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The Rural Voice, 2001-03, Page 57PERTH ifitk County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER Jim Van Herk, President 519-595-4863 • The Rural Voice is provided to Perth County Pork Producers by the PCPPA. What does your county association do for you? Any opinions expressed herein may not necessarily reflect the views of the Perth County Pork Producers' Association. If you are not actively involved in the Perth County Pork Producers Association as a county director, or attend our meetings as a guest, you might wonder what the purpose of our Association is, or if we are really making a worthwhile contribution to our industry. At times, those of us who are actively involved scratch our heads and wonder the same thing! Sometimes, progress on issues can be hard to measure. In the past few years, it seems that as one problem is solved, there are two or more issues to take its place. Finding consensus on any issue is also very difficult to achieve, even more so with a group of 30 or more farmers! Even so, 1 feel that our association can be proud of the way that we approach issues and attempt to deal with them for the good of our county and industry. I thought that for this month's newsletter, 1 would review some of the activities we were involved in over the past year and some of the issues that wet had input into. The most important job that we as an association and as individual councillors provide for the producers of the county is the ability to communicate the concerns that producers have in our county, discuss and debate them, and pass these concerns on to Toronto through our district and zone directors. We are fortunate that Perth produces enough hogs to be designated as a district on its own (of the 12 in the province) and therefore have our own board director, Larry Skinner. The province is also divided into two zones, and Clare Schlegel covers Zone A, so we are fortunate to have two people from our county on the Board. Our concerns are passed onto them through our discussions at our monthly meetings. Many times, I think that directors feel our concerns may not be taken seriously, yet, more often than not, policy will change several months later reflecting the concerns expressed previously. Another way that concerns can be passed on for further consideration to the Board is through the resolution process. Resolutions are usually drawn up for debate at our own county annual meeting and, if passed here, move on for debate at the provincial annual in March. One example of an idea from Perth which moved through the resolution process and is currently being investigated by the Board of Directors is a suggestion that the Board office relocate to Guelph, where OMAFRA and several other commodity boards are either already located or are considering relocating. Councillors will be voting on this idea at the provincial annual, provided that several conditions to the move are met. This is a good example of how local ideas can move on to change policy in the organization. For this reason, we encourage producers with concerns to share them, either by communicating them to a councillor, or by attending any of our meetings and voicing them to our group. Our association also serves the county through its five main committees. The following is a list of those committees and some of the projects which they were involved with over the past year. • BBQ committee — gets involved in community and industry events, such as the Pork Congress and the Zurich Bean Festival, where it provides both the product (pork), and the service (cooking the meat). We are one of the few county associations to have such an active BBQ committee, which encourages consumption of pork, and also increases the visibility of our association. Several members of this committee also sell pork products from their homes to help promote pork. • Promotion and Education Committee — is very active in community events, such as the "Heartburn Day" event in Stratford, Home and Garden Show, Harvest Tour Day, and the Flavours of Perth event, which took place last summer. This year, they will be involved in the Stratford Garden Festival. • Producer Services Committee — organizes the annual golf tournament, where producers, directors, Board members, Ontario Pork staff, and industry personnel can work their frustrations out over a friendly game of golf. This committee also organizes an annual,curling bonspiel, and a councillor summer social and annual Christmas party. • Communications and Resolutions Committee — writes this monthly newsletter in The Rural Voice. to inform producers about current issues an I discussions. We also assist in preparing resolutions for debate in the county and at the provincial annual. This past year. we also had input into the proposed regulations regarding the on-farm manufacturing of medicated feed. and also amendments to Bill 0-17. a bill which deals with animal cruelty in Canada. • Environment and Political Action Committee — has been very active this past year with all the concerns in the environment area. This committee met with both federal and provincial members of government to express concerns with environmental regulations. safety net concerns and local issues. We also submitted a paper to the provincial environmental consultations held earlier in the year. The provincial government will be looking for further input when the proposed legislation is introduced sometime in 2001. We have a councillor serving on the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition, which gives further input on environmental issues. and has representatives from other commodities which are concerned and affected by pending government regulations, We also have a councillor on the Peer Review Committee for Perth County, which deals with local complaints over possible environment problems, such as manure application concerns. As you can see. we have been involved in many activities and addressed many issues over the past year. We are fortunate to have dedicated people involved in our organization, who, when presented with a job, get it done in a professional way.0 — Submitted by Jim Van Herk 2001 Executive Elected At the February 7, 2001 meeting, the 2001 executive was elected. Jim Van Herk and Jim Van Nes were acclaimed as president and first vice president respectively. Pat Louwagie was elected second vice president, and Bert Groenestege was acclaimed as treasurer. Larry Skinner retains his seat on the provincial board for District 4 (Perth). Our next monthly meeting will be held on March 7, 2001 at the Ellice Township Hall, Rostock, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Our topic for discussion will be safety net programs. If you would like a copy of the agenda faxed to you for this or any monthly meeting, please call our secretary Ken Aitcheson at 393-5394. Producers are welcome to attend any of our meetings.0 MARCH 2001 53