b"Bringing the Family Farm into the 21st CenturyTyler Heppell has returned to the family farm and is bringing new ideas, and TikTok, to it.BY: ASHLEY ROBINSONTYLER HEPPELL DIDNT always enjoy farm work.Growing up on the family fresh potato farm Heppells Potatoes in Surrey, B.C. he and his brothers would be expected to help around the farm. When he left for university, he declared he wouldnt return. But a decade later he changed his tune.My dad had a conversation, and he was basically like, If you ever want to come back to the farm, now's your chance. I'm going to be stepping out in the next few years. So, if you want to give it a try, now's your chance, Tyler says in a phone interview. Tyler had studied business in university and then worked in sales for five years, living in the United States for a few months. He knew he wanted to do something different though, so he founded his own startup, which flopped. After that he had interviewed for some more sales jobs when his dad Wes approached him about coming back to work on the family farm.There's a lot of sweat equity that goes into building a successful multigenerational ag company. And so, I can say from [my wife] Laureen and I's perspective, having Tyler here for the last 10 months has dramatically changed our outlook on what we're doing. The next generation comes in looking at agriculture from a different way than maybe we were learned or were brought up, Wes explains in a phone interview in late October.The Heppells have been farming their land for 102 years with Tyler being the fifth generation working the land. Tyler has been working as the production manager since returning to the farm in early 2022. Hes working to learn about all aspects of the farmTyler Heppell recently returned to work on his family farm, Heppells Potatoes, in Surrey, B.C.PHOTO: HONEEBEEPHOTOGRAPHEEso he can keep his familys legacy going.One of the parts of his job has been bringing new ideas to help move the farm forward. Part of how hes doing that is through social media. On his TikTok account @heppellspotato he teachesmake grade and are unable to be sold in supermarkets for free, his more than 346,600 followers about agriculture and potatocollecting donations for the local food bank. They had five production. He has used the platform to bring awareness to adifferent giveaway days during the summer with attendance petition Heppells Potatoes currently has running to try and stopgrowing from 10 people to over 4,000.commercial development of farmland they rent from the federalBecause of TikTok, it's been able to open a lot of doors for us government. and it's been able to give us a voice, and we're trying to be very I made a video to try to raise awareness and I think it wasresponsible with it and use it to educate the end consumer. So my third video that I made. It got like 800,000 views and kind ofright now, I'm just really trying to focus on showing people that blew up, and then we were able to launch a petition, the petitionyes, produce can be ugly, but it's still nutritious, Tyler says.got 70,000 signatures, and then it kind of just snowballed, heTyler plans to continue working on the farm, hes enjoying the explains. challenge of it and wants to continue to improve the farm. He Tyler also launched an ugly potato giveaway day on thewants to increase automation to make the farm more profitable farm during the 2022 growing season which he promoted onand he also plans to continue his social media work to raise his TikTok channel. They give away the potatoes that dontawareness about agriculture and the land thats used to farm it. 28SPUDSMART.COM Winter 2023"