CFA elects new president

Mary Robinson will take over for Ron Bonnett

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

A farmer from Augustine Cove, P.E.I. and former leader of the Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture is the next president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA).

Delegates elected Mary Robinson during the CFA’s annual general meeting in Ottawa, Ont. at the end of February. She’s also the first woman and first person from P.E.I. to lead the organization in its 84-year history.

Norm Hall, a producer from Wynyard, Sask., ran against Robinson for the organization’s presidency.

Robinson takes over for Ron Bonnett, who announced in November he would resign from the position he’s held since 2010.

“It’s a big job so I’m still trying to process that,” she said after winning the election, CBC reported.

The new CFA president doesn’t have much time to celebrate her victory.

With a federal election scheduled for October, Robinson will be busy “developing (the organization’s) election strategy in the next month or so and rolling that out to the federal government and all of the players on the federal scene to ensure that we have good support for Canadian agriculture as a whole,” she told CBC.

CFA delegates also elected new vice-presidents.

Keith Currie, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, will serve as the organization’s first vice-president. And Chris van den Heuvel, a former president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, was elected as the second vice-president.