Richard and Kristy-Layne Carr named as Manitoba's Outstanding Young Farmers for 2022

Jun 21, 2022

Dairy farmers Richard and Kristy-Layne Carr have been named as Manitoba's Outstanding Young Farmers for 2022.

The pair own and operate Rich Lane Farms at Marchand in Southeast Manitoba.

The other nominees this year were Tyson Martens of Kola and Harley Siemens of Rosenort.

Richard and Kristy-Layne will now move onto the national competition in Saskatoon in November.

Profile courtesy COYF :

Richard and Kristy-Layne Carr own and operate Rich Lane Farms in Marchand, MB. There they are raising a family of four children, Slade (14), Elora (11), and twins Nate & Isabel (8). They milk 55 Holstein cows in a double 8 parlour. The milk cows are housed in a straw pack barn, and the youngstock are raised outdoors. In addition, they run 60 Black Angus beef cows, calving in April-May and weaning in November. The majority of the feed for both herds is homegrown with additional supplements purchased off-farm. Crops grown include silage corn, alfalfa, millet, forage oats and ryegrass. The Carrs operate minimal equipment and utilize custom operators for most fieldwork and harvest.

Rich Lane Farms began in 2006 with Kristy-Layne’s small 4H beef herd being brought from Portage la Prairie to La Broquerie. They operated as a hobby farm while both worked full-time off farm (Richard as a herd manager at a dairy and Kristy-Layne as manager of the local Conservation District). Gradually they built up the herd to 250 head and farmed over 1000 acres between owned and rented fields. In 2018, Richard and Kristy-Layne were selected for the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba New EntrantProgram which helped them get started in the dairy industry.

With a busy family, their off-farm time is spent at their children’s extra-curricular activities, including hockey, 4H, art, and church clubs. Kristy-Layne is a member of Manitoba Beef and Forage Initiatives research advisory committee and also sits on the advisory committee for the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba board. Both Richard and Kristy-Layne are active on social media and in 2021 they started a YouTube channel, The Big Small Farmer. They are passionate about promoting agriculture by telling their farm story. It has led them to new opportunities such as becoming a dealer for Horizon Seeds Canada this year.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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