Company description

The Green Earth Institute is a nonprofit organization established in 2002 to promote nutritional health and environmental sustainability. Using our organic farm as a demonstration and learning center, we grow healthful vegetables in an earth-friendly way and educate about nature, nutrition, and caring for the earth.

On our 60 acre farm located in south Naperville, Illinois, a suburb 35 miles west of downtown Chicago, we grow over 40 crops of nutritious, delicious organic vegetables, and sell them through our community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. For children we offer gardening and nature appreciation programs, and for adults we offer information and instruction about nutrition and environmentally sustainable practices for home, yard, and garden.

Internship description

The Green Earth Institute CSA is committed to training the next generation of farmers and leaders in sustainable agriculture.  We believe that the only way to really learn how to manage a farm is by helping to manage a farm.  Our internship is designed to give candidates a hands-on experience working in all facets of running a farm whether it’s weeding a bed of carrots, driving a tractor, watering a greenhouse, or managing a harvest.  Farming requires lots of different skills and know-how that would be impossible to learn from books and workshops alone.  Our Internship provides a full-season opportunity on a working farm to explore the possibilities of a career in farming.
     
At its core, the program is designed to trade the Intern's work for knowledge from the farm and farmer. This is a VERY hands-on educational experience. The Intern is expected to provide the farm with very valuable labor in exchange for knowledge that only a working farm can provide. The workload will be very diverse although after weeding onions for 3 hours you may not think so! Days may include a few hours of seeding in the greenhouse, spreading cover crop seeds, watering seedlings, changing filters on the tractor, weeding the carrots before you leave for the day. Some days the workload will be very diverse while others might be taken up by 1 or 2 big jobs like planting tomatoes, trellising peas, or harvesting melons. The program is designed to give the Interns many more tasks than just “grunt work” but a lot of farming IS field work and candidates (as well as the Farm Manager and all CSA staff) should be prepared for such labor. You are encouraged to show up in the spring in good shape and should be able to lift 50 pounds without much difficulty.
       
Expectations:
Interns are expected to:

• Bring a spirit of dedication and enthusiasm to the job
• Be on time, ready to work with appropriate attire
• Be in good physical condition
• Be ready to work outside in all kinds of weather (and be dressed accordingly)
• Be willing to commit to working on the farm for a full season
• Take full advantage of a working and learning experience on the farm!  Make observations, ask questions, take notes, enjoy the subtle changes in the seasons, have fun working with the crew, eat a lot of fresh produce, and sleep well knowing you put in an honest days’ work!

Compensation

this position is: stipend / non-monetary compensation

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline