Five years ago, Wagon Wheel Seed Corporation employed Warren Kaeding, his father and one part-time employee.
Today, it employs four full-time employees and one part-time, a bookkeeper, a commissioned salesperson and three summer students.
And its owners are Saskatchewan’s outstanding young farmers for 1999.
Warren and Carla Kaeding, who farm near Churchbridge in east-central Saskatchewan, were honored at the Western Canada Farm Progress Show June 18.
“We were arguing over which of the other two were going to win,” Carla said moments after receiving a trophy, a trip to the national finals at Canadian Western Agribition this November and up to $5,000 for registration, materials, accommodation and travel costs for an agribusiness management development course, courtesy of the pro-vincial government.
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They suspect their enthusiasm, planning and customer service put them ahead in the competition.
The Kaedings have been in the seed business since the mid-1980s. They plant 2,800 acres themselves, and process and sell pedigreed seed from 3,000 acres produced by other growers in the area.
“Our focus now is retail seed sales and trying to offer our customers the best agronomic advice, and maybe give them some new potential they could be looking at in the future to get through some of our cycles and problems here,” said Warren.
His “words of wisdom” to customers are to try new things and find out what works for them.
That’s what the Kaedings are doing. They are growing more grass seed, examining the possibility of grain contracting and looking at nutraceutical production.
“We’ve been licensed now to be a processor and distributor of hemp seed,” Warren said.
“We’ve got lots of plans. Don’t have lots of money, but we’ve got lots of plans.”
While some people may have soured on diversification efforts, Warren said it boils down to research and market analysis.
“You can’t just grow a crop … hoping to sell it,” he said. “You’ve got to work hard at figuring out where it’s going to go, how it’s going to get there, how you’re going to make a profit out of it.
“You’ve got to make the right decision because you can’t afford to make a mistake any more.”
