CFC announces executive committee for 2019

Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC) recently announced the election of its 2019 executive committee. The elections followed the annual general meeting. The 15-member board of directors, made up of farmers and other stakeholders from the chicken industry, has chosen the following representatives:

Benoît Fontaine, chair (Stanbridge Station, Que.)
Hailing from Stanbridge Station, Que., CFC chair Benoît Fontaine first joined the board of directors in 2013 as an alternate and became the Quebec director in 2014. He farms in the Lac Champlain area and raises 5.5 million kg of chicken and 500,000 kg of turkey. A former high school Canadian history teacher, and second generation chicken farmer, Fontaine has also been heavily involved in the Union des producteurs agricoles since 1999. He became chair of CFC in 2016.

Derek Janzen, first vice-chair (Aldergrove, B.C.)
Derek Janzen, first vice-chair, and his wife Rhonda have farmed in the Fraser Valley since 1998. They currently produce 1.4 million kg of chicken annually and manage 22,000 commercial laying hens. Prior to farming, Janzen worked for B.C.’s largest poultry processor for nearly nine years.

He worked his way up from driving delivery trucks to sales and marketing, where he took the position of major accounts manager. Janzen’s experience in the processing industry has served him well with his board involvement.

He’s held various positions on a variety of boards including chair of the B.C. Egg Producers Association and also was appointed by the minister of agriculture as a member of the Farm Industry Review Board, B.C.’s supervisory board. Janzen enjoys being involved in the industry and is excited to represent B.C. at CFC.

Nick de Graaf, second vice-chair (Port Williams, N.S.)
Nick de Graaf is a third-generation poultry farmer in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia operating the farm founded by his Dutch grandfather in the early 1960s. Today, the farm produces more than 660,000 chickens, and 67,000 turkeys per year. De Graaf is also part of Innovative Poultry Group (IPG).

IPG farms 55,000 broiler breeders and owns Maritime Chicks, a new, state-of-the-art hatchery employing the HatchCare system. In addition to poultry, De Graaf grows more than 1,600 acres of wheat, corn and soybeans. He is self-sufficient in the production of corn and soybeans for his on-farm feed mill where he processes poultry feeds for his own flocks.

De Graaf is in his eigth year as a director with Chicken Farmers of Nova Scotia. He has participated in CFC as an alternate director and as a member of the policy committee. De Graaf and his wife Trudy have three children and two grandchildren.

Tim Klompmaker, executive member (Norwood, Ont.)
Tim Klompmaker lives in Norwood, Ont., and was elected to CFC’s board in 2017. He started farming in 1984 along with his wife Annette and his three sons. He is a third-generation chicken farmer with the fourth generation already in place and running chicken farms of their own.

Klompmaker served as a district committee representative for Chicken Farmers of Ontario before being elected to the Ontario board in 2000. He served as CFC alternate representative for Ontario from 2012-2013, and has represented Ontario on the CFC production committee, the AMU Working Committee, and at NFACC. He has also served as 1st Vice-Chair of Chicken Farmers of Ontario.