Cyle and Erika Stewart will represent the province at the national Outstanding Young Farmers event Nov. 27 to Dec. 1
REGINA — Beef producers Cyle and Erika Stewart are Saskatchewan’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2024.
The couple from Morse, Sask., will represent the province at the national competition slated for Lethbridge in late November.
“We thought you had it in the bag,” Cyle said to the other nominees, Jeff and Riley Ewen of Riverhurst, after the winners were announced.
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The four young girls of both nominated couples spent the event playing together, a sight that drew comments about the OYF family and the future of Saskatchewan agriculture.
The Stewarts have a cow-calf and yearling operation on a ranch that is 90 per cent native grass.
Steers are sold in the fall to a feedlot a couple of hours away.
“Heifers, we generally background through the winter, pick a few replacements in the spring and then grass the rest until August,” said Cyle.
“We found that we were gaining value on them compared to selling in the fall. There was quite a spread on steer calves and heifer calves.”
Pine Ranch is Verified Beef Production Plus and Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef certified. Erika is the VBP+ provincial co-ordinator.
Both Stewarts said they focus on continuous education to improve their management skills and maintain biodiversity on their ranch.
They are implementing adaptive multi-paddock grazing to retain grass and improve soil health.
After seven years of drought, this year’s rain has helped immensely but they are preparing now for the next drought by experimenting with poly crops. They are part of a Living Labs project to see how well the poly crops work and whether they are sequestering more carbon.
Another Living Labs project is a multi-taxa project involving Birds Canada and other partners. Erika said Birds Canada found 47 bird species and four species at risk living among their cow herd.
“Just knowing that our management can impact those grasslands and all those other animals too is really important to us,” she said.
Cyle said they take a lot of pride in managing their native grass and have signed conservation easements.
“It’s a huge responsibility to manage that ecosystem that’s been around for thousands of years,” he said.
“With rotational grazing we’re trying to mimic what the bison did and hoping to sequester as much carbon as possible.”
They also said they are privileged to be able to take daughters Hazel, five, and Rhesa, three, to work with them as much as possible and instil their passion for agriculture, and acknowledged Erika’s parents who live nearby and provide much help.
The Ewens operate E3 Ag Ventures with Jeff’s father and two brothers. Jeff and one brother also operate Alloy Ag, a custom farming business that specializes in dry edible bean production. They supply certified dry bean seed.
About 30 per cent of their 13,000 acres is under irrigation. They grow durum wheat, canola, flax and dry beans under about 29 pivots.
They have two daughters, Harper and Ava.
Both families have long lists of other things they are involved in, such as rural municipal council and Irrigation Saskatchewan.
