Thursday, January 24, 2019

John Janzen dead at 91

John Janzen, secretary-manager of the Ontario chicken marketing board for its first 23 years, has died. He was 91.

Janzen joined fellow producers in the 1950s in trying to improve their lot in an industry that suffered violent price swings from profit to losses.

In 1965 former Ontario agriculture minister William Stewart granted permission to form a supply-management marketing board and Janzen was chosen secretary-manager and did much of the work to develop policies and regulations.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the chicken and egg industries were in turmoil as Quebec and Ontario competed for markets and Janzen began working through the Canadian Broiler Council to form marketing boards in all of the provinces to pave the way for national supply management, an end to ruinous inter-provincial competition and to gain limits on imports.

He was the original interim secretary-manager for the Canadian Chicken Marketing Agency when it gained nation-wide supply-management powers in 1979.

Janzen earned a reputation as a wise and fair administrator throughout the difficult years when not all chicken farmers were willing to adhere to supply-management regulations and production limits.

Among his many honours was induction into the Ontario Agriculture Hall of Fame.