The annual event to honour Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers won’t go ahead this year.
Organizers have decided to cancel the national event that was to be held in Saskatoon.
National OYF program manager Carla Kaeding said the organization will go ahead with a virtual conference for alumni and sponsors later this year instead. That will include the organization’s annual general meeting.
Regions that already selected their nominees for 2020, which include Alberta, Manitoba, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia, will carry those names forward to 2021, she said.
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“If they’ve exceeded the age limit of 40 … we’re just going to give them a pass this year because of the situation,” she said.
Saskatchewan typically names its nominees during Canada’s Farm Progress Show in June, but that event was cancelled.
Saskatchewan co-ordinator Elaine Pruim said the organizing committee for this year’s national event asked to be released from the commitment because of COVID-19 and offered to host in 2022.
The 2021 host was to be Quebec.
That puts the ball back in the Saskatchewan court.
Pruim said the committee hasn’t yet made a decision. She said Saskatchewan has two nominees for this year that will compete next year instead.
“We won’t put out a call in 2021,” Pruim said.
This year has been hard on volunteers and organizers of many events. Pruim, a dairy farmer from Osler, said the Western Canadian Classic 4-H dairy show scheduled for Brandon this summer was delayed by a year, which means she and others will be organizing that in Saskatchewan in 2022.
