By Angela Lovell
Sometimes, diversification isn’t about jumping headfirst into something totally new, but about focusing on what you are already doing and doing it better. At the same time, you have to stay open to opportunities, which often present themselves as a result of being good at what you do.
That is certainly the case for David Hamblin of Red River Seeds in Morris, Manitoba. When he and his wife Lorraine took over the family seed farm in 2009, he had a passion for business and a vision of growth.
“One of the unique things in farming is that there’s lots of different ways to do it really well, and some people do it with their mechanical aptitude, others with their agronomics and some do it with business ability,” he says. “I always gravitated to the business side. I like the challenge of growing and seeing where we can take new opportunities. It’s satisfying to be able to add some value to your own farm through other avenues, but also to add value to farms around the area as well.”
Switching gears
Hamblin is the third generation on the family farm – originally a grain farm – started by his great-grandparents in the 1930s, then taken over by his grandparents, parents and uncle, who added the seed side in the 1980s.
Since taking over, the Hamblins have increased the farm’s acres from 2,000 to 4,200 and grown the seed and grain side of the business substantially, establishing Red River Seeds in 2012. Seeing the trends that were happening in the industry with the introduction of new crops like soybeans and corn, Hamblin knew it was time to switch gears.
“Traditionally, in the pedigree seed business, the focus for seed growers had been on wheat, oats and barley, but corn was starting to come into southern Manitoba,” Hamblin says. “Our thoughts were that cereal acres would continue to shrink, and so we needed to get into the seed business in a bigger way.”
Red River Seeds became a sales representative for Pioneer Hi-Bred, and the Hamblins began putting their energy into building their retail seed business with a unique marketing strategy. Southern Manitoba is not a traditional corn growing area, so many farmers wanted to try the new corn hybrids that were coming out but didn’t want to make the investment in the specialized equipment – planters, corn headers, grain dryers – required to grow it. So, the Hamblins invested in that equipment and custom planted, harvested and dried the corn for the farmers.
“We were able to give the opportunity to growers who wanted to try corn, with the intent that if they decided they wanted to continue in corn, they would invest in some of their own equipment. Then we would plant for other farmers who wanted to try it, and continued to grow the seed retail business that way,” Hamblin says.
Building for the future
Over the next few years, Hamblin added 650,000 bushels of grain storage, a grain drying system, a seed cleaning facility with an optical sorter, 24,000 square feet of equipment cold storage, and 3,000 square feet of office space on the farm. This expansion was driven by the rapid growth in the seed side of the business but also helped solve labour issues on the farm once Hamblin’s parents retired in 2009.
“We had one full-time employee, but we needed more help in the busy seasons,” he says. “But what would we do to keep people invested all year round? We built the seed cleaning plant with the intent that it would give us winter work for farm labour, and like a lot of things, we didn’t build just for today, but for tomorrow, so that’s why we built such a big plant.”
It turns out that decision was the right one, because when FP Genetics brought out its new hybrid rye varieties, Red River Seeds became the first distributor in Western Canada. It was the start of exponential growth and more diversification for the company.
“Growers had tremendous early success with hybrid rye in the first number of years,” Hamblin says. “But it was evident that the grain marketing system was not there for a crop like rye, which had traditionally been a niche crop. Growers were getting significantly higher yields, but were frustrated about how to market their grain.”
So, Red River Seeds got into the grain marketing business as well.
“We started finding some markets for it, and began exporting rye grain, originally our own, and then for our local seed customers,” he says.
It turned out to be an excellent fit for the company, but also for local growers and the industry. Red River Seeds became the leading rye buyers and processors in Canada.
“It transformed our business in a big way into becoming more of a grain business than just a seed retail on a grain farm,” Hamblin says. “We are now up to 11 employees, and it has been an exciting kind of growth because we have been able to provide some unique opportunities for some growers that they may not have had otherwise. And our end-use customers appreciate the closeness that we have to the customer, especially today, where everybody likes to know more about where things are coming from and where the supply chain is.”
Focusing on the business
Hamblin completed an agricultural business degree at the University of Manitoba – something that gave him a solid foundation to come back to the farm and contacts to build on. Lorraine, also a University of Manitoba graduate, practiced as a pharmacist until 2013. She had kept her pharmacy licence for a few years as Red River Seeds got its start, but over the years, it became clear the business needed her full time.
Hamblin also credits his parents for helping instil a passion for business. “As a kid, the worst thing we could ever say was we were going to dress up for Halloween as a farmer in a straw hat and overalls,” Hamblin says. “My parents would say, ‘You need to put on a suit’ because that’s what farmers need to be.”
Hamblin is the first to admit that looking at the big picture has been the most important thing in the farm’s growth and success.
“If you are too focused on what you are doing today in your business, you can miss what’s happening around you,” he says. “If you have more of an outside view of trends that are going on in the industry, things tend to present themselves.”
While it’s important to take a measured approach, and assess the risks and benefits of pursuing opportunities as they arise (which may not result in pursuing them at all), it’s equally important to be decisive when needed because opportunities don’t stick around forever.
“Sometimes, if you think there’s an opportunity there, there probably is but you typically are not the only person who’s going to recognize it,” he says. “If you wait until it’s the perfect time, or the right time, usually those opportunities aren’t there anymore. Sometimes, you just have to take the leap and figure it out as you go.”
You don’t need to bet the farm
While it can be daunting, diversifying into something new can bring more value to the farm, and doesn’t always mean huge risk. In fact, it can offer some insurance against bad times on the farm by generating other, more stable, income streams.
“One of the unique things in agriculture is there’s often opportunities that don’t require huge capital investment,” Hamblin says. “There are success stories of farmers who’ve manufactured some new technology in their shop. They didn’t buy a manufacturing company for $20 million. It is often a nice synergy with the farm, and something that gives you diversification, so if the farm doesn’t have a great year, you have some other business to continue and vice versa.”
The Hamblins’ five children – Erin (15), Addy (13), Claire (12), Paige (10) and Luke (6) – may or may not take on the farm operation or one of the other businesses some day, but if he has one piece of advice for them, it’s to learn how to delegate.
“A big thing that my parents did for me was allowing us to do our own thing and make mistakes. Looking back, I wish we would have started delegating more things off to our team earlier,” he says. “We have great people, and any time you can give those people more responsibility it just allows your business to grow better as you can spend time where your business needs it to be spent.”