Sunlight pours down between two silos. Just out of the wind, a man in coveralls sits in a wheelbarrow and has a cellphone clamped to his ear. Plunked there, he listens carefully, then frowns, nods and answers with calm, honest, intelligent directness.
I wait at a distance and let him finish his call before introducing myself. From that humble perch, Bruce County beef farmer Stan Eby is likely being interviewed by a national news program, again, or he may be lobbying a politician in a fancy hotel in Ottawa.
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Meanwhile, fattened steers poke their heads through the gate and in the background Eby can hear his son starting a tractor.
They are the reasons, he later tells me, why he stopped his chores to take the call. They’re why he takes on leadership roles in his industry.
Today, Eby may rank as the most quoted Canadian farmer in history. A recent Google search for “Stan Eby cattle” turned up 179,000 hits, ranging from Foxnews and USA Today to the CBC, the CTV, the Globe and Mail, and many, many others. From the biggest to the most obscure, they all got the same undivided attention that I just witnessed.
In 2000, Eby was president of the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association (OCA) during the Walkerton water crisis. Just three years later, in May 2003, Eby was vice-president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association when Canada’s first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was diagnosed. That March he became CCA president and began the long slog through the BSE aftermath.
It was stressful, time consuming and often bumpy, but Eby was dedicated to leading the groups through the worst health-related crises any commodity group has faced in Canada. “I don’t back down from a challenge,” says Eby simply. “It was my duty.”
His calm, unflappable demeanour and his extraordinary ability to surround himself with strong, loyal lieutenants kept the lids on both those volatile situations as Eby, with a firm grip, steered these large, diversified, volunteer boards through those media frenzies.
WALKERTON
Eby and his son Steve finish 1,400 and background 600 cattle about 25 miles from Walkerton, Ont., a town made infamous by water — contaminated water.
After some torrential rains in May 2000, an E. coli bacteria normally found in the guts of ruminants got into the town’s water system. It began making the residents of Walkerton sick, some of them fatally. In total, at least seven people died directly from drinking the contaminated water, and about 2,500 became ill.
Eby still remembers the initial call telling him the cattle industry was potentially connected to the water problem in Walkerton. He also recalls the subsequent conference call, and the accusatory tone of the representatives from the provincial Agriculture Ministry.
It was instantly clear to Eby that the OCA would have to be at the forefront of communications on the issue, and that it had to be the chief support for the embroiled beef farmers.
It was also instantly apparent, he recalls, that the stakes would be huge. The cattle industry had a potential PR nightmare on their hands.
First, he cancelled a trip to Saskatchewan and then drove the half-hour to Walkerton to talk to David Biesenthal, the farmer and veterinarian whose cattle had been connected to the contaminated well.
When Eby drove up the lane, he looked about him. The barnyard in question was clean. It was also below the well in question.
“I knew the operation and knew it was well run,” says Eby. “All I said was, the OCA is here to help you.”
It wasn’t a hollow promise. That’s not Eby’s way. Every month after, Eby and a group, including some farmers involved in Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Christian Farmers and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, would meet with the Biesanthals for coffee — a sort of farmer support group.
And the cattlemen needed support. The mass media had
CRISIS
Stan Eby’s Checklist For Farm Organizations
1. Support your members — emotionally and with facts.
2.Have a small crisis management team ready to launch into action and respond to accusations and press reports. Don’t panic.
3. Continually keep your members updated.
4.Develop a message and calmly present those facts to the media, clearly and often.
5. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
6. Above all, treat people the way you’d like to be treated.
landed in the county, ready to convict the beef industry as the cause of this tragedy. Instead, the reporters discovered on the one side an incompetent Public Utilities Commission, an untreated well and falsified records, and on the other, cattlemen ready with facts and working hard to get those facts to each other and to the general public.
Eby’s telephone rang non-stop.
A handful of key people continually evaluated the situation. They kept the OCA members updated and carried a consistent message. OCA staffers Mike McMorris and Kelly Daynard along with the past president and a director from Chatham formed an ad hoc crisis management team with Eby. At the time, the OCA had about 25,000 members, an elected board of 49, and nine staff.
“There’s always a leadership group within the leaders,” says Eby. Humility and honesty amongst the group helped build loyalty during a time when extra effort and new skills were needed quickly.
The media circus continued and Eby did hundreds of interviews, always taking the opportunity to educate the public about farmers’ commitment to environmental stewardship and water quality. He remembers one reporter aggressively pursuing her point of view and trying to push it down his throat. He stuck with his consistent messages that beef farmers are environmentally concerned, the well should have been treated and beef is safe to eat.
“The fact that Biesanthal was an early adapter of EFP (environmental farm plan) saved our bacon,” says Eby. “That demonstrated that production agriculture protected the environment and produced safe, quality food.”
In the end, Stan and Frank Koebel, the two in charge of water treatment were both found guilty.
Under Eby’s leadership, at the same time, OCA created a blueprint for all of agriculture to deal with environmental issues.
A decade later, how does Eby look back at the experience? “The Walkerton crisis reached out beyond our local level,” he says. “It broadened the lessons learned nationally, and for all of agriculture.”
