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  • From: "BarbaraJ" <jbmckillip AT mesanetworks.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Fwd: CSA worker payment
  • Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:02:16 -0700

That was very helpful, thank you for taking the time to talk about your experiences.  I have a good friend who wants to trade work for a share.  She is in good physical shape and would be an asset to me, as well as financially she isn't able to afford a share.  I'm thinking that this sort of arrangement would be nice for both of us.  We both want a clear cut plan so there are no hard feelings.  I am thinking that the four hours is acceptable to both of us. 
 
Question about college aged students as interns.  I have a young lady who is interested in living with us for a month or so during our busiest time and in trade she wants to just work and learn.  I'm really not sure what to do with that.  I didn't look for an intern, she asked me.  What do you all do with your young interns?  Do you pay a wage?  Not sure I can really afford a wage, as I'm a small farm, and I don't want to deal with worker's compensation, withholding, etc.  Is this a good idea? 
 
Barb in CO 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, December 13, 2009 1:34 PM
Subject: [Market-farming] Fwd: CSA worker payment

Having no money to hire labor, and wanting to offer a way folks could get organic even though they might not, otherwise, we offered a work share program these past two seasons.  The concept is wonderful and challenging, as well.  Don't use one if what you most want/need is the labor.  You will get much more accomplished, and more easily, reliably and consistently, if you hire and train one or two able-bodied, honest to goodness, minimum wage or piecemeal employees for your season.  Or create and provide a good internship program- that is the direction we were headed for 2010, if we hadn't lost our location (good news, maybe, on that front; I just got a call from a friend with a friend with land and a well and an interest in organic farming- please keep your fingers crossed for me).  
 
Work share programs are tremendously valuable in terms of building relationships between farmers and members and amongst work share members themselves.  As I said, it might, also, be the only way organic produce seems accessible to some.  And, as we all know, in spite of how hard farming is (or perhaps because of that), working in and with the soil, etc., is good for the soul.  Many of our work share members recognized this fact before they signed up.  Most, certainly, did by the time the season was in full swing.  For me, those are the higher benefits of offering a work share program.  
 
A word re scheduling.  I suggest being a little more demanding than you might be inclined toward- bigger blocks of time, done in consistent intervals, alongside other work share members and farmers and/or knowledgeable interns or other farm help.  You get more done in groups and you limit training/explaining time and all get a greater sense of accomplishment.  Even if you allow flexible scheduling, have a minimum time commitment of three or four hours.  Two is not enough- too much time is lost on either end of the "shift" and the volunteer isn't there long enough to get a real sense of satisfaction at seeing evidence of their valuable input.  It's discouraging to them, and that does not make for folks who want to keep coming to complete a volunteer commitment for the entire season (which is what you need for it to be worth offering a work share program). 
 
It's my observation that most folks interested in being work share members take their commitment for the season, and their performance while on the farm, more seriously if they have committed to a bigger, rather than smaller, burden.  It sounds kinda crazy, I know, but that's what I've seen here.  In 2008, most of our work share members were trading for a full share and had made a commitment to four volunteer hours a week.  This past season we went to offering only a two-person share and folks could buy or work two or three shares if they wanted more produce.  Almost all the work share members opted for the two hours weekly.  We had more work share members than in the previous season but got less done with their help.  The group, while comprised of totally wonderful people, did not get there as regularly or consistently as the members of the previous season that had made a bigger time commitment.  The four hour folks had more carefully factored it into the rest of their schedules.  The ones with the greater weekly burden made regular appearances because they had to in order to fit it in, at all, while many of the two hour folks slipped it in as it seemed convenient, thus missing some weeks, off and on, etc.  Our failure, in that regard, was not having a more formal logging system for them.  We never got around to implementing one because we were terribly busy and the previous season's work share members had spoiled us so completely- they self-monitored beyond our wildest expectations!  They were, truly, fabulous. 
 
Legalities/bookkeeping/workers comp.  I think that a work share program, as great as it can be, is not worth doing if you must burden yourselves with minimum wage equivalents, income withholding, etc,. etc., in order to be able to offer it.  We were quite careful to emphasize the volunteer nature of the agreement, the intangibles that come as part of being a work share volunteer, the reality that we'd have gotten more work out of a couple regularly scheduled minimum wage employees and that their CSA share had more value than its price, given cost in the store vs. what anybody paid for a membership outright.  This helped explain why it was not employment and why the hours worked did not pencil out to "minimum wage," etc.  We did get saddled with much higher workers compensation insurance costs per having volunteers on the farm, so beware of that cost factor, as well.
 
Lastly, our volunteer work share program entailed a refundable deposit and a signed "volunteer commitment" to hold their spot in it and to assure that they had the ability and the will to fulfill their pledge because the success of the operation depended on us having enough help . . .  It's more to keep track of, etc., but it's an incentive for them to keep their commitment, so that they can retrieve their deposit at the end of the season.  If they or we decided they were not a good fit for work share, they could apply their deposit toward purchase of their share.  A few did.  Also, a couple simply stopped coming and forfeited their deposits to pay for the produce they had received before dropping out.  Lots of ways it can go, as you can see.  I favor a higher refundable deposit, bigger blocks of time together with others knowledgeable re the bigger farm plan, etc., and good tracking of work share performance.  

I hope this is helpful insight, rather than burdensome reading.
 
Best regards to the list,
 
Doreen
Sisters of the Soil, in Southwestern Idaho


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