YA BUSINESS MENTORSHIP NETWORK – VIVE LE VEG FARM

Young Agrarians is celebrating the twelfth year of the Business Mentorship Network (BMN) program in BC,  the fourth year in the Prairies, and we now accept applications from across the country! The BMN offers a year-long farm business mentorship to a diverse array of new and young farmers. Through one-on-one mentorship, peer networks, and online workshops, new farmers develop the skills necessary to operate ecologically sustainable and financially viable farm businesses.

Applications for Mentees across Canada are open Oct 1 – 31st! Mentor applications are accepted year-round. Click below for more information and to apply.

Meet a mentee from the current cohort and learn about their farm and why they joined the Business Mentorship Network. Want more? Head over to our BMN Blog for more mentorship stories.

Meet a Mentee: Vive Le Veg Farm

We are TJ & Olivia McWilliam from Vive le Veg Farm, and our mentors this season (and hopefully forever) are Kerry & Budgie from Laughing Crow Organics. We farm in Ladner, BC, just 25 km from downtown Vancouver, BC.

What were your goals for this season? 

Our goals for this season were to grow and sell $200,000 of veggies from our farm by December 31, 2025. We also committed to not burning out, and yet on top of the sales, we intended to stay up to date on bookkeeping and accounting practices. We also wanted to host a farm dinner series, once a month from June through October.

What went well this season relating to your goals? What didn’t go as you expected, and what was your response? 

As of writing this post, we have already reached our goal of growing and selling $200,000 worth of vegetables off our 2-acre farm. With our expanded growing space this season, we were able to grow more, and worked hard to continue on our sales channels to move all of this produce!

We did a pretty good job of this; there were definitely a few times in August and September where we were on the edge of burnout. We took a week off in July, which was amazing, and the first time we’ve gone away in the middle of the season – we couldn’t have done that without our amazing crew on the farm.

So far, we have done a great job staying up to date with invoicing, accounting, and bookkeeping. We worked with an accountant this season, which helped clean up some issues that we’ve had in the past. We made a point of reconciling our accounts on a regular basis so if something was out of whack, we could figure it out more easily.

We didn’t end up hosting any farm dinners this season, and we were okay with that! It was such a busy season that we thought it would only lead to burnout and be too much work for us. We had a couple of fun BBQs on the farm, though, and hosted a few groups for tours as well, which was great! We love having people come out to the farm and see what we do.

What was the best piece of feedback or praise you got from a customer? 

Working with restaurants, we get lots of feedback on our produce, as they can be quite particular. Just having more chefs reach out to work with us because they’ve heard great things, and having that word-of-mouth marketing is always very nice to hear.

What were one or two victories, small or large, that you had this season? 

Going on a vacation in the summer was definitely a huge victory for us this year. Knowing that we can get away from the farm for a week and that everything will be okay was awesome.

Continuing to grow and experiment with new crops and varieties is always fun, especially when they work out well. We grew melons and sweet potatoes for the first time this season, and they were both really big wins! A farm melon picked ripe is SO much better than anything you can buy at the store.

What was the most valuable piece of advice your mentor gave you or the most important thing you gained from the YA Business Mentorship Network Program experience? 

Oh man, this is a tough one. We learned so much from Kerry and Budgie this season, it’s hard to pick just one. We learned a ton about fertility management, managing employees, growing different crops, streamlining operations, and so much more. If we had to pick just one, I think it was all the tips and tricks around staying organized throughout the season, having to-do lists, and weekly workflows that helped us stay on track and manage our time more effectively.

In what ways did the BMN program and support of your mentor help you refine or reshape the long-term direction of your farm? What will you do differently next year? 

With all of the data and to-do lists we have now on a weekly basis we think planning for next season will be much easier! We will be able to look back at this season’s lists and adjust them slightly for next year. This will help us know what times of the year we need extra help, when the big weeks of transplanting are, and just generally be more streamlined. Next year, we will have more detailed plans for beds, crop rotations, cover cropping, and so many other things that we just haven’t been able to sort out yet.

What are you most looking forward to this winter?

We are excited to keep growing into the winter season and extending our growing season each year. We will likely still be selling produce into January, which is awesome for us! Also, we can’t wait to have a break and some downtime this winter to recharge and plan for the coming year.

Where can we find you online?

You can follow our farming journey on Instagram @vivelevegfarm or on our website www.viveleveg.com!

TJ & Olivia, Vive Le Veg Farm

Feeling inspired and ready to dig into your business with a mentor? Mentee applications are open from October 1st-31st, 2025. Mentor applications are open year-round.