It was 1909 and farmers wanted change.
Their voices were getting lost on the frontier, railroads profiteered off their backs and prices were set for their products without giving them a seat at the table. The powers that be thought they could flex some muscle in the faces of the farmers they claimed to serve, but everyone knows you can't outmuscle a Canadian farmer. United by the belief that their livelihoods and communities are worth fighting for, they banded together, and UFA was born.
When the deck is stacked against our members, and their prosperity is threatened, you can bet UFA will protect their interests like a Great Pyrenees defending its herd.
When thousands of our bravest members and customers fought for Canada at wartime, we helped keep morale high and farms afloat for their families back home. When society wasn't giving women a say, we gave them full suffrage long before the rest of the country.
When the political arena came knocking, UFA answered the door and became the government. And if you feel like raising a glass to that, it's a good thing we're the ones who ended prohibition. Cheers.
UFA made farmers a force to be reckoned with. No drought, disease, depression or declaration of war could knock them down or break their calloused spirit. Because at the heart of their co-operative is the one thing many seriously underestimated all the way back in 1909: the might of Western Canadian farmers and ranchers. The ones who love the land and all the crops, flocks and herds that call it home. Those who call working sunrise to sunrise, in whatever weather, just another day at work. The ones sharp enough to adapt one of society's most time- honoured ways of life to meet an unpredictable future.
UFA flew the maple leaf nearly a decade before Canada. And like the country we hold so dear, we stand on guard for our members. Canadianism is not a trend for us.
Through war and peace, economic and natural peril, good times and bad, UFA is proudly Canadian—as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. For as long as farmers till the earth, UFA will always be there for farmers.
