Suzanne
Van Bommel is the choice of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission to chair the
Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers Marketing Board for the next two years.
She is a
former chief of staff for a previous Ontario agriculture minister, she is part owner of HAR MAR farms, manages
a 560-acre cash crop business producing corn, soybeans and peas, a hog
finishing business and is president of GPS Group, a public relations and issues
management company serving agriculture companies and the provincial government.
The
government took control of the marketing board earlier this year, dismissing the
directors farmers elected and installing former agriculture minister Jeff
Buchanan to chair the board and negotiate contracts for this growing season.
Buchanan
is also vice-chairman of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Council which
supervises marketing boards.
There
are farmers who are not happy about what has happened and they continue to
lobby for changes.
Van
Bommel will have a board of directors that includes four appointed by the
government and four that will be elected. The eight directors will eventually
all be elected by farmers to two-year terms with half of the directors elected
each year.
