Roger and Amanda Scott of Madison County have been named the 2021 Virginia Farm Bureau Federation Young Farmers Achievement Award winners.
The Scotts were recognized Dec. 1 at the VFBF Annual Convention in Williamsburg.
The Young Farmers Achievement Award honors individuals who are successful in production agriculture and provide leadership on and off the farm. The Scotts have a multitude of enterprises that make up their farm business. They operate two commercial turkey houses, a poultry litter hauling and spreading business, a cow-calf operation and a custom hay business. Amanda Scott is a livestock veterinarian serving farmers in Madison and surrounding counties.
After a presentation on their farm to a panel of judges, the Scotts were commended for their collaborative communication style and strong bond in running the business.
“We talked about our operations and what we have changed to make it better,” Roger Scott said.
This was the couple’s second time to participate in the Achievement Award judging. Last year they participated in a virtual competition.
“This year it was great to be here in person and sit one-on-one with the judges,” Amanda Scott said. “We went through how we first began farming. We started with a pickup truck and 30 cows, and grew it to the two poultry houses and 10-fold with the cows.”
The Scotts will receive one year’s use of a Kubota tractor of their choice; a farm utility vehicle from Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co.; and cash awards of $1,000 from Farm Credit, $500 from VFBF and $500 from Chesterfield County Farm Bureau. They will compete for the American Farm Bureau Federation Young Farmers & Ranchers Achievement Award at the 2022 AFBF Virtual Convention in Atlanta in January.
Sarah Large of Buckingham County was this year’s VFBF Achievement Award runner-up. Large and her husband, Frankie, finish an average of 20,000 breeding gilts (young female pigs) annually for Smithfield Foods and own a cow-calf beef operation. She serves on the VFBF Women’s Leadership Committee and the Virginia Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom board of directors.
Other finalists were
Hayden Lyons of Tazewell County and
Austin and Nikita McNett of Augusta County.
With 132,000 members in 88 county Farm Bureaus, VFBF is Virginia’s largest farmers’ advocacy group. Farm Bureau is a non-governmental, nonpartisan, voluntary organization committed to supporting Virginia’s agriculture industry. View more convention news as it becomes available at
vafb.com/convention, and follow us on social media via #VFBFannualmtg21.
Contact
Pam Wiley, vice president of communications, at 804-291-6315.