Farmers Forum staff
GUELPH — Thriving farms, responsible production and trusted grain farmers.
That’s the straightforward vision in the Grain Farmers of Ontario’s recently released 2025 strategic plan. However, the plan includes a requisite nod toward the controversial altar of diversity, equity and inclusion — aka ‘DEI’ — even as DEI has increasingly fallen out of public favour and corporations are now fleeing from it.
“We believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the new GFO plan declares in its core values statement, benignly summing up DEI as simply: “All people and their ideas are welcome in our community.”
No one could argue with such a wholesome notion as presented. But GFO’s embrace of the DEI mantra contrasts with a broader corporate pullback from DEI and the ‘woke,’ hard-left identity politics that actually underpin DEI ideology. Simply put, DEI ranks a person’s workplace competence as less important than that person’s group identity — be it race, gender, sexual orientation or other distinguishing features irrelevant to completing a task.
The pursuit of DEI has sparked a consumer backlash and a number of big name companies have returned to the commonsense merit principle. Firms recently dumping DEI include Harley Davidson, John Deere, Ford, Caterpillar, Meta (Facebook) and Boeing. The newly installed Trump administration has also called a halt to DEI policies within the U.S. federal government.
Otherwise, GFO’s new strategic plan — intended for the next four years — offers solid boiler-plate commitments to advocate on behalf of farmers, support crop research and increase the value and usage of Ontario grains both domestically and internationally.
So why make even a half-hearted bow toward the increasingly discredited DEI dogma?
“Always follow the money,” an Eastern Ontario farmer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Farmers Forum, suggesting it was done to stay in the good graces of the government. “The money typically flows from the government. Once 30 % of businesses follow the directive, everyone believes it is the way forward.
“When funds are allocated for grants, everybody jumps in for grants no matter how stupid the policy. Once funds dry up, and the economy gets tighter, the policies dry up.”
Former GFO board member and current delegate Arden Schneckenburger didn’t see a connection between government funding and the organization being in accord with DEI.
“I don’t think it would have made a difference, provincially or federally,” the Morrisburg crop producer said, also pointing out that GFO deals mostly with the provincial government.
The GFO board, Schneckenburger said, was reacting to what was being pushed in society at large and was one of the biggest and first farm organizations to adopt DEI.
“I’m not on the board, but I understand they’ve taken all the multi-day (DEI) training programs,” Schneckenburger observed, adding, “I think it’s OK that they understand that we need diversity, equity and inclusion in their dealings.
“As long as they do their work for their farmers, that’s fine.”
But the principles behind DEI concerned another anonymous Eastern Ontario producer who remarked: “It’s like flying a plane. Do we want DEI or the best pilot flying the plane?”
As Ontario’s largest farm organization, GFO represents 28,000 barley, corn, oat, soybean, and wheat farmers. Members work 6-million acres of farmland, generate over $4.1 billion in production value, spur over $27 billion in economic output, and are responsible for 90,000 jobs.
