Gary and Ginette Ostafie, who farm in Mikado, were the winners of a special award for farmers involved in their communities.
The 2016 Yorkton Auction Centre Farmer Recognition Award was presented during the Grain, Forage & Seed Show Awards Reception at the Grain Millers Harvest Showdown in Yorkton, where it was awarded to the Ostafie family for G&G Ostafie Farms.
“It’s just a great honour to receive this award,” said Gary during the reception. The couple stated in an interview with Yorkton This Week that they were still in shock to be chosen for the award over many other great farmers.
The couple was nominated by various members of the community for the award, which was judged based on management practices on the farm, community involvement and volunteer activities, support of the Yorkton Exhibition Association and leadership in the community. The Yorkton Chamber of Commerce made the final decision on the recipient.
Excited by the reward, Ginette mentioned in an interview with theCanora Courier last week that she “was definitely rambling” and wasn’t sure what to say about the honour.
According to a release from the company, G&G Ostafie Farms began in Mikado in 1899, when a segment of land was purchased by Gary’s grandparents. They farmed it for 10 years before the family farm was taken over by Gary’s parents, Peter and Anne Ostafie. In 1981, Gary began farming after graduating high school, and after Ginette entered the family after her marriage to Gary in 1993, she began farming with him.
In 1999, Gary and Ginette took over the farm and formed G&G Ostafie Farms in 2005. The farm has now expanded to 10,650 acres to grow wheat, barley, oats, canary, peas, flax, and primarily canola. Gary and Ginette run the third generation farm while two of their children are showing interest in continuing the farm into the fourth generation.
The couple has four children: Brianna, a 22-year-old employed at KARE Ag Services in Radisson; Michelle, a 19-year-old studying agriculture at the University of Saskatchewan; Kaylee, a 17-year-old at Sacred Heart High School in Yorkton and Brayden, a Grade 8 student at Canora Composite School. With their son still taking school in Canora, Gary and Ginette try to be involved in the community as much as possible. They have both been members of the Canora Agriculture Society Inc. since 2002, and Ginette has served as a treasurer since 2012. Garry was a member of the Canora District Seed Cleaning Plant Board from 1996 to 2002 and served as a chairperson from 2000 to 2002. He has since rejoined the board in 2015.
Ginette is employed as a substitute teacher for the Good Spirit School Division and she said she has always taken a great interest in the education and well-being of the youth in the community, said the release. She served as the Canora Nursery School president from the years 2000 to 2003. She was the chairperson of the Canora Composite School Community Council from 2006 to 2014 and still serves as a council member. She is also the facility coordinator of the Veselka School of Dance.
Though very involved in Canora, farming is the main passion of the Ostafie family. Gary manages daily farm operations such as ordering farm inputs, operating equipment, organizing 10 employees from seeding to harvesting and marketing grain. He took a one-week business foundations course at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario to further his understanding of farming, and attends many events and conferences such as the CIGI-Viterra World Grain Markets conference in Winnipeg. He also travelled to San Francisco to visit the research plant which produces serenade fungicide.
Ginette, meanwhile, handles the financial aspect of the farm and manages the farm books, manages payroll, prepares meals, runs errands, and transports staff, said the release.
G & G Ostafie Farms utilizes professional aerial application services to spray fungicides on their crop, and the farmers have participated in many trials such as side by side trials, variety trials, fertility trials and ground verses air fungicide trials using different water volumes. They invest in marketing and agronomy consultants and programs in order to strive to produce the highest quality and quantity of yields and capitalize on reaching the top commodity prices for their grain.
Gary and Ginette attribute some of their success to the use of technology. They use soil testing and satellite imagery to determine how to fertilize the land, and also utilize weather stations to record temperatures and moisture levels.
Gary and Ginette are very proud of the farm’s success, and Gary said in an interview with Yorkton This Week that he hopes the family farm will continue on “alive and well.”
