How To Find An Internship or Apprenticeship On An Organic Farm

Now that you have WWOOFed on one farm, two farms, a few farms, and you are ready to take the leap and become a farm apprentice, let's take a look and see where and what you need to start that process.

Why Become an Organic Farm Apprentice?

farm apprentice vermont cartFarming is a trade just like plumbing, carpentry, or electrical. Just like any trade there is trade school, apprenticeship requirements, and a steep learning curve. Your farm apprenticeship is the next step to either realizing your dream of becoming a farmer, or realizing that this may not be for you.

Unlike most trades, you have to know just about every trade to make a halfway decent farmer. Even being a bike mechanic can come into play while working on a farm. Our Vermont Cart which is used to haul things around the farm got a flat tire. Since I have changed dozens of bike tires in the last year riding across the country, it was my job to fix the wheel.

Whether you are looking to start your own farm, or you are looking to be a hired hand at an existing farm, you need experience in the field. A farm internship will give that to you. You are building a new resume, and this is a good place to start.

Depending on your dedication to looking, your luck at finding a place, and the opportunities available, you do not have to lose money learning how to farm. Some farms offer housing, others housing and food, and still others (though fewer) offer housing, food, and a stipend. Stipends can range from $50 a week to around $200 a week. You're not going to buy a Mercedes, but when you consider that you have no rent to pay, and most of your food bills are covered, it's a pretty good gig. Besides, you're there to learn, not to make money. Knowledge is wealth.

Where to Find Organic Farm Internships / Apprenticeships

There are a lot of places and ways to find internships. Some lay it right out there for you, some you will have to dig for. To find the one you want, it is definitely worth being persistent. You are going to probably spend most of a year working very closely with a stereotypically eccentric group of people. You want to make sure you mesh with the farm, the surroundings, and the people.

The first place I would start is with your local farms and the people that you know. If there is a farm that you love to buy from at the farmers' market or you are subscribed to their CSA, do not be afraid to ask if they have volunteer or internship opportunities. What's the worst they can say? No? Then you move on and find somewhere else. Finding a place close to home means you can stay local and you might not have to sleep in a tent for the summer as "intern housing".

The second place to start is Google. Do a Google search for "farm internship" or "farm apprenticeship" and see what comes up.  Add in the name of your state, or what you think you might want to grow.

WWOOF.org

wwoof dot org

WWOOF or WWOOFUSA is not a bad place to start looking. If you have done some volunteering on farms, you are already a memeber ($20 a year) and are familiar with the website. Some WWOOF farms prefer or even require a year long commitment. In general the WWOOF relationship between you and the farmer is that you are a volunteer. If you are looking to make at least a few bucks off your apprenticeship it might be tougher to find going this route. Though, it is not unheard of and you can find paid opportunities.

National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA)

Sustainable Farming Internships and Apprenticeships   Begin  ATTRA   National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service

I used the ATTRA website a fair amount while looking for my apprenticeship. A lot of the listings in here offer housing and a stipend. Not all of them do, but certainly more than the WWOOFing website. They are organized pretty well into regions and states. Figuring out what area of the country (or which country) you want to farm in before you go looking helps you narrow your search by a lot.

Spend some time reading the descriptions for each place. After a while, you will get good at skimming for the details you really want to find. When you find a farm, do a Google search on them. Find their website, find any news articles they may be in online. Believe me when I say that it is no good for anyone involved if you end up at a place where you are not happy.

BeginningFarmers.org

Jobs and Internships in Farming  Food  and Agriculture

Certainly bookmark this page. As you merrily skip down that path toward becoming a family farmer, you will be visiting the Beginning Farmers website more than a handful of times. Their Jobs and Internships page is a seemingly disorganized organized amalgamation of links that will bring you to any number of websites with job listings. Not all the websites will be what you want, and some of them are terrible. But there are also a lot of great links there, and this page alone saves you hours of searching Google.

GoodFoodJobs.com

good food jobs

Just because you spend a season working on a farm does not necessarily mean you have to become a farmer. It's a tough row to hoe, believe me. I'm neck deep in it as I type this. If you work your season on the farm and decide it's not for you, there are a lot of other opportunities out there you can take advantage of to capitalize on your farm experience.

Jobs "in food" are becoming more popular, and more available. Good Food Jobs is a job posting board that will have listings for farm work, office work, and everything in between, all relating to "Good Food".  You might find a farm job here, and you might find a job as a sales associate, or even a food services manager. My friend Chad was a chef in New York City, spent a year working on a vegetable farm, and now has started his own restaurant.

Besides, Taylor and Dorothy the co-founders of Good Food Jobs are fantastic people. They have done a lot of good work through their site and I would love to see it continue.

My Experience Applying for A Farm Apprenticeship

american foodcyclist gothicNothing good comes easy, and I am proving that constantly. Finding not only the right farm, but a farm that would take a married couple was no small feat. While exciting and fun, it was also frustrating at times. I did not keep track of the hours that Kate and I spent looking, but we were determined to find the right farm.

We used the above strategies and websites to track down farms to apply to. The ATTRA site was especially helpful. I think in total we applied to 18 farms. Some never returned our e-mails or calls and some out-right rejected us. Others told us that our timing was off and that they were either not to that part of their planning yet and not hiring, or they had just hired another young married couple from New York City and did not have any open positions.

At that time, I was market testing for Farm Marketing Solutions and I was exhibiting the company at various trade shows and slow food conferences around New England. It was at the CTNOFA conference in Connecticut that I finally found the farm I was looking for. One of the workshops was on using your website to market your farm. This is a specialty of mine and I was interested in what the presenters had to say, and more importantly what questions the audience had.

Erick & Patty Taylor of Devon Point Farm were hosting the workshop. Long story short, I knew after hearing them present that I knew I had to work at their farm. After the presentation, I went up and asked them if they had any openings for internships. Patty told me they did not take couples, but I could talk to Erick.

What ensued was the most elaborate hiring process I have ever experienced. Kate and I sent them resumes, cover letters, and photos. Over the next week, we talked on the phone a few times. They told us that they did not want to hire a couple, it was against their policy. (Hey, it's a volunteer position, they can make whatever rules they want). The reasoning, and I agree with it, is that if one person does not work out for whatever reason then they lose two people. That's two people they will have spent extensive hours training and would have to replace. I knew we wouldn't leave no matter what came our way so I was persistent.

found my best fit jobI wrote e-mails convincing them we were awesome. I even went so far as to Photoshop WWII propaganda. We had an in person interview which took half a day, after which they were still not sold on the idea of a married couple.

We Skyped, we talked with past interns, they talked with the interns that talked to us, and we talked via e-mail some more.

Finally, we wore them down. We got the apprenticeship, we had a place to stay, a beautiful farm to work on, knowledgeable farmers to work for, and a life changing experience.

Not everyone goes through that though. I have friends who just called the place, chatted for half an hour and they were hired. Simple as that. Not every case will be the same, far from it.

The moral of the story is, if you know what you want go for it!

Make Sure Farming Is For You, Volunteer On A Farm First

By now you have seen Food Inc. You have read Michael Pollan's Omnivoure's Dilemma. You are all amped up about slow food and you are ready to go out and start a farm of your own! Well, it's time to pump the breaks and take a look at how serious of a decision that is. Growing food and working the land is nothing short of amazing, but there are a few steps you should take before making a career change.

Starting a farm is a major life change, in more ways than you can imagine. The toils and troubles that come with the territory can never be accurately portrayed in any documentary, on the screen or in print. Before you dive headlong into the hardest thing that anyone can choose to do, start by taking baby steps. You will be happy that you did.

volunteer on a farm

More and more people are doing the same thing that I chose to do. I left my job in New York City. I left my apartment, benefits, paycheck, carbon-fiber racing bicycle, and solidarity of routine life for the endurance sprint that is farm life. I took my time to get here though, and I took some very necessary steps to ensure that this is something I want to do for life.

The wonderful thing about gardening is that really anyone can do it. Anyone can, in theory, buy seeds, put them in the ground, add some water, and hopefully something will grow. The difference between farmers and gardeners is that gardeners can have an entire crop fail and they still get a paycheck, because it is a hobby. If a crop fails on the farm, that means a major hit in income resulting any number of things including the loss of your livelihood.

You may crawl down the rabbit hole and figure out that farming is the most rewarding thing you can do with you life, like I did. Or you may stop short of that extreme and realize you're going to be a heck of a gardener. You may also decide that you place in slow food is better suited working for a non-profit, working the office of a farm, or doing one of the other thousands of jobs that this movement is creating.

Farm Volunteer with WWOOF.org

The best way to volunteer on a farm is to try WWOOFing. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. WWOOF is an organization that helps to pair organic farms with volunteers that are looking to learn more about sustainable lifestyles. There are WWOOFing farms in just about every country all over the world. Which is great, because if you like to farm and want to travel on the cheap, you can schedule a stay at a WWOOFing farm and you meals and housing will be taken care of (usually) for the duration of your vacation.

wwoof dot org

Why WWOOFing works so well with people who want to farm, like you, is that there is already an understanding about accepting volunteers on the farm. Training inexperienced people takes time and effort, and can often be more trouble than it is worth. I know a farmer who had a WWOOFer that thought her baby carrots were weeds and picked out all of the seedlings in the bed, ouch. On a WWOOF farm the understanding is already there that you may not be experienced, but you are willing to learn, and the farmer is willing to teach.

A WWOOFing Experience to Suit Your Needs

I have visited dozens of WWOOFing farms. They are not all created equal. Some only ask that you work a couple of hours a day, some the entire day. Some offer an air conditioned bedroom and a flush toilet, some offer a place for you to pitch a tent with an outdoor composting toilet. For the most part the details are laid out in the individual  profiles of the farms.

There is not just a difference in accommodations. There are also big differences in the types of farms you can work at. You can find a WWOOF farm that specializes in vegetables, beef cattle, mushrooms, dairy goats, and everything in-between. The most common are organic vegetable farms.

I used the WWOOF USA website to arrange most of my farm

WWOOF-USA® - Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, USA

Alternatives to WWOOFing

While I think WWOOFing is one of the best ways to find a farm experience, it certainly is not the only place. You can find a farm near you on LocalHarvest.org and write to them asking about volunteer opportunities. If you are a member of a CSA you can approach them about opportunities at their farm. You may even be able to find a farm at your local farmers market.

Things to Keep In Mind

You are there to volunteer. You may be pushed a little out of your comfort zone, but that is farming. That being said, this is the first step and you do not want to be taken advantage of. If you feel like a host farmer is treating you poorly let them know, or just leave. It goes the other way too. You do not want to take advantage of the farmer. It would be bad form to sit in the field and dream the day away not getting anything done, only to stuff your face full of free food at dinner that evening.

Be Prepared to Farm

Come prepared to get dirty. Wear sturdy pants or decent shorts if it is hot out. Bring your own work gloves. On really hot days light weight button long sleeve shirts are cooler than any cotton t-shirt. the Buttons let more air in, the fabric won't stick to you as much and will dry quicker, and the long sleeves keep the sun off your arms. That is why people in the dessert dress is light-colored loose clothing. You don't have to worry to much about looking fashionable. I buy all of my farm clothes at the Good Will, especially the long sleeve work shirts. What better way to stick it to your corporate job than to wear a work shirt on the farm?

Sun block, sun block, sun block.

You Are There To Have Fun

Farming is incredible. It is fulfilling both in mind and body. There is nothing better than sitting down (with a beer) at the end of a long day of work and kicking your feet up. Remember that. Whether you are working for two days or two hundred (you can WWOOF for over a year at some places) you are there to enjoy the experience.

What's next in farming for you?

After you have volunteered once, twice, a dozen times, and you still love it, it may be time to consider an apprenticeship. Looking for, applying to, and surviving a farm apprenticeship deserves a blog post all of it's own.

Farm Marketing Solutions

I started out by bicycle across the United States in June 2011 to figure out what I could do to help farmers. Together with my wife, Kate, we traveled around 6,000 miles over 7 months, in addition to over 2,000 miles I rode solo in 2010. We did our best to raise awareness, fund raise for Farm Aid, and even pitch in and volunteer our time weeding, seeding, and harvesting at various farms across the nation.

When you spend long hours on a bike, you have a lot of time to think. I would constantly think up ways to help family farmers thrive. I wanted to encourage people to eat healthier, live more active lifestyles, and buy local. Then one day I had an "ah-ha" moment! Often the reason people do not buy locally is more a problem of supply than lack of personal motivation. More people are willing to buy local, if only they could find a farmer to buy from.

My life's mission became to help farmers get the word out about themselves, and to see their businesses prosper. If farmers could find more success, they would continue to grow their business and multiply. If they grew and multiplied, more people would have access to locally grown good quality food. If more people had access to good food, we might just solve a lot of bigger issues like obesity, diabetes, a weak economy, and a dying planet. (Hey, a man can dream right.)

Farm Marketing Solutions was created by gathering successful marketing techniques from across the country. In addition to visiting dozens of farms and farmers' markets, I have conducted hundreds of hours of research on marketing techniques that are directly applicable for farmers.

It is my hope that the materials that I amworking on right now, as well as the community that I hope to build around this website, will facilitate positive growth in America's sustainable farmers. I invite you to follow along on Twitter, Facebook, and Google + as this project grows throughout the years.