The Rural Voice, 2000-01, Page 18Opinions vary
regarding the
massive
change of direction
announced by the
Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture, Food
and Rural Affairs
December 2 but one
thing no one
disagrees on: an era
of farm extension —
of face-to-face
service between
farmers and ministry
specialists — is
over. The 93 -year
tradition of
agricultural
representatives has ended.
The scale of the changes is so
immense few farmers seem to have
absorbed them yet. While offices will
continue to exist in some areas such
as in Fergus, Clinton, London and
Stratford, they will bear no similarity
to the OMAFRA field offices of the
past.
Think of it as all 32 field offices
in southern Ontario being closed,
explained Dan Carlow, manager,
field services at the Clinton and
Stratford offices. Some of those
locations will have new uses as
Agriculture Technology Resource
Centres with a cluster of specialists
who will prepare information for the
ministry to disseminate through other
sources, but there will no longer be
offices that offer information directly
to the public. The position of Ag
Rep, part of the ministry's history
since extension began, is now
abolished.
Instead, OMAFRA will have a
call centre located at its head office
on Stone Road, Guelph with a free -
calling number for farmers across the
province. Modeled on AGRICORP's
1-800 calling system, it will be
manned by five people trained to
give callers information they request.
The ministry will also offer
information through its award-
winning internet site.
For OMAFRA staff across the
province, it means massive
dislocation and relocation. The
current 130 staff working in the
ministry's Agriculture and Rural
Development section, explains Jack
Westlake, Ag Rep at the Markdale
The 90 -year tradition of extension
services in Ontario ends as
OMAFRA changes direction
By Keith Roulston
14 THE RURAL VOICE
office in Grey County, will either be
leaving the ministry or will be
applying for one of the 90 jobs
available in the restructured ministry.
The changes hit harder in some
offices than others. At the Markdale
office, no one is guaranteed a job
after the change. In Walkerton, Soil
Fertility Specialist Keith Reid's job
will be moved to Stratford while
commodities specialist Colin
Reesor's position will be transferred
to Guelph. At Clinton, only engineer
Harold House is assured of a job
while in Stratford, Rob Templeman's
position as soybean and edible bean
specialist will be retained.
The offices in Clinton, Fergus,
London and Stratford along with the
nine other Agriculture Technology
Resource Centres, will have focussed
groups of specialists with a small
administrative support staff.
Clinton's current complement of 10,
for instance, will be reduced to six,
with one secretary and five
specialists. Besides House, who will
specialize in dairy and beef housing
issues, there will be a beef feedlot
specialist, a veal specialist and a
swine finishing sector specialist as
well as a regional information co-
ordinator whose job it will be to be
the "eyes and ears of the ministry",
as Carlow describes it.
Stratford will have seven positions
with 'a focus on livestock technology
and crops. In addition to Templeman
and Reid, cereals specialist Peter
Johnston, currently in the London
office will be moved to Stratford.
There will also be a swine
nursery/grower specialist, a regional
information co-
ordinator and two
support staff.
The idea, Carlow
explained, is that
clusters of expertise
will be created in
different areas so
the specialists will
feed off each other.
These specialists
will develop
concepts and
proposals and create
packages of leading-
edge information for
distribution through
other manners.
If, explains
Westlake, cattlemen wanted to have a
major meeting, the beef specialist
could be invited as a guest speaker.
Unlike the past, he would not be
involved in helping organize the
meeting, he would just provide
information.
A regional information co-
ordinator based at Fergus will
oversee Grey and Bruce counties,
Westlake says. While the ministry's
press release mentioned a Business
Enterprise Centre in Markdale, this
centre will have no agricultural
mandate.
"This won't be a place for a
farmer to come in and say `how do I
get started in farming'," Westlake
says. Instead, it will be a place where
farmers, and other businesses, can
register a business name and find out
about other government services.
While the changes are
massive, reaction varies
about just how much the
county offices will be missed.
Murray Clark, president of the Bruce
County Federation of Agriculture
says his group is still trying to judge
the feeling of its members.
"There hasn't been a huge hue and
cry about it," Clark said a week after
the announcement. Part of the reason
is that the usefulness �f OMAFRA's
field offices had been waning for a
decade. "The bodies have
disappeared from our area before,"
Clark says. "We're not about to fight
fora building."
Bruce Shillinglaw, a Londesboro-
area farmer who has been a leader in
adapting new technology agrees. "A
lot of the things we used to use