He will travel to B.C. for the national competition in November
By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com
A strawberry and blueberry producer from Norfolk County is the recipient of Ontario’s Outstanding Young Farmer (OOYF) award for 2017.
Dusty Zamecnik, the 27-year-old production manager of EZ Grow Farms and Hometown Brew Co. in Langton, received the award during the provincial competition at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show.
Zamecnik competed against three other nominees. And upon hearing his name, Zamecnik began thinking about all of the behind the scenes work that goes into receiving such an honour.
“(I thought about) the little things that maybe don’t get noticed,” he told Farms.com. “The early morning wakeups and the grunt work. That’s what was in the spotlight. I tried to thank everyone that’s part of the team and there’s about 130 of us.”
Agriculture has been in Zamecnik’s family for multiple generations.
His great-grandfather emigrated from Belgium and purchased a tobacco farm in 1935. In 1975, Dusty’s grandfather sold the tobacco farm and purchased the 230-acre parcel now known as EZ Grow Farms.
Dusty’s father Darryl purchased shares of EZ Grow. And Dusty purchased his own shares of the farm in May.
Dusty’s route back to the farm saw him accumulate a few miles on the road and in the air, including attending university in a different province.
“I thought I was going to take my family’s path of going to the University of Guelph and getting my agribusiness (degree),” he said. “I went to St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.”
Zamecnik earned his Bachelor of Business Administration in 2013, before traveling to Florida to work at a vegetable operation.
He then worked for one year as a sales and merchandise representative for Labatt Breweries in London, Ont. but he felt he was lacking something.
“I was missing the farm,” Zamecnik said. “On the weekends I was taking friends and coworkers I was meeting to the farm. And on my vacation time I was researching strawberry varieties and driving down to Florida to visit my dad’s customers.”
Now back on the farm full time, Zamecnik’s plans include opening a greenhouse on his own 75-acre farm.
The 40,000-square-foot greenhouse, scheduled to open at the end of the month, will be used to grow European strawberry varieties.
And what sets the greenhouse apart from others is its ability to retract its roof and walls.
“We have all the benefits of an outdoor-grown plant, indoors,” Zamecnik told Farms.com today. “The roof and the walls can be completely wrapped up and we can start our (growing) season earlier and extend the plant later into the season. And, when it gets cold, we can zip up the greenhouse and add supplemental heat.”
Zamecnik is also a member of the Norfolk County Ag Advisory Board, National Blueberry Working Group and is the treasurer of the Ontario Highbush Blueberry Growers Association.
It’s all of this work that led Murray Porteous, winner of the 1998 OOYF award and 2016 Arysta Golden Apple Award, to nominate Zamecnik for the 2017 OOYF award.
And it’s these types of awards that promote Ontario’s sustained agricultural strength, Zamecnik said.
“You hear people say agriculture is doomed and that nobody is coming back to the family farm,” he said. “It’s great to platform all of what is going on within Ontario agriculture and that so many things are happening in the industry.”
Zamecnik will travel to Penticton, B.C. from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3 to take part in the Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers competition.
The other regional participants are:
Top photo: Dusty Zamecnik/Twitter