The Rural Voice, 1977-12, Page 4Gordon Hill's
just an ordi*-nar
farmer main
GORDON HILL
The old biblical story tells about the soldiers at the end of the
war beating their swords into plow shares and going home to the
farm. In much the same way, Gordon Hill who for so many years
fought a battle to improve farm life, has returned to the farm and
is happy to stay there.
It's been a long battle. He's been best known as the long-time
president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture at a time when
the Federation achieved greater influence in the province than it
had ever before known. He served seven years in the post during
a time when the Federation faced a battle for sheer survival.
He'd been a former Ontario president of the National Farmers
Union but he championed the cause of the General Farm
Organization in the late 1960's. When the proposition was
defeated, the O.F.A. was left in a weakened position.
The leadership of the organization realized it had to
completely revamp the set up if the Federation was to survive.
The Individual Service Membership system was adopted in
which farmers would pay a membership fee and would be able to
deal directly with the Ontario Federation instead of everything
being channelled through township and county organizations. It
meant a hard selling job to convince farmers they should join
but, led by his own home county of Huron, Hill saw the figures
slowly mount until membership totalled more than 25.000 across
the province.
Backed with this kind of support. Hill was able to make the
office of the presidency of the Federation an important voice for
Ontario Farmers. He aided the process by making himself freely
available for the press and public meetings. When consumer
organizations screamed at high food prices. Hill told the farmers'
side of the story. It was a story that needed telling often in years
when food prices increased sharply and the word "ripoff"
became part of the consumer jargon.
It was just a year ago that Hill decided to step down. He left
his full-time desk job in Toronto to return to his Varna -area farni
which his wife Ruby and son Bev had operated during his long
absence.
He wasn't to be home for long, however. Last spring he
announced his decision at the urging of the party's leadership, to
seek the New Democratic Party nomination in the riding of
Middlesex, the riding of former provincial Agriculture Minister
William Stewart. Along with the Farmer's Union's Walter
Miller, he gave the NDP its first real farm voice. But like Miller,
he. fared poorly in the election, coming a distant third.
Since then, aside from his attendance at monthly meetings of
the O.F.A. board of directors and some speaking appearances.
he's been concentrating on farming, the thing he championed for
so many years when he didn't have the time to do it himself.
He's relaxing this cold, wet November afternoon, in the
kitchen of the neat stone house he shares with his wife just west
of Varna. The family has just come through its biggest and
longest busy period of the year he says. Since Thanksgiving they
have harvested 1200 acres of corn and dried it at their own drying
operation at Bev's farm down the road. They also managed to
salvage about 300 acres of beans in weather that saw many other
farmers lose their crops.
Little wonder then, that he says he doesn't find the time
draggy now that he is no longer holding down the top job of the
biggest farm organization in the province. He has no hankering.
he says, to get back into the forefront of the fight. "1 think I'm
ready to quit fighting," he says.
Col
ask
gor
dist