Successfully Integrating Interns/Apprentices into Your Farm
Cambria County Extension Office - Ebensburg, Cambria County
Wednesday, April 29
5:00—8:00pm
$15 PASA Members, $25 all others. Lunch will be provided.
Farm interns and apprentices can tip the balance toward a successful farm business, and at the same time offer aspiring farmers hands-on work experience forming the foundation for their own farming success. But there is much to learn in working with and supervising people in the unique circumstances of a farm endeavor. If you've considered creating an internship or apprenticeship as a part of your farm business, come to benefit from years of experience and different perspectives to start off on the right foot. Speakers will share information on housing, salary/stipends, evaluating performance, fair labor expectations, terms of agreement, motivating interns, being patient, providing a sense of community, and how to end things if they aren't working out.
Moie Kimball Crawford, owner of New Morning Farm, will draw on her varied experience by sharing the different intern arrangements she and her husband have experimented with over the past 35 years. New Morning Farm employs, besides the family, one or two year-round helpers and approximately 15 seasonal workers and apprentices. Many New Morning apprentices have gone on to start their own farms.
Jen Montgomery, owner/manager of Blackberry Meadows Farm, has traveled around the world as a WWOOFer, working on farms in exchange for room & board, interned on one of Western PA's largest organic CSA farms, and worked for Grow Pittsburgh, an urban educational farm. Jen will share some of her insights and experiences as an intern and how they have influenced her current role as farm educator and manager.
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