Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] was CSA worker payment: now interns

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "TxBeeFarmer" <txbeefarmer AT gmail.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] was CSA worker payment: now interns
  • Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:46:20 -0600

I was hoping interns could be considered contract labor with no withholdings from their check.  Does anyone know if there are any tax benefits?  I hear Joel Salatin (Polyface Farm) is big on interns.
 
TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
West Texas Zone 7b
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 3:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] was CSA worker payment: now interns

I had exactly the situation that Barb describes.  I wrote an educational contract -- what I would provide and  what I expected of the intern and  then what the intern could expect and what she was to bring to the table.  The person lived locally.  I paid $100 per week for 30 hours of work and gave as many vegetables as the intern desired.  She worked three months.  In addition to Rivka's comments about explaining many things, I made sure that the intern learned something new every day -- and I would often begin or end the day with a brief discussion of what would happen tomorrow or what happened today and why.  It was a great experience and extremely beneficial to our farm and the intern.  I invited her back in September to see the crops in the 8 beds that I had her seed in early August - smiles all around.   Weeding, seeding, trellising, harvesting, selling at market, some tractor work, some rototiller work, Earthway seeder, etc.  I will try to get two interns next summer -- our intern definitely paid her way with us and was a dependable, valuable member of the team.  Tom, Hillsborough, NC
On Dec 14, 2009, at 11:54 AM, Road's End Farm wrote:


On Dec 14, 2009, at 10:02 AM, BarbaraJ wrote:


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

 

The law in this area may vary from state to state. Enforcement of the law may vary from area to area within that state. Volunteers in some states may be in a sort of gray area. The value of the education she's getting really ought to count as a wage in itself; but not all states allow for this. You might try checking with any applicable organizations in your state (is there a CO equivalent to NOFA-NY (organic farmers association)? to NEWOOF (northeast internship listings)?) to see whether they have any guides out.

Aside from the legalities of the question, which I really don't want to try to advise you on except to suggest that you look cautiously into the law in your own state, you need to consider the following:

Try to make as clear as possible to the potential intern what she's getting into; especially if she has no farming experience previously.

Try to make as clear as possible also what the living situation is. Are you used to living with other people in this fashion? Is she? Who is responsible for what portions of cooking, cleaning, etc? Who is paying for her food, her shampoo, etc? Will she cheerfully eat what you usually eat, or is she used to a different diet, and if so how will you deal with this? What about use of phone lines (though these days she probably has her own cell phone); use of your computer and/or internet connection for her computer; noise/music at various hours; length of time tying up the bathroom, etc.?

What hours is she expected to work? Will these be set hours, or "about so many hours a week, but exactly which ones depend on which days it rains"? When can she count on having time off?

What is she expecting to learn? Are you going to provide instruction in tractor use, power tools, etc.? Are you expecting to open financial books to her? Will she go to market with you? to farm meetings, farm shows, etc?

Put things in writing as much as possible, to diminish possible misunderstandings.

Realize that, if she only has a month, you're going to be spending a lot of time explaining things to her, relative to the amount of useful work she gets done -- with an intern, you shouldn't figure on only explaining enough for her to do the few simplest jobs you have available at that time, as you can with a CSA worker or with hired help. To deal properly with an intern, you should be explaining everything that's going on while she's there, as well as your reasons for doing everything, and as much as you can how this fits in with what goes on the rest of the time; including pulling her off a simpler job to explain a more complicated one even if you're going to do the more complicated one entirely yourself. I generally figure that if I break even on my time versus the intern's during the first week or two we're doing well. As the season progresses, the value of the intern's time versus yours improves -- but with only a month to work with, you're not going to get as much of this factor as you would with someone staying the full season.

Such things can work out extremely well, or extremely badly (or of course somewhere inbetween). Make sure you have a clear agreement as to how to end the arrangement early if it works out badly. Talk with the intern regularly about how both of you feel it's going; sometimes issues can be ironed out easily if caught early, but fester if ignored.

If that sounds overly discouraging: let me stress again that sometimes such things do work out extremely well. But I think the chances of its working out well are improved if the situation's well thought out beforehand.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
_______________________________________________
Market-farming mailing list
Market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/market-farming



_______________________________________________
Market-farming mailing list
Market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/market-farming




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page