Ontario Sheep History

Before 1985

There was the Ontario Sheep Association, with 700-800 members that was funded through a voluntary check-off through the sales barns. At an annual meeting of the OSA in November 1983, a resolution was passed requesting the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Board develop and implement a marketing plan for sheep. In response, the Minister of Agriculture appointed a commission of three sheep producers – Jack James, Walter Renwick and Garth Noecker to speak to producers and build a plan.

The 80's

Although OSMA was established by an Order in Council rather than a producer vote, the Commission called for a referendum to be held on the continuation of the Agency after a reasonable length of time. That vote was held in April 1989. 

The vote was “yes” and resulted in the OSA being disbanded at the 1989 Annual Meeting.

In the first decade, the Ontario Sheep News magazine started with the first edition in 1987. The objectives of the organization were concentrated early in on 5 different areas:

·        To stimulate and expand the market for Ontario produced lamb and wool

·        To improve the efficiency of lamb and wool marketing

·        To improve production efficiency, product quality and continuity of supply

·        To provide liaison at all levels with farm organizations, producer organizations from other provinces, other members of the trade, consumers and government

·        To maintain and expand communication with producer and producer organizations at all levels

OSMA pioneered live lamb grading and electronic sales in late 80s with the Ministry of Agriculture. The electronic sales were accepted by buyers but eventually were cancelled due to declining producer support. The biggest challenge was the erratic week to week variation in sales volumes and lamb size that made setting a minimum bid difficult.

The 90's

The first office was at the Toronto Stockyards but moved to share an office in Guelph with the Ontario Cattlemen’s Association in 1990.

Significant lamb promotion happened in the 90s with grants through the government’s Red Meat Plan. OSMA promoted lamb through high end butcher shops that would feature Ontario Lamb through the Ontario Country Fresh brand.

The Ontario Lamb Improvement Breeding Strategies, OLIBS program, started in 1995 through a joint partnership between OSMA, University of Guelph and OMAFRA to help provide the Canadian sheep industry with large numbers of uniform animals of known production and health status, as well as to train producers to manage their production systems using the most recent technologies available. The program was a 5-year program ending in 2000.

The forward contract program started in 1997 to market Ontario Fresh Premium Lamb in groups of 25-50 lambs per week with a goal of increasing market share and improving consumer awareness and consumption. The program ran until 2006, with 56,000 lambs processed and $6 million returned to Ontario producers.

The 2000's

In the year 2000, OMAFRA had a verbal agreement with Quebec to work together on genetic evaluation programs and share resources. In 2005, the responsibilities for sheep genetic evaluations were transferred from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture to OSMA. This started a long partnership with Quebec, OMAFA, University of Guelph and OSF that is known as GenOvis today.

In 2003, BSE hit Canadian sheep producers. The border closed to all live sheep exports, and we still feel the effects of the border closure today.

In 2007, the Ontario Maedi Visna Flock Status Program started in a partnership between OSMA, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the University of Guelph and the Ontario Veterinary College.

The 2010's

In June 2010, the Canadian Sheep Federation approved a motion to move the sheep industry towards mandatory RFID tags. The older style of tags slowly worked their way out of the system and the new tags were systemically available by 2013.

In the 2011 provincial budget, the government committed to expanding the Risk Management Program to livestock commodities.

In 2015, the responsibility for updates to the Sheep Code of Practice were moved from government to the National Farm Animal Care Council and the Canadian Sheep Federation. The code is updated every 10 years and is currently going through another update.

In 2015, the Master Shepherds Course won the Premier’s Award for Agrifood Innovation Excellence. At the time, the program was a revival of a program first delivered by OSMA and the University of Guelph in the late 1990s.

In 2017, OSMA got a facelift with a new name and a new look. The Ontario Sheep Farmers brand launched in October of that year with a new logo and a new website.

The 2020's

In 2021, OSF launched the Crossroads Challenge. The new strategic plan, written from input from members across the province, recognized the changing dynamics in Ontario agriculture and the maturing of the sheep sector. We are still working with the original framework today as we look ahead to a new strategic plan.

A new Lamb Recipes website was launched in 2022 featuring recipes in 100 different languages, a store locator and nutritional information.

In 2023, OSF worked with our sheep dairy producers to revitalize the Ontario Sheep Dairy Symposium that was originally part of the Dairy Sheep of North America organization but is now organized by OSF and Ontario’s new Sheep Dairy Co-op.

And lastly, new this year is the launch of Field Day in 2025 which we hope will be a biennial event!