More Young Farmer finalists named

[{“type”:”text”,”content”:”August will see Agri Northern Cape, Limpopo, and Gauteng announcing their winners. Agri Eastern Cape took the lead with their announcement early in the month.”,”position”:0,”id”:”7Pdkn3PhgxzYL1j7″},{“type”:”image”,”content”:”https://agrisaonline.com/images/images/780″,”position”:1,”id”:”PvKBCMHCQKuCqGT2″},{“type”:”text”,”content”:”*Mornu00e9 Fitzhenry was named Agri Eastern Capeu2019s Young Farmer of the Year*nnMornu00e9 Fitzhenry was named the winner for the province. Along with his wife, Anke, and their son, he farms with Merino sheep on the farm Hartbeeshoek in the Aberdeen district. nnThe three Eastern Cape finalists for the 2022 edition of the Toyota Young Farmer Competition attended the Annual Agri Eastern Cape Congress held at Mentors Country Estate in Jeffreyu2019s Bay and were praised as dynamic young farmers who are paving the way for future young farmers in our Province and Country.nnAgri Eastern Cape president, Peter Cloete, remarked at the level of competition this year, and how difficult it was to select a winner for the Eastern Cape as all three young farmers are running impressive operations in their respective areas. Ricky Pillay from Toyota South Africa announced the winner for the Eastern Cape who will represent the province in the national competition.nnAfter receiving his award, Fitzhenry gave an emotional acceptance speech that touched the hearts of all those present at the dinner.nnFitzhenry lost his father at a young age and had to pick up the reigns and run the farming operation without a mentor and teacher present to lay the foundation. After completing his studies, he relied heavily on his community in the Aberdeen Agricultural Association to give him guidance on how to effectively run his farming operation. This was a powerful point to make and shows the essence of what it is to be a farmer and member of Agri Eastern Cape.nnu201cMost of what I know about farming I learned from the community,u201d Fitzhenry said. u201cIt was the farmers in the area who helped me.u201dnnHe has also been faced with other challenges in developing his agricultural operation in the Aberdeen district, which is an area that has been hard hit by drought in previous years. However, he was not only able to survive the drought but managed to grow his operation by building smaller lambing camps and intensifying his lambing process to give himself a competitive edge in the market.”,”position”:2,”id”:”5qYw5tuxn6yrp4Qr”}]