Cuthberts top OYF

Ladysmith farmers Thomas and Catherine Cuthbert of South Coast Agro are this year’s BC & Yukon Outstanding Young Farmer champs.

Serving the niche for pasture-raised broilers and beef on Vancouver Island is just one aspect of the couple’s diversified livestock operation. They were one of two finalists at the provincial competition in Abbotsford, February 18-19.

Thomas also works full-time at his parents’ dairy just a kilometre away while Catherine manages day-to-day care of 18 cross-bred beef cows, nearly 40,000 free-run broilers and four young children.

“Coming from a grass-fed beef farm, I always wanted to have some of my own cows,” Catherine says.

The couple met through 4-H, where Catherine pursued poultry projects and Thomas showed Holsteins. Running five cow-calf pairs for beef seemed ambitious enough until the couple recognized the growing demand for grass-fed beef. They quickly made plans to expand their small herd of Angus, Speckle Park, Shorthorn and Holstein crosses.

“As the cow-calf herd grows, we will be moving to 100% grass-fed beef,” Catherine says.

Similar demand exists for their five to ten-pound chickens, processed at Island Farmhouse Poultry in Cowichan Bay and self-marketed since 2018. The birds average a feed-conversion rate of 1.39 kilos of feed per kilo of live weight – 10% more efficient than the industry average, helping keep the farm competitive.

The victory in BC means the Cuthberts will represent BC at the national Outstanding Young Farmers competition in Toronto, November 27-30, following in the footsteps of Thomas’s parents who were named BC & Yukon Outstanding Young Farmers back in 1996.

“The Outstanding Young Farmers [competition] is 44 years old, and we [BC & Yukon] have taken the national championships 11 times,” says Steve Saccomano, vice-chair with BC and Yukon Outstanding Young Farmers. “Considering there’s seven regions, that’s pretty great.”

Judges Melanie Lantz, Annamarie Klippenstein and Meeru Dhalwala had a hard time choosing this year’s winner, with Albert Gorter and Chelsea Enns of Little Qualicum Cheeseworks also finalists.