Jeff and Chanda Sayles
Jeff and Chanda are sixth-generation farmers proudly owning a Century Farm, located south of Austin in southern Minnesota’s Mower County. The Sayles farm started with Jeff’s great-grandfather, Claude, in 1879. Jeff’s grandfather, Harlow, and father, Sheldon, ran a family-based hog farm and crop farm, establishing "Jane Brown Farms" in 1960. Jeff continues the "Jane Brown Farms" name with his own hog operation he started in 2006. Jeff continues to add farmland to expand his crop farming.
The Sayleses are contract hog growers with a 6,000-head wean-to-finish operation, and they raise corn and soybeans. The Sayles farming operation includes Jeff and Chanda and their children, Faith and Andrew, along with Jeff’s father, Sheldon.
Faith graduated from the University of Wisconsin, River Falls with an animal science degree. Andrew attends the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse and is studying biology.
The Sayleses are proud supporters of their local 4-H and the Austin FFA. They’ve hosted the Austin Chamber 3rd Grade Tour for the last three years and hope to continue in the future. The tour allows over 350 students a hands-on experience touching hogs and learning how to make hog feed, and includes a drone demonstration. They also enjoy hosting a yearly classroom tour for Austin High School’s, ag, food, and natural resources students. The students “suit up” for an afternoon in the barns, learning the birth-to-harvest cycle of hog production.
The Sayleses are members of Westminster Presbyterian Church and have donated hogs to the church’s annual Austin Community Hog Roast dinner. Faith and Andrew are graduated 4th generation Enterprise 4-H members. The very first Enterprise 4-H meeting started with their great-grandfather, Harlow.