Posted January 13th, 2026

We are excited to announce the winners of the 2025 Nutrien Hometown Yield Challenge. Read more to find out whether a grower from your community is represented on the list!

Harvest totals are in, and the top five farmers have been chosen for the 2025 Nutrien Hometown Yield Challenge. The farmers on the list below were the cream of the crop out of the Canadian farming operations that participated in this year’s challenge. Now that the winners have been selected, Nutrien has donated over $50,000 to community organizations chosen by the top five yielding farmers.

As a reminder, to participate in the challenge, contestants were required to:

• Map field boundaries in Nutrien’s Echelon platform
• Grow at least 80 acres of a Proven Seed hybrid of their choice
• Apply phosphorous treated with Loveland Products’ ATLAS XC^TM

For more information about the Hometown Yield Challenge and the program’s requirements, check out the program’s launch article from earlier this year.

“We had a lot of great submissions for this year’s Hometown Yield Challenge and appreciate everyone who made this challenge part of their growing season. This challenge is a great way to see our field services and proprietary products in action and how these offerings can help deliver yield results without sacrificing the health of your acreage. All with the added bonus of doing some good for the community,” says Shelby LaRose, Crop Nutrition Product Manager for Nutrien Canada and Co-Lead of the Hometown Yield Challenge.

Without further ado, we are excited to announce the two Nutrien Hometown Yield Challenge grand prize winners, who each chose a community organization to receive $20,000:

• Derrick Farenick
  • Chosen Community Organization: Lord Asquith School Breakfast Club
  • Division: North Saskatchewan Division
  • Nutrien Sales Agronomist: Colin Perillat, Branch Manager of the Purdue, SK location

• Ian Korpan
  • Chosen Community Organization: Lavoy Action Society
  • Division: North Alberta Division
  • Nutrien Sales Agronomist: Carson James, Crop Production Advisor for the Vegreville, AB location

Congratulations to Derrick and Ian on the big win! There were also three other operations that were runners-up in the challenge who chose community organizations to receive $5,000 each. The 2025 Nutrien Hometown Yield Challenge runners-up are:

• Brent Gillis
  • Chosen Community Organization: Baldur School
  • Division: Manitoba
  • Nutrien Sales Agronomist: Steven Jones, Sales Agronomist II for the Holland, MB location
  • Special Note: This is the second year in a row that Brent has been a winner of the Hometown Yield Challenge.

• Lyle, Trevor, and Dustin Farkash
  • Chosen Community Organization: Vermillion & District Housing Foundation
  • Division: North Alberta
  • Nutrien Sales Agronomist: Jana Sen, Sales Agronomist III for the Vermillion, AB location

• Mitch Kratchmer
  • Chosen Community Organization: Blackie and District Agricultural Society
  • Division: South Alberta
  • Nutrien Sales Agronomist: Dustin Butler, Branch Manager for the Claresholm, AB location

These winners bring the total to over $100,000 invested back into rural Canadian communities when paired with the donations from last year’s Hometown Yield Challenge, which supported community organizations, such as school lunch programs, playground refurbishment, and community center funds.

“Thank you to all of the farmers who participated in our second year of the Hometown Yield Challenge. We are very pleased with the results of this year’s challenge, and we’re excited to build upon last year’s success by supporting new community organizations selected by our winners,” says Jesse Hamonic, Vice President & Country Head, Nutrien’s Canada Retail operations. “Involvement with and investing back into our communities is something that our team is passionate about, and it’s extremely rewarding to be able to team up with our farmers to make this possible for the communities that we serve.”

Please join us in congratulating all of the winners of the 2025 Nutrien Hometown Yield Challenge for a successful season and for their dedication to enriching the communities where they live and work!