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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] College Grads Flock to Farms
  • Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:57:45 -0600


College Grads Flock to Farms
Maine's organic growers attract more than 200 applicants to work and learn
this season.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=260485&ac=PHbiz
by Beth Quimby
Published on Friday, June 5, 2009 by the Portland Press Herald (Maine)

ALFRED - Just three days into her summer apprenticeship at Wolf Pine Farm,
Elizabeth Hartsig, 27, appeared to be adjusting quickly to her first
experience as an organic farmhand, despite a sunburn.

Hartsig, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs and has a master's degree in
creative writing from Washington University in St. Louis, eagerly
demonstrated what to do about the cutworms that have been showing up in the
Swiss chard.

"You pick them up and rip them in half," she said.

Pest management is just one of the lessons Hartsig has learned since
leaving a teaching job in Atlanta to spend the summer at the 50-acre farm
owned by Amy Sprague and her husband, Tom Harms.

Hartsig must work the fields, tend to 80 chickens and help with the
couple's 5-year-old and 3-year-old daughters.

Water must be hand-pumped and warmed via a solar panel, and wood for the
stove must be split and stacked.

In exchange, Hartsig gets to live rent-free in an off-the-grid cabin with
the other two apprentices. She gets four free meals a week, all of the
farm's vegetables she can eat, a week's vacation and $700 a month.

Hartsig said she couldn't be happier.

"It is an incredibly beautiful place. I am very pleased to be here," she
said.

Hartsig is one of hundreds of people spending the growing season at one of
Maine's organic farms.

The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, which links
apprentices with farmers, has been flooded with applications, which
normally run about 70 a year. This year, 230 people applied for positions
at the 85 farms that participate.

Organic farmers around southern Maine said they have seen a big increase in
inquiries about farming positions this year, including people who travel
the world, stopping off to work for a couple of weeks through the World
Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms network, known as WWOOF.

Rachel Seemar, co-owner with Bethanny Peters of the Wildroot Farm in
Kennebunk, said this year's apprentice heard about their horse-powered farm
by word of mouth while hiking around Puerto Rico last winter.

Now she is happily residing in the apprentice's quarters - a tent on a
raised platform - and learning how to drive workhorses for a $300 monthly
stipend.

How much the recession and dreary job market play into the surge of
interest is unclear. But for Andrew Marshall, educational programs
coordinator at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, the
increase in apprenticeship applications reflects an explosion of interest
in locally grown food and sustainable agriculture.

The fact that Maine's organic farming association is one of the country's
oldest and one of only a few with an organized and staffed apprentice
program might be responsible as well.

The apprentices tend to be educated, single adults in their 20s or 30s who
have read all of the requisite books, such as Michael Pollan's "The
Omnivore's Dilemma" or Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,"
but have little or no hands-on knowledge of food production.

"Frankly, most of the people who are interested don't have much experience
with agriculture or even rural living," Marshall said.

Joey Listro, 22, is just a few college credits shy of graduating from the
University of Southern Maine. He said his parents back in Connecticut were
surprised when he announced his plan to spend his summer working at
Rippling Waters Organic Farm in Standish.

"My parents were like, 'Wait a second, you are going to be a farmer? What
were those four years of college education for?' " he said.

Organic farmers who take on apprentices rely heavily on them as a source of
labor, and also take their responsibilities as teachers seriously.

Seth Kroeck of Crystal Spring Community Farm in Brunswick hands out
notebooks with readings on agriculture to the four apprentices he takes on
each year to help raise 125 lambs and 11 acres of vegetables for 225
customers who have bought shares of the harvest.

The apprentices have the choice of an apartment with all the amenities or a
1963 camper for their living quarters. They earn $800 a month and a small
meal stipend.

"We pay at the top of the scale, but we are very selective," Kroeck said.

This year, the Crystal Spring group includes students or recent graduates
from Brown University, St. Lawrence University, the University of New
Hampshire and Prescott College.

Kroeck said that with all of that education, the level of discussion is
high, which is important to him.

"Because we spend 60 hours a week together," he said.

Sprague, who got her own start in farming as an apprentice, said she has
never had any of her helpers drop out, despite the long hours and hard
work.

Robin Wiesner, 33, is a Brown graduate who majored in geology. She started
her apprenticeship at Wolf Pine Farm on April 1 and said she quickly
discovered why people don't leave.

The farm life is intensely satisfying, she said.

Although this is her first experience living outside a city, Wiesner said
she relishes the dark and quiet at night. And she discovered that she had a
real talent behind the wheel of a tractor.

"I'm in love with this place and this family," she said.




  • [Livingontheland] College Grads Flock to Farms, Tradingpost, 06/06/2009

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