2011 Southwest Region Winner: Kerri Vander Poel

Kerri and her husband operate a dairy farm in Bakersfield, California. They also grow hay, corn, wheat, almonds and pistachios. Kerri was nominated by her daughters, Kathryn, Hannah and Rebecca.

Kerri's Nomination: Hi, I wanted to tell you just a little bit about our mom. I am the oldest of three girls, ages 14, 11 and 8. Our mom does so much for our dairy and our farm, and most important she teaches us the importance of agriculture.

Even though we are all girls, we see how much our mom does on our farm, and she teaches us so much through her examples. For instance, she does all the bookwork for the dairy and our farming operation. We milk 1500 cows, and she teaches us about taking care of our animals. We love the animals, and we show heifers at our local fair. Our mom teaches us hard work, and we have learned so much from her examples. She also milks cows, helps our dad sort and move heifers, and pushes in the hay. She also helps manage our farm, which includes growing hay, corn, wheat and almonds. 

She encourages us to stand up for family farms and dairies especially. Last summer, we did a dairy documentary on www.realcaliforniamilk.com. She then encouraged us to enter into a Real California Milk kid documentary, where we did our own script, then filmed ourselves. 

She is involved with the California Milk Advisory Board and also Dairymaids. Dairymaids is a local group of dairy women who help the homeless shelters and teen groups in our area, and also promote the dairy industry. 

We see our mom work so hard to teach us to stand up for what we believe, and we believe in the dairy industry and farming. She is passionate about agriculture, and she teaches us so much through how hard she works and loves what she does. Please consider our Farm Mom, Kerri.