TORONTO — In the 1940s a Malak Karsh photo of a young
farmer with a calf slung over his shoulder, symbolically representing the
future of farming, graced the cover of the Family Herald. The
choice was good. The young man in that photo, J.R. Ernest Miller, would
later breed the famous Eastern Breeders Inc Tayside Pabst Rockman, and go
on to become a Master Breeder and write a history book.
On June 8, Ernie Miller of Tayside Farms near Perth,
will be inducted into the Agricultural Hall of Fame at Milton.
Perhaps Miller’s greatest work occurred after he
became convinced that Ontario needed the Junior Farmers. In April, 1944,
he chaired a meeting at Queen’s Park where the 50 delegates voted
unanimously to form the Junior Farmers’ Association of Ontario.
One of Miller’s first tasks as a provincial director
on the first Junior Farmers’ executive was to set up two conferences, at
Kemptville and Guelph. The executive at those conferences recommended
short courses on leadership, farm management and swine marketing.
A powerhouse in the debate over whether the name should
be Junior Farmers’ or Rural Young People of Ontario, Ernie Miller was
exceptionally persuasive. So much so that the debaters from other parts of
the province even attacked the accents of the Lanark and Renfrew County
debaters. After Ernie Miller, according to the official history of the
Junior Farmers, reprimanded Floyd Griesback over a point of order,
Griesback angrily responded: "My name is not Greaseball, it is
Griesback."
Miller was among the dairy farmers who pioneered
computers on farms, working in 1968 with 17 other farmers across Ontario
with a computerized record keeping system called CANFARM. In 1973, he was
named McNish Award recipient for the person in eastern Ontario who
demonstrated outstanding leadership.
J.R. Ernest Miller died in 1997. He was 80-years-old.
