Outspoken and straight to the point, Alain Leduc lobbied for "one voice" three years ago until it burned him out. Farmers rallied behind him. Others wanted to shoot him. They even called him up to let him know.

The cry in Renfrew County now for one voice — one umbrella group for all the more than 50 farm groups in the province – does not have the leadership to achieve its goal, Leduc said. "They didn’t solicit from county to county. They’re as frustrated as I was."

When Leduc led the grassroots movement three years ago, it garnered support from about 7,000 farmers who participated at rallies across the province, including a tractor jam that closed the international bridge from Windsor to Detroit. Leduc said he would have needed twice as many farmers to have the momentum for one voice. "Then you’ve got the horse by the tail. Then you’ve got the bulk of true farmers."

But there weren’t enough leaders to help and Leduc tired of the constant meetings. "I was trying to saddle a horse that was running all the time," he said.

The movement at the time sought funding for the grain and oilseed growers and one voice for farmers. They got $500 million from the federal government instead of the $1 billion they asked for and when it was announced in the House of Commons, Alain Leduc was sitting there with a small group of farmers. They stood up and walked out. The scene was broadcast across the nation on the evening news. That was not the last straw for Leduc but it was close. Around the same time, someone lit a firecracker on Parliament Hill during a demonstration and the wrong farmer was jumped and arrested by four police officers. "This is going to ruin everything," said one farm leader, complaining about bad publicity. "This is going to ruin all that we built."

Leduc was the first farmer to meet with former Minister of Agriculture Brian Coburn. He told Coburn that his government was needed to support one umbrella group for Ontario’s farmers.

"You have to legislate it," Leduc told him directly.

"I will if you bring me the numbers," Coburn replied.

Leduc figured that if 65 to 70 per cent of Ontario’s farmers voted in favor of one voice he could have counted on Coburn to do the rest. The OFA was best positioned to fund the necessary survey but when Leduc went back to the farm groups with a plan they were intimidated. Even the farmers’ favorite son, Jack Wilkinson, who led the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, wouldn’t seize the Leduc vision.

"You’re not here to tear us apart, are you?" Leduc rememberedWilkinson asking him before one meeting.

A deflated Leduc tired of the bickering, the constant paying from his own pocket to deliver his message, the travelling and the hours of re-telling the same story to farmers who couldn’t convince the leaders of their commodity groups that one voice was necessary.

There were other problems. The farm groups felt they were in competition with each other and western Ontario farmers think the eastern Ontario farmers are too radical, he said.

It was a difficult task convincing farm groups that they would all keep their identities and keep their boards, he said, explaining that a new province-wide umbrella group would have been formed with a new name and have the support of all other groups. "We wanted our organizations to wake up and understand that. We had to have one strong voice. If you have one voice you could demand things. One voice is not a hard thing — we’ve sent a man to the moon — but these guys were fighting to see who is going to be in power."

As it stands today, politicians can forever divide and conquer the farm community because of so many mixed messages, he said. With a plethora of farm voices the farmer has lost more than political clout. "We’ve lost touch with the consumer."

Another obstacle was the lack of political will from within the organizations, he said. "You have to say what you want – lay it on the table and not accept plan B," he said. "They just want to be politically correct. There’s no fight in them."

But the lack of fight is, ironically, caused by the fact that there is no one farm voice. Farm groups that cry too loudly have complained later they were shunned by politicians who turned to the 50 or so other farm groups to find team players.