GUELPH — One newspaper owner and three Western Ontario farmers, including the OFA president, have been acclaimed as directors for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA).
Melissa Schneider will be the new director of Zone 4, representing the counties of Elgin and Oxford, replacing Mark Wales after the organization’s annual general meeting in November. Schneider is the current president of the Elgin Federation of Agriculture and currently runs a biweekly newspaper called The Echo for Port Stanley, Union and Sparta areas. While she doesn’t currently farm, her parents were cash crop farmers before leaving the industry.
Brent Royce, the director of Zone 7 which represents the counties of Huron and Perth, has been an OFA board member since 2013. The Listowel-area turkey farmer was named Farm & Food Care Ontario’s champion in 2015 for being a strong ag advocate.
Mark Reusser is the director of Zone 9 — representing the counties of Dufferin, Waterloo and Wellington. He runs a broiler chicken and cash crop farm near New Dundee in Waterloo County, and is one of two OFA vice-presidents.
OFA president Keith Currie of Collingwood is the director of Zone 13, representing the counties of Simcoe, York and Peel. He has been with the OFA in some capacity for more than 25 years, and runs an eighth-generation cash crop farm with his wife Janice, and four children.
