H. H. Hannam

Who was H. H. Hannam?

Herbert Henry Hannam was a farm leader, editor, educator and a promoter of the co-operative movement. He was general secretary of the United Farmers of Ontario from 1933 to 1942.

Hannam taught in rural schools in Ontario and Saskatchewan before attending and graduating from the University of Toronto's Ontario Agricultural College in 1926. He then worked as the livestock editor for The Canadian Countryman. He became education secretary of the United Farmers of Ontario in 1928 and succeeded James J. Morrison as general secretary in 1933. He also served as secretary of the United Farmers' Co-operative Company starting in 1936.

He wrote two pamphlets on co-operativism, Co-operation: The Plan for Tomorrow which Works Today in 1938 and Pulling Together for Twenty Five Years in 1940.

He oversaw the transition of the farmer's organization from a political movement to a business lobby group by helping organize the Ontario Federation of Agriculture in 1936 which the UFO would dissolve into in the 1940s. He also helped organize the Canadian Chamber of Agriculture which would become the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, becoming its president and managing director in 1949.