Winners drawn: VW Amarok delivered

We handed over the main prize of our competition with a “Congratulations”. Ludger Thönes is delighted to have a VW Amarok in his fleet.

Under a pretext, representatives of Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster recently made their way to Kerken (NRW) to hand over the main prize of the competition organized by SUS, Elite, Wochenblatt, top agrar, DLG Mitteilungen, Milchkuh and profi to the winner. After a very rainy outward journey, the weather cleared on arrival.

“We're giving you a car as a present”

The unsuspecting winner was already waiting for us in the yard, assuming we just wanted to say thank you for the many years of subscriptions - and we did so with a bulging bag of little things and a bouquet of flowers. But when the VW Amarok drove into the yard and we handed over the keys with the words “We're giving you a car”, Ludger Thönes could hardly believe his luck.

“You've got to be kidding me,” he replied. No, we didn't want that and would like to congratulate the winner and wish him a safe and accident-free journey at all times! At the latest after the first test drive and the official handover over a cup of coffee and a toast with homemade egg liqueur, winning the car became more real. Nevertheless, the farmer took the precaution of asking again: “So I can actually keep it now?”. Ludger Thönes and his family bid us farewell, overjoyed at the unplanned addition to the fleet and full of anticipation for the first operational use on the “field tour” at the weekend.

New home for the VW Amarok

The Thönes family runs a farm with 1,000 fattening pigs, around 500 piglet rearing places and 75 hectares of arable land, which this year consists of around 25 hectares of potatoes, 10 hectares of onions, sugar beet, grain and maize. In addition, there is some contract work, 70 chickens and a small self-service farm store, where not only eggs and potatoes from the farm's own production are sold, but also the aforementioned egg liqueur.

The entry into direct marketing was a corona project that spread by word of mouth in the area, because “Ludger has the best potatoes”. In recent years, father Ludger Thönes and daughter Stefanie have expanded the family business, which they run as a GbR, by growing and storing potatoes. They had previously made the joint decision to get out of sow farming.

“We have noticed that a lot has changed in agriculture over the last 36 years,” says Helga Thönes at the end of their time together on the farm. However, the past few years on the farm have also shown how things can continue in new directions.