At the 2025 Islands Agriculture Show, January 31 & February 1, Dave Semmelink treated session participants to a very personal and very inspiring story about how he came to be an agroecological farmer in Canada. Surprisingly, a lot of his presentation related to money: how to get it, and what to learn from losing it. He acknowledges that there is more risk in agriculture than in other types of career choices. Nevertheless, he got inspired by seeing how small-scale agricultural production can do good and be profitable on Vancouver Island.
Semmelink’s key messages were around diversification, collaboration, and education. Diversification reduces risk by spreading the risk around. If one agricultural product doesn’t work out, there are others that will, keeping the farmer afloat and helping to absorb financial shocks. Semmelink concedes that his entrepreneurial spirit (and boundless energy) compels him to say “yes to everything.” Adding new ventures to his established businesses keeps life interesting.
Collaborations, in his view, are key to success. These collaborations can be with other farmers, educators, or other community partners. To hear him tell it, he was a very independently-minded farmer at the beginning, but collaborations had a way of finding him, because he talks to everybody, and he says yes to everything. That’s how he ended up collaborating with North Island College, and running the Regenerative Agriculture program. That’s how he ended up running an abattoir in the Kelowna area, and running meat processing programs there, thereby creating his own labour force.
Collaborations can also be with customers. Returning customers who are loyal and spread the word about your product are priceless in today’s market. They are also a great source of feedback and ideas about new or value-added products. A more recent collaboration relates to having found a partner, NIKU, to manage product distribution. Their role is sales and online marketing; his job is to package up the orders to be shipped. He notes that demand for premium quality meat products is growing, and therefore, 2025 is already fully pre-planned.
Because many farmers today are new the industry, not coming from generational farms, he sees a strong need for education beyond what can be learned on Youtube. For this reason, he has a strong relationship with the Young Agrarians, The Port Alberni Food Hub, and educational institutions on Vancouver Island. Sometimes he teaches, sometimes he coordinates programs, and sometimes he mentors new entrants into farming.
In his mind, all of these things are linked. Sometimes diversification comes from collaboration, and sometimes collaboration leads to education and/or diversification. Semmelink was quick to caution that diversification doesn’t always lead to financial wins, but it is always an incredible learning opportunity.
All of these types of ventures require funding, and a good grasp of your financial position, as a basis for making informed decisions about whether or not to proceed. Semmelink talked at length about the opportunities presented by grant funding. He stressed that grant money is not free money. There is a lot of work associated with funding that comes with grants, but they can be worth it. As an example, he talked about his “robo-barns” for pastured poultry. Everybody knows about chicken tractors, but the discipline of moving them multiple times each day to keep the chickens and the land healthy can be challenging. So the idea of robo-barns, which can be programmed and managed from an app on your phone, seemed like a good idea. As the buyer of the first ones in BC, he was grateful that he did so with grant money, because there were some kinks that needed to be worked out with the manufacturer. Together with the supplier, they were able to work out those challenges, but without the grant funding, it might not have been worth it.
Semmelink’s advice to all farmers is to think creatively and innovate, embrace risk, and build connections. Those are good words to live by!
Written by: Bev Suderman, Planner & Economic Analyst
