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Scott & Lindy (Feltmate) Brown
Class of ‘10

It appears graduates of AC don’t just walk away with a degree or diploma, but many leave campus also having found their life-long partner or future spouse.  

Scott Brown and Lindy Feltmate enrolled at AC with very different backgrounds. Scott grew up on his family dairy farm in NB. Lindy was a horse lover, from NS, with otherwise limited farming experience. Sharing a love for agriculture in general, they bonded in their first year, becoming the best of friends. By second year, their relationship grew to more than just friendship and by the time they graduated, they knew they had found their soulmate.

With a deep-rooted desire to farm and be involved in agriculture they returned home to NB, were married, and determined how to make their love and passion a reality.

While studying at AC, Scott’s family had sold their cows and quota, so Scott and Lindy knew they would be working from the ground-up to bring this dream to life. “I didn’t know exactly what this would mean, but I jumped in, whole heartedly,” says Lindy. “We took it one step at a time.”

Lindy returned to further her studies and Scott began working full-time on a dairy farm, in Sussex. To start towards their dream, Scott and Lindy bought a small flock of sheep, growing it over a number of years and eventually purchased an old farm property as well as a herd of purebred Salers cattle.

“For six years we worked full-time, off farm, but put all of our passion (and money) into the farm,” says Scott.

After a turn-of bad luck, Scott and Lindy were feeling down and reaching their dream seemed daunting.

But then Scott and Lindy’s neighbour and mentor, a retired dairy farmer, visited with a suggestion.

“He knew of our situation and that we someday wanted to dairy farm,” explains Lindy. “He sat us down and crunched all the numbers, showing we could reach our dream.” Scott and Lindy were apprehensive, but undeniably, a spark had been lit.

“Within a year of that visit we started working on our business plan and the financials,” she adds. “After ensuring that the financials were solid, we applied for the Dairy Farmers of New Brunswick New Entrant Program.”

Scott and Lindy were accepted!

“It’s hard to explain what that feeling was like,” says Lindy. “We had been working for so long toward this goal and it was finally coming together – it was a feeling of relief, excitement and stress wrapped into one. We knew that the work was really only starting now but we were more than ready.”

Scott and Lindy immediately started milking 32 cows in their updated tiestall barn. Scott spends his waking hours in the barn and on the fields, while Lindy works off-farm. On the weekends, Scott’s father helps with milking and the young couple also receive bookkeeping assistance (a task they admit they underestimated) from Scott’s stepfather.

“Its been two and a half years now since we started,” says Scott. “It’s not always the easiest life, neither one of us could imagine doing anything else, with anyone else.” In time, Scott and Lindy hope to have a large enough herd to hire a farmhand and possibly diversify the farm.

Agriculture is so important to Scott and Lindy because of what it represents.

“People who work hard, love what they do and provide not only for their own families but for other families as well. It’s about families working together. It’s about watching a calf be born to seeing her stand in your milking herd and then to the sad day when you watch her leave. Everyday we wake up, work hard and at the end of the day we see what we’ve accomplished. It’s about taking pride in the product we sell but also caring deeply about every step in the process; our animals, our crops and our environment.”

“We have two beautiful kids,” adds Lindy, “life is good!”

“We’re just living the dream,” says Scott.

Every choice Scott and Lindy have made over the last 10 years, including attending AC and choosing to date each other, have helped them reach their ultimate goal - which was doing exactly what they’re doing right now, together.