Apprenticeship Handbook: Sweet Land Farm #
We both gained most of our farm knowledge from working as apprentices when we began farming. Evangeline started in Palmer, AK at Arctic Organics. Paul began at Simple Gifts farm in Washington Boro, PA. After our apprenticeships we each started our own small CSA businesses. We met at a CSA conference in 1999 and then spent a year farming 4 hours apart. Evangeline operated a farm close to our home at Sweet Land Farm and Paul managed a farm for Goodwill Industries in Lancaster, Pa for one season. In 2001 we worked together at the Kimberton CSA farm in Phoenixville, PA. We spent that winter writing a business plan for what would eventually become our current farm. Then we spent four years working at New Morning Farm, a large organic produce farm in PA that trucked our produce to Washington D.C. During that period we spent a lot of time honing our business plan and farming skills.
We both apprenticed in states where there were no state minimum wage for farm employees.
We each worked a full season for farmers in which we were compensated $400/month to work 50-60 hours a week right along with the farmer. The farmers we worked for always worked a few more hours than that. The beauty of that exchange is that you get the full feel of farm work. You work and strain right along with the farmer. You feel the rhythm of the seasonal work and get to reap the fruits of your labor. The small stipend covered all of our expenses and we walked away at the end of the season with a pretty concrete idea of how to provide ourselves with a vast array of produce and start our own CSA businesses.
We both look back on our experiences positively. There are some aspects of our apprenticeship that were difficult. Our relationships with the farmers were strained at times, but that is par for the course. Farming is a tough enterprise and it has a habit of bringing out the best and worst of people. It can be very therapeutic in that way.
There is no doubt that to work on a farm you must enjoy and value hard work. You need a strong work ethic or the desire to cultivate one. Mix hard work with an organized plan of action, and the right tools, and the farmers and crew can provide food for an overwhelming amount of people. In our case two farmers and a three person crew can produce enough to feed well over a thousand people!!!
What we most want to convey is that we value the experience here at Sweet Land Farm. It is not a ‘minimum wage’ job. If you take advantage of the experience here you can easily walk away from the farm with money in your pocket and a better understanding of a farm season.
Most of you have been in a situation where your living expenses trump your income. We certainly have. It isn’t always how much you gross, but how much you net that is important.
The educational aspect is the main difference that separates the apprenticeship at Sweet Land Farm from a general labor position. We provide you with a notebook full of useful references to start your own business and grow your own food. Along with that, we provide you with a full season of teaching for which we do not charge you. We will take time to answer questions, show benchmarks of growth throughout the growing season, talk about the economics of the farm, and most importantly respect you. We have been in your shoes. If we respect each other we can both reap the benefits of our work together. As an apprentice, you are working with us for a short period of time. The season goes by faster than you expect. We require that you work a forty hour week, with the expectation that you work hard and efficiently so that we can stay on task and in control of exploding growth of the farm. We will spend more time training in the spring than the summer. The summer will be more rhythmic than the spring with a lot of harvest, planting and cultivating. The fall will consist of a lot of harvesting and more reflection on the season and discussion of aspects of farming like cover crops.