Business Mentorship Network – Natural Heritage Farm

Young Agrarians is celebrating the twelfth year of the Business Mentorship Network (BMN) program in BC and the fourth year of the BMN in the Prairies! 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 open in Fall 2026. Click below to be notified when applications open!

Mentor applications are accepted year-round. Check out the Business Mentorship Network page for more information!

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: Natural Heritage Farm

We are the Prestons: Tyler, Cassandra and our 3 children, Wyatt, Everett and Edith. Our farm is called Natural Heritage Farm. We are enrolled in the Business Mentorship Program through Young Agrarians and our mentor is Simone Lafrance. Her and her husband run Northview Stock Farm. We have been trying to build our farm from a side hustle into a viable business but have been struggling to get it off the ground. We are really hoping the mentorship program will help us learn how to manage and market ourselves. We are wanting to update our website and start developing a customer base of like-minded people who are wanting to eat healthy, nutritious food grown in a way that works with nature, not against it. 

We operate our farm as a partnership, as we are small scale and still trying to grow to a point where one of us can work on farm full time. We have a mortgage for the farm that we pay for with our off farm, full time jobs, Tyler as a Red seal Journeyman Electrician and Cassandra as the Manager of the bookkeeping department in an accounting firm.  Our farm is located near Lloydminster, AB and we primarily raise grass fed and finished beef but are hoping to expand into a market garden as well as to grow perennial berries and fruit. 

In 2011 after we had our first son Wyatt, Cassandra started looking into baby food, wanting to feed him as healthy as possible. That led her down a path of discovering how our food was grown and processed.  Wanting to avoid all of the chemically sprayed, highly processed, commercial baby foods she started making her own baby food using healthier, organic produce.  Around the same time, we decided we wanted to sell our small house in town and get something more suited for a family.  Tyler suggested looking at acreages as some of his fondest memories were growing up on his childhood acreage.  In the summer of 2013, we were able to find one just North of Lloydminster. It was 12 acres, had a beautiful treed yard, nice two story farmhouse, huge garden area where we could grow our own vegetables and an older barn and corrals for keeping livestock.

After moving, Tyler started looking into different livestock for small acreages and also doing a lot of researching about homesteading. Along the way he stumbled upon permaculture and was immediately hooked. After that we went all in, applying the new Permaculture principles and Holistic Management techniques that we were learning.  We bought a couple yaks, some mini cows, pigs, chickens, ducks and goats.  The acreage was already divided into 4 pastures, so we rotated the cattle and yaks between paddocks, bought electric net fence to move the pigs around and built a chicken tractor for the chickens. Each year we learned a little more and tried a little more.  We grew a little garden, Cassandra learned to preserve and we butchered our first pig.  Tyler even cured and smoked the ham and bacon himself.  We were absolutely loving our new lifestyle but as we learned more about our property and more about permaculture we realized that our land was not ideal for what we wanted to do. It was situated right in the low spot of a conventionally farmed grain field so all of the chemicals that were being sprayed onto the field would run through the entire property and settle in our dugout.  We thought, if we are going to move, maybe we could look for a bigger piece of land where we could build our own permaculture farm and be able to grow healthy food for ourselves and for others as well.

In 2016, after almost 2 years, we finally found our current farm. It was close to where Cassandra’s parents lived so her mom could watch the kids but still close enough to Lloydminster where we both had to drive to for work everyday.  It was a full quarter section with a good amount of water on it but was bare crop land so would need a lot of work to get it back to productive pastures and become what we envisioned. Since then we have been working hard to make our dreams come true!

One of the resources that has helped us along our journey is “The Survival Podcast”, which is where we learned a lot about homesteading and first heard about permaculture. A person and friend we have learned tons from is Takota Coen who teaches permaculture and homesteading. His website is buildingyourhomestead.com. We are so grateful for all of the people that have helped us along the way and are excited to continue on our journey with our new mentor!!

You can find us on Instagram @naturalheritagefarm or on our website at naturalheritagefarm.ca 

The Prestons

Feeling inspired and ready to dig into your business with a mentor? Mentee applications open in Fall 2026. Mentor applications are open year-round. Click below for more information!