Couples from Alberta and Nova Scotia were named Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers during Canadian Western Agribition in Regina.
“There are truly seven winning couples here,” said Michael Kalisvaart, who with wife, Karen Jansen, represented Alberta.
“It’s been great to get to know you. I know we’ll be lifelong friends. We’re going to take this award and be ambassadors and share our pride in agriculture as farmers.”
Kalisvaart, Jansen and their extended family operate Kalco Farms, an 11,000-acre grain farm near Gibbons, Alta.
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James and Amanda Kinsman, who represented the Atlantic region, milk 190 Holsteins and grow corn, soybeans, wheat and haylage on 2,000 acres near Berwick, N.S.
Kalisvaart and Jansen’s three children, Anna, 17, Marijke, 14, and Timothy, 11, were in Regina for the announcement.
“My daughter was tweeting today after our presentation, saying she was so proud of us,” Jansen said.
“You don’t always get to hear that from your kids because they don’t think to tell you that.”
Kalisvaart said they are building a sustainable operation that the next generation can take over.
Even small improvements in processes during the busy seeding and harvest times can help, he added.
For example, they identified loading the air seeder as a major bottleneck.
“We’ve made constant improvements where we were looking for ways to even shave minutes off of our loading, so the two minute improvement on loading of one air seeder, times 10 times a day, times 14 to 20 days, adds up to a lot of time and better utilization of equipment and savings in a narrow window to get all our acres seeded,” he said.
