COALDALE, Alta. – Sylvia Donkersgoed’s passions are her family, agriculture and the power of women to take responsibility for their lives and livelihood.
She holds strong beliefs, including the principle of “standing on your own, not standing alone.”
She was the first female chair within the Canadian chicken industry and credits her six years with the Alberta Chicken Producers board as a valuable time to learn, meet new people and cultivate her interest in planning for the big picture.
Her time with the chicken board taught her the chicken business is like a pebble thrown in a pond sending ripples out across the water, she said.
Read Also
Canada’s rural crime problem far from fixed
Farmers on the Prairies are worried about crime rates and safety, but an effective approach to meaningfully reduce rural crime remains out of reach so far.
“I like looking at the broader business picture. It’s not just my farm in southern Alberta, it is much bigger than that,” she said from her broiler operation south of Coaldale.
The daughter of Dutch immigrants, Donkersgoed has lived on the farm all her life. She recalled how as a nine-year-old, she and her younger sister helped catch chickens on market day.
She is divorced but has a new partner, Steve Foote, who works in the feed business. Today, with hired help she manages a 50,000 bird operation. Her brother farms a separate operation nearby.
She started as a producer representative on an advisory committee to bring local concerns to the chicken producers board, such as land use and environmental practices to research priorities.
“We’re all producers, but it was a neat way to spread out the group of people you could use for updates on what is going on in the field,” she said.
After taking a leadership development workshop offered by the 270-member organization, she decided to run for the board in 2002 and finished a three year stint as chair in February.
Donkersgoed worked on the quality committee, intensive livestock working group, western provinces policy advisory group and Alberta Farm Animal Care.
She came at a time when women were encouraged to enter the boardroom with a new perspective.
“It was good that I had other women who had been in the feather industry who were mentors to me. They were pretty female friendly. I never felt out of place as a woman and they were quite receptive to having women serving in leadership positions,” she said.
Board members may sit for two terms of three years each, then they must step down. Since her job finished, she is deciding which path to follow: new volunteer jobs or expanding the farm.
It lends time to think about the future. As a single mother with three children, she wonders about the future of agriculture and whether it holds a place for her two daughters, Jessica and Charlyn, and son, James.
With one daughter in university and the two younger ones close to finishing high school, she is proud of their independence developed while she served the larger industry.
“My kids have grown independent to some degree but there were times when it was a challenge to juggle family. That is one of the greatest challenges for women to juggle career and family. It’s hard.”
Donkersgoed said she doesn’t regret time spent working with a commodity group. Demands are high yet involvement is critical when industry decisions are made.
Government has downloaded more decisions on industry, which has good and bad points, she said. Producer groups are dealing with everything from environmental pressures to intensive livestock regulation changes and land use policy.
Those same pressures also make it difficult to draw the younger generation back to the farm. Many reject working so hard for low returns while carrying high debt and perhaps working off the farm, said Donkersgoed.
Still, she has witnessed tremendous success in the chicken industry. It has become the most popular meat in Canada, supported by a strong regulatory program to ensure food safety.
As a working mother she also appreciated the marketing efforts to make chicken the meat of choice because of its convenience and nutrition.
The chicken industry holds regular brainstorming sessions about future consumer trends to keep the product on top five years from now.
Her chickens are sold to a local processor, Sunrise Poultry, from which products are distributed across the country. She grows a lighter bird so some may end up at KFC outlets.
The farm also produces some crops and timothy hay on two quarters of irrigated land. There is also room to expand the flock.
Donkersgoed’s production cycle is eight weeks from the time the birds arrive until they leave and the barns are disinfected from top to bottom.
A major change since she took over is biosecurity. The farm is posted, visitors are screened and no one enters the barns without good reason and proper precautions. At one time she and her family hosted tours to show how chickens are raised, but that has ended as farmers try to protect their operations from outside diseases.
“It’s unfortunate because I think that kind of education is important. You miss something when you don’t have that kind of connection.”
She never wants to lose that connection to agriculture where feeding the world is seen as a responsibility and a privilege.
“I wouldn’t give up living on a farm and I want to see my kids have that same chance.”
