By James Dunn

celebrating the future of agriculture

Spruceview dairy couple named Alberta’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2020

Feb 10, 2020 | 3:11 PM

Farmers from across Alberta ranging from 18-39 years old came together Thursday and Friday in Gasoline Alley for the 2020 Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF) Alberta-NWT Regional Event, which included the presentation of Alberta’s 2020 Outstanding Young Farmers Award.

The annual event also gives a chance for young farmers to learn more about the field and how to further their farming career.

The winners of this year’s award winners are Roelof and Mary van Benthem, owners of van Benthem Dairy in Spruceview. The couple started the business about nine years ago and now has over 800 acres of land and hold close to 300 cows.

Roelof van Benthem comes from the Netherlands. He moved to Canada in 2000 and spent ten years at Olds College studying Kinesiology, Embryo Transplantation, Speed skating, Agriculture Production, and Agriculture Management.

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Nominees for the Outstanding Young Farmers Award have to be farm operators in the province, and a minimum of two-thirds of their gross income coming from the farming operation.

Steve Cooper, President of Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmer Program, explained the value of being a member of the program.

“What it means to be an outstanding young farmer is getting the best farmers together; recognizing, celebrating. You put a bunch of those people in the same room, it’s higher energy – the best farmers of the province coming together, sharing information.”

Cooper also highlighted the education part of the two-day awards event that included networking with members of every sector of agriculture in Alberta.

“There’s a mental health break, there’s a big pause where you can back away from your operation for a second and talk about what’s going on with other folks, who are at a high level as well. We had a speaker in talking to us about social media, and how we should be focusing on farming and not so much trying to handle social media accounts, which was very eye-opening.”

Cooper added, “Everybody as we find out once we’re in the program we have more similarities and differences. So you learn from each other, through networking and conversations. Maybe one person is having an HR problem, and another is having a problem with red tape. How’s everyone dealing with it, those open conversations are big learning opportunities.”

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Devin Dreeshen stopped by to deliver remarks, along with his mother Judy, representing her husband and Red Deer-Mountain View MP, Earl Dreeshen.

Previous winners of the award and alumni of the OYF program always show up to talk with current members and Sawyer says that all ties in to the education part of the experience.

“It’s great to hear everyone’s stories; what they’re doing, how they’re innovating or making changes,” said Tara Sawyer, chair of the Alberta-NWT region of the OYF.

“Part of that is bringing in speakers who can help us in our business, just like any other business does. Whatever is prevalent at the time, that’s usually how we either get a speaker or sometimes we do tours of facilities that have an interesting story to tell.”

Alberta’s event kicks off the yearlong tour across the country to find a winner in each region. The national OYF event is in Saskatoon in December.