'Friendly competition' between farmers expands as overall quality of crops improves

A friendly competition between farmers in the Maritimes has proven to be a winner. 

The Yield Enhancement Network, or YEN, competition is expanding to include soy beans this season, and has also added a new prize for the most efficient use of fertilizer. 

The initial goal was to help researchers and farmers work more closely together to improve yields — with the competition for bragging rights thrown in to spice things up.

Along the way, the entire grains industry has had a boost, as farmers learn from the best practices of the winners, and try them on their own farms. 

"The goal was to basically bring all of the yields up for our cereal crops. Cereals tend to be more of a rotation crop, with less focus compared to potatoes," said research scientist Aaron Mills from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

"What we wanted to do was shift the focus to those cereals, and try to improve yield and quality."

Mills said there are two main categories: highest yield, and the highest calculated percentage of potential yield.

"Our modellers model the amount of sunshine, and the amount of rain, and calculate what your biological potential would be on that field," Mills said.

"The percentage of potential is basically the farmer against himself, and how well did you do with the cards that you were dealt for that year."

The top three in each category are asked to share what they did on their farm to achieve their winning results.  There are P.E.I. winners in each category, as well as winners for the Maritimes. 

"Competition always tends to spice things up a little bit," Mills said.

"Honestly, I think the biggest thing about the competition is growers are sharing their information, and they're learning from each other, and we're capturing the on-farm innovation."

Since 2019, the competition has grown from 40 to more than 100 fields this season. 

Mills describes the competition as "a goldmine for data" for him as a scientist.