Payne County’s Tim and Sheila Taylor were named Oklahoma Farm Bureau YF&R Achievement Award winner Nov. 9 at the 66th annual convention in Oklahoma City.
The YF&R Achievement Award honors the state’s top young farmer or farm family for their achievements in the farming business and their leadership in the agricultural community. A panel of judges selected the Stillwater couple for the award.
They received an expense-paid trip to the 2008 American Farm Bureau convention in New Orleans, La., to represent Oklahoma in the national contest where they will compete for Dodge pickups and Arctic Cat four-wheelers. As the Oklahoma winner, the Taylors received a year’s use of a Dodge pickup and the use of a Kubota tractor along with other prizes.
Tim, 32, and Sheila, 34, have a two-year-old son, Ryan.
They own and rent some 1,130 acres, with the main focus of the operation being cattle and hay production. They also run custom hay, custom aeration and custom welding and fencing businesses.
Both Tim and Sheila come from farming backgrounds. His parents owned a dairy farm and her parents are wheat and cattle producers.
After Tim graduated high school, he enrolled in a welding school and graduated as a master welder. Sheila earned her bachelor of science degree in agricultural economics.
He started farming part time, and became a full time farmer in 2001. The couple sold a small 30-acre farm in 2001 to put a down payment on their current operation.
“As the owner and operator of the farming operation, I, along with my wife, are the sole managers of the farming operation. We are responsible for all production, marketing, financial and management decisions on a day-to-day basis on our farming operation,” said Tim.
The 160-acre tract they purchased had no improvements, except exterior fences. They have cleared cedar trees, constructed a large machine shed/shop, cross-fenced, repaired a pond dam and constructed a second pond, built cattle handling pens and a large hay barn.
Haying equipment has moved from entirely large round bales to a mix with square bales, allowing them to market hay to a wider variety of clients. A square bale accumulating system has reduced some of the labor-intenseness of the small bale handling process.
The couple hopes to purchase more land in the next five years for their operation.
They added, however, that “we also keep in mind that bigger is not always better nor is it always more profitable.”
The Taylors are heavily involved in Farm Bureau, serving on their county YF&R Committee as both members and leaders. Sheila has served on the county’s board of directors since 2006.
They are active in their church and the local volunteer fire department.
"We are in an ongoing process of trying to improve our overall profitability in the farming operation,” they said. “We believe that if we can obtain higher than average profitability, lower than average overhead, and lower than average debt load that we will be successful.”
