Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Matthew Heldreth of Wythe County has been named the 2020 Virginia Farm Bureau Federation Young Farmers Achievement Award winner.

The Achievement Award honors young farmers who are successful in production agriculture and provide leadership on and off the farm. Heldreth and his wife, Shelbie, manage a beef cattle operation at Heldreth Farms, with 350 cow-calf pairs on 1,200 acres. He serves as chairman of the Wythe County Farm Bureau Young Farmers Committee.

Sarah Large of Buckingham County was this year’s VFBF Achievement Award runner-up. Large and her husband, Frankie, finish an average of 20,000 breeding gilts annually for Smithfield Foods and own a cow-calf beef operation. She serves on the VFBF Women’s Leadership Committee and the Virginia Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom board of directors. She will receive $1,500 from Farm Bureau.