In late November, Vancouver plays host to the 2026 Canada's Outstanding Young Farmer National Event, which sees young farmers from across Canada get together to share their farm practices and ideas - and compete for the top spot.
Manitoba is being represented by Braden and Misty Drul of Oakburn, the 2026 Manitoba's Outstanding Young Farmer winners. Looking back at the 2026 farming year, Braden said it's been a tough year, but his farm has made it through.
"It's been one of those, another one of the years for the books. It's been a challenging year for sure, the moisture was welcome, just not maybe all at one time, but we battle through as we typically do, and live to fight another day," said Braden.
Misty still is a bit in shock that her and Braden ended up with Manitoba's top spot, but she's looking forward to representing her farm, and Manitoba, at the national competition.
"It's a little bit surreal, I mean we've done quite a few interviews at this point, and a lot of prep for nationals, and kind of getting everything together and organized, and it's a bit surreal that it's two weeks, two and a half weeks away," said Misty.
Now the Manitoba's Outstanding Young Farmer side is complete, Braden and Misty are working hard on perfecting their presentation for the national contest. Misty said the physical process is all taken care of now. Plus, Braden said they recently were able to host previous Manitoba's Outstanding Young Farmer winners, to help them with improving their presentations.
"There was an application process and some questions we had to go through that have all been submitted for judging, there was a bit of video preparation and questions we had to go through to prepare," said Misty.
"Having their feedback, and letting us do a dry with with our presentation kind of through them, and listen to any pointers or suggestions that they have, as they've all been down this road before, so they know kind of what we're getting into," said Braden.
The National Competition runs from November 25th to 29th.
