The NFU-NB’s 8th Annual General Meeting
Thriving rural communities
Register now online or by calling (506) 260-0087
(pre-registration required)
Date: Sunday, March 15, 2015
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Location: Centre Communautaire Ste. Anne, 715 Priestman Street, Fredericton, NB
Cost: $20/person or $40/family (includes snack and lunch by Ced’ici)
Our AGM is open to all, and simultaneous French/English interpretation will be provided.
Get involved:
If you have ideas or suggestions for the NFU-NB for the upcoming year, please read this page on how to submit a resolution.
Interested in taking on a antihistamine-meds com role with the NFU-NB? Board elections are held at the AGM and all positions are one year terms. Consider running yourself!
Do you have an Environmental Farm Plan?
The NFU-NB is organizing a workshop with provincial EFP Coordinator John Russell on Saturday, March 14, 2015, in Fredericton.
Speakers include:
The Great NB Comeback
Keynote address by Carl Duivenvoorden
Carl Duivenvoorden was raised on a dairy farm in northern New Brunswick. His diverse early agricultural career took him to over 25 countries. But from his early days in the village of Belledune, Carl always had an uneasy concern about human impacts on our global environment. In 2006, he read “An Inconvenient Truth”, the book that catapulted climate change onto the global agenda. For Carl, it all began with global warming: his longstanding concern about how humanity was affecting the climate led him to be trained by former US Vice President Al Gore in 2007. But the more he learned, the more he came to realize there was so much more to the environmental challenges we face than just a few degrees of warmth. Water. Biodiversity. Topsoil. Food security. Population. Resource availability. And an economic system that has a really hard time acknowledging and accounting for environmental impacts.
So where do we go from here?
In this presentation, Carl will summarize where we are and what got us here, and share thoughts and ideas for solutions going forward. (Hint: farmers and communities factor large.)
Modern Co-operatives: Revitalizing Rural Communities
presentation by Eric Tusz-King, Cooperative Enterprise Council of NB
Eric has over 20 years’ experience with co-ops of all types; he has been involved as a founder, board member, member and consultant. Currently, he is a member and manager of EnerGreen Builders Co-operative and is also chair of the Board of Open Sky Co-operative, a charitable co-operative that is an organic farm, where adults who face barriers due to social, developmental or mental health challenges can improve their wellbeing and independence, through residential and day programmes. He is vice-president and Atlantic director on the Board of Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation. He has represented the CWCF in the recent effort to re-write the Co-operatives Act in NB, which are still under review.
In his own words:
There are initiatives happening in rural communities that give encouragement to those of us who live there that there is a future living here. Most of these initiatives are based upon various forms of co-operation. That co-operation could start with buying more things from your neighbour and it could look like a province-wide co-operative to produce and prepare food for all the schools in the province. There is lots to be concerned about, but no reason to despair. If you are not willing to give into the assumptions that rural communities have no future, then you will find this presentation right down your country road.
The art of farm taxes
James Douglass of James C. Douglass Tax Service, Woodstock, NB
A graduate in Agricultural Economics from Dal-AC in Truro, with over 9 years’ experience in income tax and owner/operator of Hilltop Market Ltd, an 80 acre vegetable farm; James has a unique combination of farming experience and farm tax preparation. His presentation may include topics such as: Investment Tax Credit for farming machinery and equipment purchases, payroll requirements for farms, and benefits of incorporating. Bring your questions, James will be around all day and can provide insight and assistance with your farm taxes!
