One way a small farmer can control expenses is to offer internships for a period of time during the growing/harvesting season. The National Sustainable Agricultural Information Service provides a link for farmers who are seeking interns. Larry O’Toole of Growing Home Farm in Marseilles, Ill. has a noteworthy goal in seeking his intern. His mission is stated on his Web site: "to provide job training and create employment for homeless and low-income people in Chicago within the context of an organic agriculture business.”
The internship includes housing, meals and a monthly stipend for personal items. Duties include planting, maintaining and harvesting crops, and caring for the farm equipment. Educational opportunities are an added bonus to the internship because the intern will participate in the Upper Midwest Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training program. CRAFT conducts orientation workshops for farming interns and conducts monthly visits to area farms.
2 comments:
Already this is beginning to sound like a model based on slavery. All too often I have witnessed so-called social programs falling under the non-profit umbrella that are geared towards helping the homeless,substance abusers, mentally ill and low-income people to have a decent quality of life. I would be curious to know how many of the graduates of this program are able to break out of the cycle of poverty or substance abuse?
I understand what you are thinking. My thought was that here is an individual who is perhaps netting $35,000 a year. He could
offer the internship to an agriculture major attending a midwest college and probably have less training to do yet, he is willing to take a chance on an untrained worker, giving him or her an opportunity to find a vocation. Perhaps that is the optomist in me speaking. I will do more research into this program.
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