The Rural Voice, 2005-06, Page 28Gordon Hill led the Ontario
Federation of Agriculture
through some of it's most
productive years in the
1970s.
Looking back
Gordon Hill has seen a lot in his gears as a farm
leader. He looks back at the successes of the farm
movement in getting action needed and tells todag's
farmers to
Raise more hell, less corn
Story and photo by Keith Roulston
Jn June 1975 when the first issue
of The Rural Voice hit the mail,
Gordon Hill of Varna was
president of the Ontario Federation
of Agriculture.
Hill had taken over the OFA
presidency following the failure of
the General Farm Organization voted
in the late 1960s. During his term he
had helped transform OFA from a
stodgy organization with a structure
that made it difficult to get things
done to a dynamic group in which
farmers paid an individual
membership to be part of a provincial
organization and had the right to
elect their representatives to the
provincial board.
It was an exciting time. A few
years earlier Hill has been one of the
authors of The Challenge of
24 THE RURAL VOICE
Abundance a ground -breaking
document that still reads as if it was
written last week, not more than three
decades ago.
"Supply management was a dirty
"The benefits of increased
productivity are largely
passed on to consumers in
lower prices. Higher farm
incomes are constantly
eroded by higher input
costs and higher taxes."
The Challenge of
Abundance- 1969
word until The Challenge of
Abundance," Hill recalled recently in
the brightly -lit office of his Varna
farm home.
Hill had been involved in the
Ontario Farmers Union in those days
and had been part of a rabble -rousing
group of farmers who helped change
the mind of legendary Ontario Ag
Minister Bill Stewart.
Hill took part in a local tractor
demonstration near Holmesville,
west of Clinton, prompted by milk
producers upset because the Quebec
government was giving a 50 -cent per
hundredweight subsidy for industrial
milk. Stewart had said he wasn't
going to give a subsidy.
Coming home from the local
tractor rally with his David Brown
tractor loaded on a truck, Hill heard a
larger group of farmers was heading
for Queen's Park with their tractors.
He headed out to catch up with the
group. He found the others on