ucked in between Woodstock and London along the
river that gives it its name, Thamesford, Ont., is
not one of your larger Ontario metropolises. A
flashing amber light suffices for a traffic signal.
With a couple of banks, a drug store, a grocery
store or two, a car dealership, a hockey rink, two
elementary schools, three churches, and 2,000
souls, Thamesford is about as close to Anytown,
Ont., as you can get.
But look a little closer, and you'll notice a
cluster of low-slung poultry barns on the road into
town. Turn left at the main intersection, and
you'll bump into Cold Springs Farm Ltd., Ontario's
"best kept secret", as its publicity-shy executive
vice-president Tom Cowan likes to say.
With a fully-integrated turkey operation, pork and
elevator businesses, and markets as exotic as West
Africa, Cold Springs Farm brings an air of quiet
stability to this small, thriving community. Some
of the company's 750 employees live in surrounding
Woodstock, Ingersoll and London, but many, craving
a small-town lifestyle, have chosen to settle in
Thamesford. You'll find them in one of the two
banks, the drug store, the car dealership, the
hockey arena, and one of the three churches,
depending on their faith. On Christmas day, you'll
find them around their tables with their extended
families, and, you guessed it, a complimentary Cold
Springs turkey as the centrepiece.
Cowan may be camera-shy about his own business, but
he has no doubts about how essential Cold Springs
and all the other farm businesses across the
province are to the Ontario economic engine. "We're
just a family farm. We see this as keeping rural
Ontario viable, to support rural towns and
villages. We see ourselves as part of that."
Southern Ontario is a quiltwork of towns like
Thamesford stitched together by the farms in
between. Even the big cities owe much of their
prosperity to agriculture. London has its Casco,
Kitchener has its Schneiders, and Metropolitan
Toronto has its Ontario Food Terminal and its food
processors, along with its armies of government
bureaucrats, advertising agencies and corporate
head offices that make their livings from farmers.
With $26 billion a year in sales, Ontario's
agri-food industry is the province's second largest
economic sector.
In 1986 dollars, economists' gross domestic product
measuring stick for various industries, car and
truck manufacturers have the highest GDP, $10.6
billion in 1994, with agri-food, made up of farming
and food processing, close behind at $9.6 billion.
Then come electronics at $7.9 billion, mining and
smelting at $3.8 billion and forestry and paper at
$2.5 billion.
When combined with the food delivery system, the
agri-food sector's sales in 1994 reached $52.1
billion. The industry directly employed 582,000,
with many thousands more spin-off jobs.
It's a story of the phenomenal ability of farmers
to create a source of wealth that multiplies its
way through the economy overall.
- In an average year, Ontario's farmers produce $6
billion in gross income. They keep only $1.7
billion to pay for their land and to put groceries
on their own tables, however. The lion's share,
$4.3 billion, goes to buy inputs that give jobs to
other Ontarians.
- The province's 60,000 farms pay $750 million in
wages to 140,000 farm workers every year. Farmers
also buy $490 million a year in fertilizers and
pesticides from input dealers, says Tom Sawyer,
manager of the Fertilizer Institute of Ontario.
- They in turn produce 1,000 full time and 1,000
spring-time jobs, worth another $40 million in
wages, Sawyer says. Dealers spend $15 million a
year upgrading their outlets, pumping money to
everyone from local carpenters to computer sales
teams.
- Ontario farmers buy nearly $200 million worth of
pesticides every year, about 20 per cent of the
sales of an industry that employs 2,200.
- Ontario's farmers produced 22 per cent of
Canada's farm sales in 1994, and processors
produced 48 per cent of the country's total output.
Overall, Ontario's economy produced $209 billion
(in 1986 dollars), about 40 per cent of Canada's
$532 billion in total GDP. Inside Ontario, the
agri-food sector accounts for 3.5 per cent of total
economic activity. Food processors, however,
produce nine per cent of total factory production,
amounting to $115,000 for each of their 85,000
employees, the province's highest economic output
per employee.
"We saw a lot of plant closings, and a large drop
in employment immediately after the free trade
agreement was signed with the U.S.," says Dave
Harvey, industry analyst with the Ontario
agriculture ministry.
"Now, the industry has made the adjustments and
we're seeing a lot of growth, maybe not in new
plants but in new machinery in the plants we
already have," Harvey says. "The only downside is
that, as in other industries, it's a jobless
recovery. If $1 billion in investment used to
create 1,000 jobs, now it creates maybe 100."
The statistics show that most food processors in
the province are based on locally-grown crops and
livestock. Cereal and flour processing make up 13
per cent of the output of Ontario food processors,
the same amount as fruit and vegetables, so it's
clear Ontario's lead isn't simply the result of
food processors setting up factories in Ontario to
process Prairie-grown crops. Meat represents 23 per
cent of Ontario's food processing sector, followed
by beverages at 18 per cent, dairy at 15 per cent,
and then a wide assortment with smaller shares.
For every $1 of net farm income, Ontario's food
processors add another $5 in added value, says
Vincent Amanor-Boadu, economist at Guelph-based
George Morris Centre. That ripple effect has
climbed steadily, from about $4.25 at the end of
the 1980s, to $5.78 by 1992, the last year for
which these statistics are available.
While farm net incomes have stayed constant in the
range of $1.7 to $2 billion, the benefit to the
economy keeps growing.
Studies also show that the food processing industry
injects $2.20 of economic benefit for every $1 of
sales, through its support for industries ranging
from bottle and can manufacturers to
transportation, Harvey says. "Think how many of the
trucks you see are carrying food products."
The food processing sector is also robust, with
$830 million in investments in 1995, up from $700
million in 1993.
Ontario has a negative trade balance in food.
Still, the province's agri-food sector is catching
up. For 1995, Ontario imports in food and
agricultural commodities total $6.9 billion.
Exports, mainly to the U.S., are $4.6 billion. But
imports are growing at a pace of 1.4 per cent a
year, while exports grow 9.5 per cent.
Ontarians get extra benefits from their efficient
agri-food sector. They now spend just 10 per cent
of their personal disposable income to buy their
food, compared to eight per cent in the U.S., but
13 per cent in Japan, 15 per cent in France and
Australia, and 24 per cent in Greece.
The numbers tell the tale of agriculture's key role
in the Ontario economy - but so do the 582,000
people it employs. At Cold Springs in Thamesford,
the people who will bring turkeys to Christmas
tables across the world this month are gearing up
for the busy season.
There's 34-year-old Deboning Supervisor Chrissy
Darmanin, whose nine-year-old daughter Nicole "is
into everything and anything". There's 34-year-old
Feed Mill Production Co-ordinator Chris Manicom,
who'll take Thamesford over London any day. There's
63-year-old Farm Manager Al Smith, whose 19 years
at the company helped educate his four boys. And
there's 60-year-old Quebec Sales Manager Earl Shea,
who's only too happy to talk turkey.
Meet four families behind your food
CHRISSY DARMANIN, Deboning Supervisor
Automotive industry bigger than agriculture? Don't
tell that to Chrissy Darmanin, Cold Springs Farm's
affable Deboning Supervisor, whose husband Lawrence
works in the automobile parts industry nearby.
"Comparing this type of industry with my husband's,
this job has kept the bread and butter on the
table, and paid the mortgage," says Darmanin, who
has been with the company for 16 years and oversees
90 people in Cold Springs' cutting operation. "He
has been on strike - you know the car industry, up
and down and all over - where this one has kept us
going.
"People don't have to drive a car, but they have to
eat food. It's a self-gratifying job. Anybody can
make cars. It takes a lot to put out food and have
a good product that you are proud of.
"You can go and make cars, you can make widgets on
a line, but people have to eat....People just don't
realize how big an industry it is."
Darmanin, who grew up on a farm in nearby
Beachville, has two young children who are just
hitting their expensive years. Lee, 5, is getting
into ice skating, while Nicole, 9, "wants the
world" - piano lessons, figure skating, ballet,
Brownies, Girl Guides, you name it.
There will be 30 people around the Darmanin family
Christmas table this month. Earlier on, it was off
to the Cold Springs family Christmas party at the
local arena, with Santa Claus, skating, and
presents for the kids.
Darmanin says there's always room for improvement
in her job, which involves overseeing the cutting
up of turkey to be sold for further processing, a
large and growing market for Cold Springs.
"New technology, modernizing equipment, making it
easier for the workers....That's what you're
looking to improve on," she says. Last January, the
company flew her down to the International Poultry
Exposition in Atlanta, to bring back ideas on new
machinery and technology, and other ways "of making
the job easier."
CHRIS MANICOM, Feed Mill Production Co-ordinator
At 34, Feed Mill Production Co-ordinator Chris
Manicom is exactly Chrissy Darmanin's age, and they
both went through Ingersoll District High School
together.
For Manicom, his wife Karen, daughter Laura, 9, and
son Alex, 6, the job at Cold Springs has allowed
the peaceful, affordable lifestyle a small town
such as Thamesford can offer. His children attend
Thamesford Public School. He and his wife have
worked at Cold Springs for the past 10 years.
"It's a nice quiet community," says Manicom, whose
soft-spoken manner reflects the community he lives
in. "I've always wanted to live in a small
community. I've lived in London, but I prefer the
Thamesford lifestyle."
Alex is signed up in baseball, and his dad has
hockey in mind for him for next year. Laura is in
the "Singing Stars" and will be carolling away this
month in the Christmas concert held in the
Thamesford arena. Fourteen, "including boyfriends
and girlfriends", will gather around the family
dinner table this Christmas.
In charge of setting up production lines for the
feed, and dispatching it, Manicom co-ordinates the
production of feed for Cold Springs' turkey and
swine farms. The mill runs 24 hours a day Sunday to
Friday. Set feeding programs "ensure the bird gets
the right feed for the right amount of time," he
says.
AL SMITH,Farm Manager
With a tattoo on his arm and a gleam in his eye,
63-year-old farm manager Al Smith milked cows in
Cheshire, England, before emigrating to Canada 38
years ago. Despite a dairy background, the
irascible farmer admits in a broad English accent
that his allegiance has been swayed after 19 years
of raising Cold Springs turkeys.
"The turkey should be our national bird," says
Smith with a wink. "I think it's the number one
product....You've tried the rest, now try the
best."
Smith raises 32,000 birds from day-old chicks. At
six weeks, some are transferred from his farm in
Belmont to growout facilities; others are brought
to the 12-week broiler stage.
His four boys all had summer jobs with Cold
Springs. Today, Michael, 37, works in an auto-body
shop; Jamie, 34, works with the Ministry of Natural
Resources; Peter, 29, works with Hybrid Turkeys;
and Andrew, 27, works in electronics. Ten will tuck
into a Cold Springs bird in the Smith household
this Christmas; dad has high hopes of the number
expanding, but no one's married yet.
As an employer, Cold Springs has been a steady
provider for his wife, Mary, and boys. "It helped
put them through school, college and university.
It's been the best," he says.
EARL SHEA, Quebec Sales Manager
U.S. President Herbert Hoover promised a chicken
in every pot. Make that "turkey", and you've made
Cold Springs Quebec Sales Manager Earl Shea's day.
At 60, Shea has been with the company for 13 years,
helping bring the turkey message to unlikely
corners of the world, including the Caribbean, West
Africa, South Africa, the Far East and Greece.
Japan and Hong Kong are showing interest, and even
the Chinese are nibbling giblets. "We felt as
though turkey would lend itself very nicely because
it was a good substitute for some of the
high-protein foods required by the Oriental
market," Shea says. Here at home, major clients
include JM Schneider in Kitchener.
The Montreal-born Shea, his wife Micheline, sons
Bryan, 26, and Patrick, 31, two grandchildren,
Dakota, 4, and Patrick, six months, and in-laws,
will number 10 around the Christmas table this
year.
Shea, however, has made a living convincing people
to try turkey on the other 364 days. "I've enjoyed
the marketing challenge....We've gone from 15 years
ago when turkey was only consumed at Christmas and
Thanksgiving, and in the last 10 years have
expanded that market so that the fresh turkey
products are offered on the store shelves on a
daily basis."
From a personal point of view, Cold Springs has
helped the Shea family meet its goals. One of the
boys has a commerce degree from the University of
Guelph, and now works in the auto industry. The
other went through for law and security at Mohawk
College in Hamilton and is now a police officer in
York region.
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