The Rural Voice, 1989-02, Page 16Roger George: a Profile
"FARMING SMARTER"
Roger George, first vice-
president of the Ontario
Federation of Agriculture, has
some wide-ranging ambitions
on behalf of agriculture in this
province. His word for his
broadly based perspective on
rural communities is "vision."
He also has some vigorous
T
he mailbox seems anomalous
to one not accustomed to
coming suddenly upon the
pockets of farm land tucked into the
treed and rocky landscape of Ontario's
"Near North" — Roger and Rosemary
George, OFA. But follow the winding
laneway through the thick pines and
birch and you discover a sheltered
valley. And Roger and Rosemary
George, OFA.
The lettering on the mailbox is
appropriate. Not many other farm
couples in Ontario are as active in
their commitment to the long-term
welfare of farming and rural life in
this country. For both of the Georges,
the link to the land was forged when
they were teenagers growing up on
farms in Worcestershire, England.
One might think that emigration and
getting jammed in the cost -price
squeeze of the 1980s would have
weakened or broken that link, but the
opposite is the case. In the five years
since the Georges restructured and
scaled down their farm, their work on
behalf of agriculture has intensified.
"Now we're a lot smaller as a
farming operation," says Roger, "but
my commitment is total to Ontario
agriculture. There's no turning back
now for me on this one."
As vice-president of the Ontario
Federation of Agriculture (OFA),
Roger George spends about half the
year away from the farm on OFA
"Now we're a lot smaller
as a farming operation,
but my commitment
is total to Ontario
agriculture. There's no
turning back now for me
on this one."
business, not to mention the days
taken up by his work as a member of
the Canada -Ontario Crop Insurance
Review Committee and the Farm
Income Stabilization Commission.
Rosemary, in addition to looking after
Michael, their two-year-old son, man-
ages the day to day chores required by
the Georges' farrow to finish unit and
comments to make about the
issues challenging farmers: free
trade, debt review, lobby
groups, and rural development.
He has good reasons to be where
he is today, and he is likely to
play an important part in where
the farmers of Ontario are
tomorrow .. .
100 -ewe sheep operation.
The farm, as Roger puts it, "is in
an OFA -dominated holding pattern."
As he tells anyone considering run-
ning for the OFA executive: "you'd
better be damned sure that your
farming operation is in reasonable
shape and make damned sure that your
home life is in good shape, because
the chances are that if either of those
two things is wrong it's going to get
worse."
The Georges bought their 225
acres at R. R. 4, Powassan in 1978.
Roger's family in Worcestershire had
operated a horticultural and egg -laying
business. When egg producers in
England voted to get rid of their
regulated marketing system in the late
1960s, the George family got out of
egg producing altogether — given
their location, there were too many
obstacles to market access. The land
was rented out and Roger turned
toward Canada, where he'd visited in
1967 on a trip to Expo which had been
his 21st birthday present.
At Canada House in London, he
encountered a long line-up. "If there's
a queue to get into the country," he
14 THE RURAL VOICE