Egg farmer is this year’s Outstanding Young Farmer

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This article was published 23/04/2023 (756 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The youngest member of the Egg Farmers of Manitoba board of directors has become the first egg producer to be named Manitoba’s Outstanding Young Farmers, and is hoping to become the first Manitoba farmer to win the national award in November.

Fourth generation egg farmers, Harley and Brooklyn Siemens from Rosenort were named Manitoba’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2023 at a regional recognition event at Elk Ridge Resort in March.

Siemens Farms are home to 95,000 layers and 15,000 pullets. After graduating from the University of Manitoba with an Agriculture Diploma, Harley came back to the family farm at Rosenort to help run the operation, which started the farm’s succession plan.

That plan included a total revamp of the operation over a period of two years. Between 2017 and 2019 the barn was replaced with three state-of-the-art, free run aviary barns that housed 25,000 layers and 15,000 pullets.

The last week in March of 2019, the Siemens family hosted dozens of area farmers, Manitoba’s agriculture minister, local MLA’s and the chair of Farm Products of Canada Council at an Open House to tour the brand new three-barn facility at Siemens Farms.

A few short years earlier, Harley’s father, Kurt Siemens, said Manitoba’s egg producers will supply what the customer wants. If cage-free eggs is their choice, Manitoba egg farmers would supply that choice.

Harley is continuing on the path started by the third generation at Siemens farms. In 2020, Siemens bought into Manova, which had poultry farms in Blumenort and Niverville, and Harley was named president of the corporation, which included two partners from Quebec.

The farms housed 70,000 layers in conventional housing and enriched housing at the time.

Within three months of ownership, Harley renovated the Blumenort barn into enriched housing and replaced the Niverville barn with a 22,500 layer, free-run aviary barn similar to the one at Rosenort.

Because the barn at Niverville is an aviary barn, Siemens needed to get pullets from another aviary barn, but he did not have far to go to solve that problem.

They added another tier to the aviary barn at the Rosenort facility, expanding production there without having to add to the barn which opened to a great deal of fanfare in 2019.

The barn at Blumenort is the only one the Harley has left that is enriched housing and is just getting back into production after a six-month break due to an outbreak of avian flu. The barn was depopulated in September and after months of being idle, the equipment needed some minor adjustments to get it running efficiently again.

Harley says they have barn managers at all of their sites, but wouldn’t say if the aviary set up is more or less work than enriched systems, but does require more management.

Modern technology has greatly reduced the amount of labour required to manage a large flock of laying hens.

A state-of-the art computer system monitors barn activity and indicates which fans are running, what the light level is in the barn and warns of any problems with the birds that need attention.

Three years ago, Harley became the fourth generation of Siemens egg producers. Before that, for years he had put an application for his own quota in the annual producers’ lottery. In the fall of 2018, the decision was made to include him in the ownership of Siemens Farms.

At the time, Kurt Siemens said the switch to aviary housing would not have been made without Harley. His enthusiasm for the career he has chosen goes far beyond the farm gate for Siemens.

Harley thrives on getting involved in agriculture outside the farm. After university he worked in developing exhibits with commodity groups at the Farm and Food Discovery Center at Glenlea.

Harley says at that time he was a full time egg farmer and a part-time exhibits co-ordinator until that project was completed in 2019.

Since, 2019 he has hosted over 250 tours to schools, university classes, politicians, local sports icons, industry leaders and friends/family.

Educating the public about what they do and how they provide Manitobans with local, fresh, high quality eggs is the main motivator for the Siemens family.

Harley also travels across Canada to speak to groups and conferences on behalf of Egg Farmers of Canada, promoting the industry and telling his story of what being an egg farmer means.

He says he is looking forward to travelling to Laval, Quebec for the Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers national event, Nov. 22-26

Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers’ program is an annual competition to recognize farmers that exemplify excellence in their profession and promote the tremendous contribution of agriculture. Open to participants 18 to 39 years of age, making the majority of income from on-farm sources, participants are selected from seven regions across Canada, with two national winners chosen each year.