Apprenticeships
The apprentices we spoke with all found their apprenticeships through existing services like ATTRA (the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service), WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), idealist.org, or through word of mouth (e..g a friend of a friend).
From the producer perspective, P12 felt that “an intern has a certain idea of what they want or what they need, what are they interning for,” and this reflected the sentiments of our apprentices exactly. For example, A4 was interested in bringing a farm into a closed cycle with a focus on seed saving and having animals like goats and wanted to pursue these areas more during her next apprenticeship.
Some of the apprentices we spoke with, like A2 and A4, had great experiences that lived up to their ideas of what they wanted and needed and met, if not surpassed, their expectations.
On the other hand, others, like A1, mentioned that “the description [of the farm] was incredible, though it just really didn't live up to the name." A3 also mentioned how she, along with other interns, struggled while working at one farm because “everything was in [the farmer’s] head.” “He didn’t write anything down,” she said, “so there was no plan that we could all work towards, it was very disorganized.” She continued on to describe how one apprentice really felt like she had no time to learn anything while working on that farm because the producer “wasn’t open to people exploring or taking time for their own projects.”
Similarly, producers had expectations of apprentices that the apprentices sometimes did not fulfill. For example, P7 said that he had to deal with “issues about focus, efficiency, stamina, and, for lack of a better word, intensity” regarding his apprentices. He found his interns mainly by word of mouth, but going forward he said that he wanted to “cast a wider net” to find “people with clearer motivations and more experience.”
Overall, the process of matching the right apprentice with the right farm/producer(s) and vice versa requires parties on both ends to make decisions based on the often limited information that these existing services like ATTRA, WWOOF, and idealist.org provide.
From the producer perspective, P12 felt that “an intern has a certain idea of what they want or what they need, what are they interning for,” and this reflected the sentiments of our apprentices exactly. For example, A4 was interested in bringing a farm into a closed cycle with a focus on seed saving and having animals like goats and wanted to pursue these areas more during her next apprenticeship.
Some of the apprentices we spoke with, like A2 and A4, had great experiences that lived up to their ideas of what they wanted and needed and met, if not surpassed, their expectations.
On the other hand, others, like A1, mentioned that “the description [of the farm] was incredible, though it just really didn't live up to the name." A3 also mentioned how she, along with other interns, struggled while working at one farm because “everything was in [the farmer’s] head.” “He didn’t write anything down,” she said, “so there was no plan that we could all work towards, it was very disorganized.” She continued on to describe how one apprentice really felt like she had no time to learn anything while working on that farm because the producer “wasn’t open to people exploring or taking time for their own projects.”
Similarly, producers had expectations of apprentices that the apprentices sometimes did not fulfill. For example, P7 said that he had to deal with “issues about focus, efficiency, stamina, and, for lack of a better word, intensity” regarding his apprentices. He found his interns mainly by word of mouth, but going forward he said that he wanted to “cast a wider net” to find “people with clearer motivations and more experience.”
Overall, the process of matching the right apprentice with the right farm/producer(s) and vice versa requires parties on both ends to make decisions based on the often limited information that these existing services like ATTRA, WWOOF, and idealist.org provide.