potential customers around the world of our commitment to product
safety makes that task much easier to accomplish.
Ontario Corn Fed Beef has accepted QSH as the food safety component of
their program. Paul Stiles sat on the national committee which modified
the program to make QSH easier to use while positioning it for Technical
Recognition by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). This
recognition has now been received.
So far, of the 60 operations certified in Canada, 53 are in Ontario.
While this speaks volumes about the good work done by Paul and Dan, we
should also realize, as producers, that we have a long way to go to
fully implement this important program.
Three Million Dollar BSE Cull Cow Fund
Over the last year, OCA has taken on a new role of managing producer
funds committed by the provincial government. In March 2004, OCA became
the administrator of the BSE Cull Cow Strategy $3M fund. Based on
industry recommendations, this fund, managed by OCA, Dairy Farmers of
Ontario and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, coordinates dispersal
of dollars for deadstock collection in the province, emergency animal
welfare support, cull cow marketing and product development projects and
national ID tag retirement.
OCA has demonstrated efficient, cost effective and responsive use of
industry dollars on behalf of our membership.
Communications
OCA has continued to increase its communications efforts to ensure that
all producers have access to the information they need to know on a
timely basis. Under the direction of Kelly Daynard, 2004 accomplishments
included the following:
- Daily updates to OCA website (www.cattle.guelph.on.ca ) which now
contains more than 600 pages of producer information - more than 50 on
BSE alone.
- Addition of a Marketing Options database that allows producers to
search for auction barn operators, dealers and processors in their
area. All businesses included within the database are licensed within
Ontario's Beef Cattle Financial Protection Program.
- 59 updates to the 1,100 subscribers to the OCA listserve system.
These updates include the latest information on BSE compensation
programs, industry meetings, issues like the Nutrient Management Act
as well as the top beef-related news stories of the week. Subscribers
also get monthly updates from OCA on the top issues affecting the
industry and summaries of all board and advisory council meetings. All
producers with an email account should be enrolled in this free,
confidential service.
- Monthly BSE updates in the Ontario Farmer newspaper..
We're working hard on your behalf, and part of our efforts include
keeping you as well informed as you want to be. Make sure that you avail
yourself of all opportunities, through our communications tools, to be
as current as possible on the status of your industry.
Beef Cattle Marketing Act(BCMA)
Since the completion of the 2002 Organization Review, OCA has pursued a
number of organizational upgrades in terms of operations and management,
governance re-structuring and legislative revisions. The BCMA now falls
within the responsibility of the Farm Products Marketing Commission.
Our Policy Advisor, Isabel Dopta, has expended great effort working with
staff of the commission in meeting the required process for regulatory
change within the BCMA.
Additions such as the seven day dealer refund, although well supported
by the OCA membership, take time for a regulatory change so that it may
be implemented in the field.
Staff of OCA also walked the OCA Advisory Council and Board of Directors
through a Strategic Planning process that solicited direction for the
organization in terms of marketing authority, information exchange,
partnering within the industry and broadening the OCA mandate of
communications and government relations.
Action items from this process have assisted the organization in
improving a number of areas of our business. Funds for this planning
process were accessed through the Agricultural Adaptation Council.
Although the BSE crisis absorbed a great deal of our time, we have been
active on your behalf on numerous issues - too many to list here.
From my perspective, we have received great support from all levels of
government. As we restructure our industry to recover from the effect of
the prolonged border closure, we will be looking at making changes to
the way we do business.
Later this spring, through your county and district organizations, you
will all be offered the chance to have input into what those changes
will be. I encourage you to take an active role, and provide your input.
We're in this together, and we'll get out of it by working together.
Change can be good!
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