A Naicam couple will represent Saskatchewan at the national Outstanding
Young Farmer competition this fall in Toronto.
Peter and Shirley Voldeng, who operate Fairway Farms Ltd., were named
the provincial winners June 21 at the Western Canada Farm Progress Show.
Fairway Farms is a 1,000-head farrow-to-finish hog operation, soon to
expand to 1,600 sows.
Both Voldengs are engineers who returned to the farm in 1993. They
built their farm over the next few years as Peter’s father began to
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exit the business.
“I came back to be part of my dad’s operation,” Peter said. “When
you’re dealing with family, you’re dealing with different goals.
“My two brothers run his original operation and original land base and
I run the Fairway Farms expansion.”
The Voldengs employ eight full-time staff, two part-time staff and two
summer students, as well as a barn manager and office manager. They
market about 20,000 animals a year.
But Peter said they focus on running a business, not raising pigs. That
involves marketing hogs, purchasing supplies and lobbying government.
The Voldengs have changed marketing techniques since the hog market
crash in 1998. They use an advanced hedging program to pre-sell hogs
and pre-purchase feed grain.
They also changed production techniques, eliminating the traditional
weekly weaning schedule in favour of a three-day cycle.
Peter couldn’t say why he and Shirley won the competition.
He said he would have been honoured to have runners-up Gordon and Darcy
McLeod of Kincaid represent Saskatchewan at the national competition in
November.
He noted that there is a lot of negativity surrounding agriculture and
the industry’s problems.
“You get together with a group like this and they’re not problems,
they’re challenges,” he said.
Shirley said her role on the farm varies. She consults on production
issues and has worked as an employee and a manager.
Right now, she is concentrating on raising the couple’s three children:
Addison, 7; Scott, 6; and Sarah, 3.
To be eligible for the Outstanding Young Farmers program, the nominees
must be farm operators between the ages of 18 and 39 who derive at
least two-thirds of their income from the farm.
Two greenhouse growers and a dairy producer are the 2002 finalists for
the British Columbia Outstanding Young Farmer.
The finalists are Glen and Laurie Bowman of Bowman Greenhouses in
Winfield, Ken and Kara MacNair of Enderby and Marc and Diane Shane of
Milner Greenhouses in Langle,. BC
Agriculture minister John van Dongen will present the award at the
Abbotsford Agrifair, Aug. 3.
Finalists from each western province will compete with other provincial
winners for the national title to be awarded in November.
