North Carolina Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers & Ranchers program offers training and fellowship to farmers ages 18 to 35 as a guide for those who will be the leaders of North Carolina agriculture as it progresses into the future.

The agricultural and service-based accomplishments of YF&R participants are recognized, in part, through the Young Farmers & Ranchers Achievement Award. The winner of the 2012 Achievement Award will be named during North Carolina Farm Bureau’s 76th Annual Meeting and Convention scheduled for Dec. 4-6 in Greensboro. The Achievement Award winner will have the opportunity to represent the state in the national competition, which will be held during American Farm Bureau’s annual meeting, Jan. 8-11, 2012 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The three finalists for this year’s YF&R Achievement Award have been named:

Jamie and Amy Ager, both 33, of Buncombe County, are award finalists for the second year in a row.

The fourth-generation farmers own Hickory Nut Gap Meats, where they pasture-raise pigs and poultry and beef cattle. They also grow apples, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, asparagus and pumpkins. In the fall, they operate a corn maze, pumpkin patch, apple stand and have a farm store.

In addition to increasing acreage in the 11 years they’ve been farming, the Agers have created a brand that includes their own products and other farmers’ grass-fed beef and pastured pork. Today, they have business relationships with a 21-store regional grocery chain, 40 independent restaurants and 12 other farms in the region.

The Agers hosted 40,000 people at their farm in 2009, and say the primary benefits of their corn maze and pumpkin patch are happy families and agricultural education.

Going forward, the couple intends to continue marketing toward grocery customers and building relationships with high quality grass-fed cattle producers. They want to extend their agritourism efforts into the summer and intend to have an inspected kitchen for making specialty sausages and European-style meats.

“We are passionate about our family, our farm and understanding our niche in a global agricultural landscape,” they say.

Jamie is Vice President of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and serves as an appointee to the statewide Sustainable Food Policy Council. The couple has three young sons.

Jamie Boyd, 35, of Beaufort County, is also a fourth-generation farmer who grows tobacco, cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat on 600 acres. In addition, he operates a custom spray and custom harvest business for some smaller farmers in the area who do not have their own equipment.

Boyd began earning his interest in his farm partnership in his early teens, and today, he is in a partnership made up of three families.

Boyd has emphasized improving technology over the last several years. In just the last two years, he has led the farm in implementing auto-steer technology to increase productivity and efficiency, satellite mapping, grid sampling and swathe control throughout. Boyd also takes marketing classes every year and specializes in all spraying operations and small grain and cotton harvests.

Boyd’s operation has persevered through numerous threats to the farmland. From 2001 until 2007, Boyd fought against the U.S. Navy’s efforts to build a jet-training field that would have claimed 3,000 acres of his partnership’s farmland.

Future plans include replacing corn and soybean acreage with cotton, and increasing tobacco acreage to accommodate opportunities for larger contracts, with plans to expand the tobacco operation by six barns. He says expanding technology to reduce costs and increase profits is also a goal.

Of being a father and a farmer, Boyd says, “I am sure they are the best jobs any one man could have.”

Boyd participated in the 2009 Agricultural Leadership Institute and is married to Jeanea, a full-time licensed physical therapist assistant. They have a son and a daughter.

Jason Davis, 34, of Henderson County, began farming full-time in 1999 and grows tomatoes, tobacco, corn, soybeans, hay and bell peppers on the 975 acres of North River Farms.

Davis says the practice of goal-setting has offered a major improvement to the business, and the decision to look at the farm as three divisions—vegetable production, hay/forage production and row crops—has helped him improve management practices and concentrate on specific marketing opportunities.

Davis says urban development has been a real threat to the farm’s leased land, as have restrictions on land usage. Restrictions on tillage, chemical application and stream buffers complicate farming methods.

Increased yields, increasing row-crop acreage by 25 to 50 percent in 2012 and more efficient record-keeping and office management are all goals for 2012, Davis says. Another goal is to add an additional commodity shed for hay storage that would allow complete separation of commodity and equipment storage.

Davis is vice chairman of the advisory board of Cooperative Extension and board vice chairman of the Southern States Cooperative.

“I hope to promote agriculture to future generations while developing leadership qualities in my sons as they grow up and experience life on the farm,” he says.

Davis is married to Chae, a full-time assistant manager for a funeral home. They have two sons.