Mr. Rob Black
Chief Executive Officer,
Rural Ontario Institute
Re: Letter of Intent to Partner with ROI/AALP
The Lambton Federation of Agriculture (LFA) is a very active county board, representing local members at a Provincial, Federal and a County level within our townships and business networks. The board’s directives state that it can seat 23 directors and it is currently running with only 12 directors, including the non-voting President.
Within that board there are three members under the age of 40, and two retired, and two inactive members. Each year is a struggle to reach, engage and commit new members to the board. Without new leaders in our county, and province to support and speak for our local farmers, the issues and challenges faced by the rural community will continue to grow unchecked. Boards become stagnant and eventually defunct. Board members need to be diverse, and willing to learn to support one another, speak for the community and be an agricultural representative.
Our rural environment is changing: we are becoming closer to our urban neighbours both physically and virtually. The agriculture community must embrace this and use it as an opportunity to invite our neighbours to learn and understand what we do, whether we do this by social media, or actual face to face meetings. This could be used as an advantage for struggling boards, if you look at the success of such people as the Peterson Brothers, who use media, and have created and engaged a huge number of fans rural and urban alike. Because of this emerging environment, the usual tactics to recruit new people are failing, and focus and energy has to be changed to get results.
In Lambton County, there is not an organization for young farmers after 4H. Junior Farmers dispersed about 10 years ago, and this has created a disconnect in communication and information sharing of our up and coming farmers. The LFA has tried to initiate a group or events with some success but would like to build on this with an eye on permanency and partnership between a young farmers group and the board.
The LFA has resources such as training courses, events etc. to help members become more comfortable in their role once they commit to becoming a board member, but the first step is always the most difficult. The LFA would like to see a strategy developed that will focus on the age of 20-40, with a goal of five new members to be elected to the 2017 board in November 2016.
We feel five new board members to the LFA is an achievable goal, but we also foresee a positive trickle effect of interest and potential new agricultural representatives to other commodity groups and boards in the county.
The LFA would like to see a minimum board size of 16, with at least a quarter of the members to be <40 years old. Our fiscal year is October 1st –September 30th, with our annual meeting and elections the third Friday of November. The goal over the next year is to connect and engage new members, particularly youth in the local agriculture community, including local commodity groups. A task force would be created to help maintain momentum and community support to partner with ALP to help make these goals a reality. As well, a budget can be formulated and presented to the board for financial assistance in this project.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this partnership, we look forward to hearing from you.
For the Lambton Federation of Agriculture Board,
~Christina Hyatt~
Secretary
519-864-4224
[email protected]
~Dave Ferguson~
President
[email protected]