SAN ANTONIO (DTN) -- The 15th class of America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers was announced Thursday, Nov. 14, by DTN/Progressive Farmer.
The annual award recognizes five farmers and ranchers who best represent the pioneering promises of American agriculture -- farmers and ranchers who are innovative and imaginative and who work to improve their communities.
"We look for farmers and ranchers who are meeting the promise and challenges of 21st-century agriculture," said Gregg Hillyer, editor-in-chief of Progressive Farmer. "As much as any class before them, we believe this class will take agriculture to new levels of professionalism as they work to feed a hungry and growing world."
This year's honorees include:
-- Andrew Eddie of Moses Lake, Washington
Andrew, 31, is a forage grower and operations manager, working rocky soils in the Columbia Basin with his father, Brian. Their RNH Farms is 1,200 acres and a sizable custom farming business focused on putting up alfalfa and bluegrass straw.
RNH Farms produces alfalfa, Timothy and orchard grass.
Andrew looks for value in real time. Telemetry from his Hesston big, square balers tells him that the last bale had 50 flakes in it. But it should have been 40. That 3-by-4-by-8-foot bale weighed 1,100 pounds. It should have been 1,300. "If you pay attention to those numbers, you can make minor changes," he said. "The harvest will run more efficiently, and, in the end, the farm nets a better-quality product."
"That data gives me a way to be hands-on all day long," Andrew said. "How efficient we are? What are the crops telling me? We go through each of these steps, and our buyers are going to want to buy our product year in and year out because they know what they are getting. We've built this business on quality, with pride in consistency," Andrew said. "Consistency is good marketing."
Think of it as stress testing the business. "You learn more when you take yourself out of your comfort zone. Make yourself think different," he said. "Look at different areas of your operation. Try something new. Experiment a little. Diversify enough without taking too much risk. Try to run the business better today. Use the data. It's all a huge benefit to your operation."
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-- Emily Mullen of Okeana, Ohio
Emily tells a family story in which her father and dairy farmer, Tim, prayed so fervently for Holstein heifers that God blessed him additionally with four daughters, none of whom he thought would ever want to run the farm.
But there was Emily, the third daughter -- Mandy and Amber, older and Elizabeth, the youngest. "As a young girl, I absolutely loved being involved in agriculture," said Emily, now 26. "By the time I was in high school, I was set on having a career in the industry."
Emily's dad was not so set on her career choice. He had been dairying since he was 14, from the time his father, Harry, died. He had a hard-knock view of the family business that did not envision a daughter.
With some family resistance, Emily decided upon graduation from high school to attend The Ohio State University-Agricultural Technical Institute where she earned an associate degree in dairy science.
She soon discovered the milk co-op check was not going to pay the bills. She found some answers in the creamery she opened, selling milk in 30 flavors to a growing, mostly urban and suburban, consumer clientele.
"I am worth a retail price," she said of sales made through the creamery. "More, it was going to be necessary for me to get that price, to build a facility that my livestock deserves, but also to be a better producer," she said. "We deserve a price and that it is worth the work we put into this," she said. "Average is over."
Emily first joined the retail world, making with her mom, Amy, milk-based soaps and creams. By 2021, The Mullen Dairy and Creamery began pasteurizing and selling milk. The creamery consumes about 4,000 pounds of milk per week, and Emily expects to double that soon.
The now fourth-generation Mullen family dairy farm was founded in 1898. Emily's home is in Okeana, southwest Ohio, near the Indiana and Ohio line.
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-- Ben and Lauren Neale of Columbia, Tennessee
It was a refrigerated lawnmower trailer parked near a bridge over a creek by their home that changed Ben and Lauren Neale's lives forever.
COVID had come to Tennessee, as it had the rest of the nation, and Lauren soon saw signs of stress among the other mothers she followed on Facebook. Grocery store meat cases had grown sparce, and they voiced concern about feeding families on the 2 pounds of ground beef they were allowed to purchase at any one time.
Lauren went to Ben with an idea.
The Neales already managed a growing cow-calf herd. They owned Light Hill Meats, a processing plant. What about opening a pop-up to sell meat, Lauren wondered. No limits on sales.
They did and people came. "We had lines," Lauren said. "We had lines when it was pouring rain. Lines when it was snowing and when it was blazing hot. They were there every Saturday for about a year."
The Neales soon counted 1,000 steady customers, and Ben began to consider opening a butcher shop.
The Light Hill Meats butcher shop opened its doors in late 2022 in Spring Hill. Last Christmas, the butcher shop filled orders for 242 standing rib roasts and dozens of other cuts of beef, poultry, pork and seafood, the latter flown in fresh from the North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico -- lobster, shrimp, King Salmon, among much more.
Their market opportunity is appealing. Eighty to 120 people move in per day along the I-65 corridor that runs near their farm and store, south of Nashville. "Seventy percent of our customer base are not born Tennesseans. We're trying to establish buying habits they have not yet developed," Ben said. "We want to connect the (customer) back to the people who are growing it."
To educate locals about meat production, Ben opens the farm to visitors. "I tell them they can come out; see everything we have. I sometimes joke with a customer. If you liked that steak, I thought about you three years ago."
They are parents of four children: Corban, 9; Abigail, 6; Elizabeth, 5; and Sarah, 2.
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-- Tanner Hento of Avon, South Dakota
Tanner was determined to get away from agriculture. He wanted to become a doctor.
"Agriculture was always embedded in my life, regardless of the times I wish it had not. Becoming a physician was my absolute priority," Hento said.
But life changed quickly as he entered his master's program. His mother died, and within a few months, his father also died.
Tanner and his brother, Scott Hento, a power lineman at the time, gave up their respective careers to return to the farm.
The year 2014 was a successful year for the brothers. "Every year after that, we started making good impressions with bankers and the community and I started talking to different landlords."
Over the past 10 years, Tanner and Scott have grown the operation. Together, they farm 2,200 acres of soybeans, corn and alfalfa.
"I look at every field now like I can make something of it. I know I can do this, versus the 22-year-old that was running around pretty much terrified."
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-- Sisters Mollie Ficocello, Annie Gorder and Grace Lunski of Grand Forks, North Dakota
"Our parents inspire us," said Mollie (Sproule) Ficocello. "They have taught us that mentality, that 'failure isn't fatal.' Don't be scared to go out and try something new," she said. "If it doesn't work out, it is not the end of the world."
Sisters Mollie, Annie Gorder and Grace Lunski married, earned degrees in marketing, finance, business and law, and became mothers. They seized on that inspiring advice from their parents, Paul and Susie Sproule.
The sisters formed a pasta company they named 3 Farm Daughters. Headquartered at their parents' 15,000-acre, first-generation farm at Grand Forks, North Dakota, they entered the consumer food world, a place where failure is not all that rare.
"Prior to 3 Farm Daughters, we were a traditional farm," Mollie said. "We grew crops. We dropped them off at the elevator, fulfilled our contracts. And we wiped our hands clean of the supply chain. We never took it to a retail or direct-to-consumer model. When we started 3 Farm Daughters, we had to figure out what that next step looked like. And the next four steps after that. This is a grain growing on our farm. These are the attributes of our farm. How do you bring that to a consumer?"
In four years, Mollie, Annie and Grace have taken big steps forward. Today, Cavatappi (a family favorite), elbow, penne and rotini pastas, and a new high-fiber spaghetti are sold in 1,400 retail outlets.
Dan Miller can be reached at dan.miller@dtn.com
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Susan Payne contributed to this report.
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