Clement gone from CFFO

John Clement and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario have parted ways.

Photo by Susan Mann

Clement was the general manager until Nathan Stevens, the son of a former president Henry Stevens, took over in March.


Stevens came to the CFFO staff first as a policy advisor.

Clement was demoted back to his original CFFO role as communications manager, but he left rather than accepting the change this spring.

Neither side is commenting on the change, other than to say Clement’s leaving was “amicable”.

The change is the biggest staff upheaval since Elbert van Donkersgoed, who essentially made the organization starting in the early 1960s in Drayton, went into semi-retirement to be a private consultant.

Van Donkersgoed led the organization in taking bold stewardship stands that contrasted sharply with the profit-focused goals of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the anti-big-business griping of the National Farmers Union.

The CFFO board of directors has struggled to strike a number of balances, such as between large-scale and specialized farm businesses and smaller, more diverse family farms, between the dominant Christian Reformed Church immigrant families from the Netherlands and the broader community of Christian farmers and the divide between organic and commercial farming practices.

With Stevens now in control, the CFFO has been taking policy stands quite similar to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. It has not, however, followed the OFA lead in providing services, such as insurance, to members.