Outstanding Young Farmers prove adept at seizing opportunities

Successfully managing cash flow for growth and diversification has landed friends and business partners DJ Wassenaar and Matt Bergman the 2024 Ontario Outstanding Young Farmer award.

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The pair operate 3,200 cropping acres under Haybury Farms, 1,000 acres under Claybank Organics, as well as an excavation company with a third partner. Their partnership began, in a different form, focus and scale, nearly a decade ago.

Bergman and Wassenaar come from agricultural backgrounds, but specialize in different aspects of their enterprise; the former in production and the latter in marketing.

“DJ and I are friends … He had his own business and needed someone to manage his day-to-day. He approached me, and at that time I was looking for something more than an hourly wage, something I could get my teeth into. That’s kind of how it came to fruition,” says Bergman.

“The challenge with every growing business, and this is still an issue, is how do you allow the cash to catch up? Growth is expensive and learning the fine line between growth and still having stability to grow … It’s realizing how much growth costs before you get any return on that growth.”

Wassenaar also says farming is “an expensive game to play,” with many barriers to entry even for those from farming backgrounds.

“We did a lot of things we weren’t overly excited about doing, but it paid,” says Wassenaar.

From maintaining roadside verges to digging ditches and custom application, that less appealing work eventually allowed them to do work that was more appealing.

“We looked at the equipment we had and found ways to make as much money of it as possible … We tried to seize whatever land opportunities we could find, renting at first, then we bought the first farm and grew from there.”

The partnership has grown in scale since its inception. On the cropping side, it now includes acreage in Algoma District, where they grow soybeans, as well as timothy hay for export.

“We always wanted to head north. A dollar goes so much further,” says Bergman, adding they first looked to the Cochrane area but cast further afield after an initial plan didn’t pan out.

There are challenges. Wassenaar says the remoteness of their fields makes it more difficult and expensive to run for parts and respond to other issues.

“There’s next to nothing there. Every farm you get is days if not weeks to work getting them into a place where you can farm them.”

Transitioning part of their land base to organic, and the establishment of Claybank Organics, was also a way to improve their per acre returns. This was particularly true when they began the transition process, given per bushel soybean and corn prices were closer to $11 and $4.50, respectively. The switch was made easier, and more profitable, by switching to organic grain from hay.

“With the hay, you were still making your margin on it, as long as you didn’t apply non-organic fertilizer or spray it. We thought, why would we transition back into something that makes less money per acre?” Bergman says.

He also says the construction and excavation business, County Line Construction, stemmed in part from Wassenaar’s long-held passion for equipment, and the fact that there was a clear demand for agriculture-related excavation.

“We’ve always tinkered around with it,” says Bergman. “It kind of stemmed from a need. We’re still very ag business construction, and it tied into our existing business.”

Wassenaar says they are constantly looking for new opportunities and are ready whenever those opportunities present themselves.

“We call ourselves first generation farmers … Anything we do and we have, this whole thing, we did build ourselves basically from nothing,” says Wassenaar. His advice to others who are trying to make it in farming is not to neglect the legwork.

“Seize the opportunities. And if you can’t seize them, create them.”