The Rural Voice, 1982-06, Page 80)
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Farm and Commercia
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PG. 8 THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1982
a tremendous challenge." says
McKinnon. "It was quite clear to me in the
early days of being on the industrial
organization that the whole industry had
to come together, somehow. to create the
stability that was needed. As long as we
had three major sectors, like cheese,
concentrated milk. and fluid milk. all
trying to fight their own way. and fight for
their own share of the market, we weren't
going anywhere."
In 1968 McKinnon added to his Port
Elgin operation by buying the farm that
had once belonged to his great grand-
father. And in 1972 he and a partner
established Cedarbanc Farms. A couple of
years later sons Jim and Bob showed an
interest in returning to the farm (both had
been away working) and in 1974-75 there
was a major expansion at Cedarbanc. A
new main barn and some storage silos
were built and the number of Holstein
milking cows jumped dramatically from
sixty. Son Paul entered the co-operative
picture in 1977 and a year later a new
partnership was created, with McKinnons
only.
"It's worked out very well." says father
McKinnon, who remains the final
arbitrator when it comes to major
decisions. Without assigning specific
tasks and responsibilities to each partner.
things have fallen into place somewhat
naturally.
That's good because the Cedarbanc
operation has grown. It now owns two
properties, one a two -hundred -acre
spread and the other one hundred and fifty
acres. It also rents an additional two
hundred and fifty acres from Ken. who
owns them outright. Too. the corporation
owns all the main buildings (except one
barn on another piece of land). all the
dairy cattle, all the storage facilities, and
all the equipment. The herd now runs
around three hundred head, of which
about one hundred and five are milking
daily.
The McKinnon land is spread through-
out Saugeen Township, some of it over
near Burgoyne. "1 believe pretty strongly
that it's important for a dairy farmer in
particular to own a fair amount of his land
base, though he doesn't have to own it
all," says Ken. "I see no workable way to
have the investments you have in
buildings and silos on rented land for any
extended period of time. We have made
this operation Targe enough to have
income for four families, that's what
we've done."
McKinnon, the husband, father, grand-
father (four times over thus far), and dairy
farmer, tries to be home each Saturday,
Sunday and Monday. Until a year ago he
took weekend turns doing the milking. But
now he concentrates mostly on the
corporation's books, cheque writing and
legal dealings. That, he says, can occupy
a full weekend.
The rest of his days are spent either in
Toronto, or working out of the OMMB
offices at 50 Maitland St. For a while, after
his election as board chairman in January
1977, he stayed in motel rooms. Now the
board keeps an apartment at the Sutton
Place Hotel, just a five-minute walk from
the office.
When Bill Stewart was rounding up his
original board in 1964-65 he was talking
about two days a month for board
meetings. Now, says the current chair-
man, the monthly average is three days
but members might spend three times
that number at other board -related
functions in Toronto or in their own
district.
When McKinnon became chairman he
reduced the job from fulltime to almost
fulltime, and he asked that the salary be
reduced accordingly. He wanted some
flexibility, and he says things have gone
smoothly. He tries to be in the Toronto
office three days a week but other
meetings and work at the national level
sometimes cut into that schedule.
"The only thing that becomes tiresome
is the travel," says McKinnon. "A lot of
people think it's terrific to be travelling to
Vancouver or Ottawa or wherever, but it
becomes burdensome. On top of that, it's
about one hundred and fifty miles from
where I live to Toronto. Allowing for speed
limits and traffic you have to give yourself
three hours. I wish I was closer but I
wouldn't want to live there."
In his years as a charter member of the
board, and more recently as chairman.
McKinnon has established a good rapport
with processors, and what he thinks is a
good working relationship with both the
provincial and federal governments.
"I'm very proud of the organization and
the marketing system that we've been
able to develop," he says. "As far as I'm
concerned there's no more important
word in what we've been trying to do in the
dairy industry since 1965 than 'stability."
And developing an assurance in the
producer's mind that he is going to have
some kind of a stable market to sell into. It
may go down or it may go up but the point
is he can have some confidence that he can
spend some money on a system that is
going to take twenty or thirty years to
depreciate or return his money, whatever
the case may be.
"Too many people in agriculture, at the
farm level, have horror stories or thoughts
on their mind about borrowed capital. But
agriculture can't work without it. Every
other business in the world works on it. To