Fred Wagner

Fred Wagner uses the word "responsibility"a lot. It's clearly something that he takes very seriously, as a Canadian citizen, as a farmer and as a Director of the OCPA. As someone who chose to be a Canadian, he is conscious that all of those roles bring responsibility. Wagner says, "Every once in a while, you have to park the combine to do something for the common good. You have to be involved if you want to make a difference. Otherwise, you have no right to complain."

Wagner immigrated to Canada in 1974 from Germany, where he had been managing a large farm on behalf of a Baron. He decided that "If I could do well for him, I could do well for myself." However, he saw no opportunity to begin farming for himself in Germany. He was a "city kid" whose only assets were his agricultural education and experience. Also, like many Europeans at the time, he was anxious about where the Cold War appeared to be heading. "There seemed to be no future there," he recalls. "Everyone was afraid that the bombs could start landing on us at any time from both sides." So, he decided to make his future in Canada.

He began farming near Maryhill, between Guelph and Kitchener, with 150 acres. While he was getting his farm established, Wagner managed 1,200 residential and commercial real estate units in Kitchener for a real estate company. As the scale of his farming operation grew, he gave up the real estate job so he could focus on doing a good job of farming. Today, he is running a 1,500 acre cash crop operation. He owns three farms and rents the rest. He usually grows corn on about 1,000 acres, with the remainder being devoted to soybeans and wheat. Wagner has his own grain handling facilities, with enough capacity to dry and store everything he grows. He direct-markets all of his crops and found that has worked out very well. Wagner and his wife, Heidi, have four sons, all of whom have shared in the farm work over the years. Today, their oldest two sons are pursuing careers off the farm. The third is a recent graduate of the Diploma Program at the University of Guelph, and has returned home to work on the farm during the cropping season. At other times, he works for a local horticultural nursery. Their fourth son is also at home and still in school.

Wagner has given much back to his adopted country through more than 20 years of active service in a variety of farm organizations. He served for 12 years as a Director of the Waterloo County Supplies Co-operative. When the Waterloo-Oxford Co-operative was formed through the merger of a number of smaller co-ops, Wagner was one of the Founding Directors. During the 1990's, he was a Director of UCO, and had the unpleasant task of being part of the team that had to end UCO's "financial agony". During that process, he acted as part of the restructuring committee. "We worked to leave good facilities in the hands of the member co-ops," he recalls, "so there would still be a good system in the hands of the members. I am also proud to have been a Founding Director of UPI, the joint venture between UCO and Sunoco. Again, we wanted to create a fiscally sound enterprise that would return something to the farmers of Ontario."

Wagner has also had a long history as a Director to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, first as a representative from UCO, then as a representative from the Waterloo Federation and now as a representative from OCPA. He was OCPAs representative with Agri-Ebusiness Group Inc. and currently represents OCPA with ACC Farmers' Financial and the Agricultural Adaptation Council.

First elected in 1996 as OCPA Director for Region 5, (Waterloo, Wellington, Dufferin, Halton and Peel), Wagner now serves as Treasurer of the Association, a post that he has held for four years. As Treasurer, his main concern is to maintain the financial integrity of the Association. "You have to be financially sound to have a base for a sustainable operation," he observes. "If not, you can't do the things that you want to. Ultimately, we're accountable to our members and we have to give them good value for their dollars. As someone who grows a thousand acres of corn, I understand that. I've got a fair investment in OCPA myself, and I want to see things done right too."

"I also feel a responsibility to the staff, to give them a secure place to work. You can't run an operation on a shoe-string if you want to have loyal staff. We've been fortunate to have excellent people who are very capable and highly dedicated. Our staff is smaller now, so we've had to be more focused. Our most recent budget shows that change, as we've taken a more balanced fiscal approach. However, there's no point in saving yourself to death. We have to be active for farmers and that means we have to spend money to get the best results. I believe that you can do anything if you stay on the right track and are committed to putting in the time and work to get there. And, you have to have good partners to support you. You won't get anywhere if you try to do it all by yourself."

Wagner says, "I'm proud to be part of an industry that uses nature's ability to renew itself. An industry that helps reduce man's impact on the environment." He knows that it is easy for farmers to become negative and feel unappreciated. He, too, feels frustrated at the lack of recognition that farmers get for their contribution to the economy and the environment. But he believes that every corn grower should feel proud of the role they have. "I look at a cornfield as a big solar panel. Corn uses the sunlight to take carbon dioxide out of the air, which no one wants there because of global warming, and puts back oxygen that we all need to breathe. What high-tech solar panel can do all that? And then, we can take the carbon dioxide, that has been turned into starch, and ferment it into ethanol that we can use as a non-polluting fuel for just about anything. It seems like a perfect cycle to me."