Company description

Our diverse 175-acre farm includes 10 acres of certified organic vegetables and flowers, and certified organic pastured chickens, turkeys, and organically managed pork. We also grow some hay for our animals. Almost all of our vegetables are marketed through our FarmShare, our Community Supported Agriculture program. Our meats and eggs are marketed on farm and at the Troy Waterfront Farmers’ Market.  Our farm is committed to promoting sustainable agriculture through biodiversity and community education. We are in the process of getting the whole farm certified organic. Our farm team consists of Annie and Zack, the farm owners, as well as Aaron, our Vegetable Production Manager. Annie is responsible for Marketing as well as Flower Production, and Zack is the lead on Livestock and Grain/Hay Production. Interns work on all of these areas, and we work hard to have the chain of command explicit, so that nobody feels that they are answering to multiple bosses at once.

Internship description

We offer internships as part of our commitment to community education.  We enjoy sharing our farm and knowledge while offering agricultural training to others.  Interns learn how biodiversity supports and enriches our farm operation, and are involved in most aspects of production and marketing.
We provide instruction in a wide variety of practices employed on the farm and discuss the objectives we seek to achieve through them.  Our goals for the farm are shared and we discuss the decision making processes that are used. Interns have the opportunity to learn our crop and animal planning and management systems, production, and marketing.  Most important is the exposure to the farm as a whole organism which thrives on the diversity of many components.

Hands On Training:
We are a small farm business and interns participate in all aspects of our farm operation including vegetable, flower and animal production.

Work includes, but is not limited to:
. greenhouse work
. fencing
. seeding
. composting
. transplanting
. planting
. cultivating
. pest management
. harvesting/packing
. marketing (CSA, farm stand, farmer's market)
. applying and removing mulches and row covers
. trellising
. maintenance of equipment and tools
. weekly work planning
. mowing
. cleanup
. irrigation
. feeding and caring for animals
. rotation of animals and poultry in pastures
. poultry processing
. cooking, cleaning, homemaking
. food preservation
. flower production, harvesting, marketing

Interns work with the farmers most of the time.  Interns occasionally work alone.  We try to provide training that builds on skills already mastered, moving from fundamental work with hand tools, to more complex work involving equipment.

Compensation

this position is: stipend / non-monetary compensation

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline