Farming Apprenticeships: Pitchfork Pastoralism

Imagine an afternoon in mid-June sprinkled with late-arriving spring rains. Graduation rituals are being held all over the country, including here, at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The Environmental Studies program ceremony is held outside, and everyone’s too jubilant and excited to mind a few light showers. As the proceedings wind to a close and the distribution of diplomas is about to begin, the program head announces that graduates will be asked to state their post-graduation plans into the microphone as they cross the stage. In unison, the few dozen black-robed young adults in the audience gulp.

I quickly maneuver my way to the back of the line to give myself time to think. My immediate plans after graduation are to embark on a six-month apprenticeship on an organic farm. This is surely not what the esteemed administrators of my program want to hear about. I can almost hear my parents’ doubts about my unconventional career launch ringing in my ears. Why couldn’t I have a promising job as a wind power engineer or parks manager lined up? For the first time, I question my decision to postpone my entrance into the “real world” by following my passion for food and gardening to one of the lowest-paying professions in the world.

Luckily, unbeknownst to me, many of my colleagues had the same idea about their futures. After four or five graduates made their announcements (“Get a job”; “Live I my parents’ basement”; “Save the world”), somebody said something about going to work on a farm. He said it quietly, into his collar, but I heard it. A few others also made this admission. As I looked out into the audience, nobody was gasping with horror, fainting or weeping – just the typical “I’m so proud” sniffles.

By the time my turn finally came around, I hiked the stairs confidently, accepted the coveted slip of paper, and faced the audience. “Work on an organic farm,” I said, “Write. Save the world.” I could hear my father wincing, but I didn’t care. Suddenly, I was part of a movement.

The University of Oregon, apparently, is not the only postsecondary institution pumping out graduates who refuse to let a little higher education get in between themselves at a fulfilling back-to-the-land lifestyle. According to the New York Times, more and more students are spending their summers on farms, with  the goal of either being farmers or otherwise participating in organic food production. Those without immediate connections to the farming community – like me six months ago – can find positions relatively easily using online databases. One site has over 1500 entry-level, mostly unpaid farm work positions listed, and claimed to have nearly as many applicants in 2009 (for a complete list of farm internship databases, see the end of this post). If trends continue, the number of people wanting to learn about organic practices at the ground level will soon outpace the number of farms who are able to accommodate them.

The New York Times’ reporter on this story is downright cynical about the whole phenomena. “During a recession,” she says, “a summer on the farm provides respite from grim job hunts and as much bohemian cachet as backpacking through Europe.” Sure, organic food is extremely trendy, and in this job market, most are lucky to find any work at all. Still, I think the fact that all of these educated, idealistic people are choosing to throw their energy and bright-eyed enthusiasm into farming – instead of, say, construction work – speaks less of our need for hipster credibility and more toward a fundamental change that is taking place in our society.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that any of these newly converted farmers have any idea what they’re getting into. Many seem to hold farming in some golden light, summoning up clichés of the value of working with your hands and getting in touch with nature. This attitude has deep cultural roots. Ever since the invention of agriculture – and its evil stepchild, civilization – agrarian lifestyles have been painted as the antidote to the moral corruption brought about by technology and urbanization. In endless lyrical passages about the beautifully simplistic lives of rural shepherds, the ancient Greek poet Virgil fantasized about life in the countryside. His characters spent a lot of time singing praises to nature and gathering wildflowers in May.

Of course, if Virgil had taken the time for a saunter into the countryside, he would have found an abundance of sheep but a severe shortage of the innocence and merriment he portrayed in his writing. Like modern people in urban and rural contexts, those blessed folk would have likely been struggling for survival on too little land under the burden of too many taxes, all the while quarreling with their spouses, neglecting their sheep and bumming food off their neighbors. They were human, after all, just as sheep herders are today, no less or more morally pure than those who make a career out of car repair or accounting.

Still, the idea that the pastoral lifestyle elevates standards for human interactions has stuck now for millennia, with hundreds more poets and artists adding to the grand illusion. Modern-day writers make the whole situation worse by proposing a “return” to our agrarian roots as an antidote to the confusion and complication of modern society. If only we could all live off the land, in harmony with mother nature, all our problems would be solved – or so the rhetoric goes. Enter the wave of agricultural internships, apprenticeships and volunteer programs.

The basic idea is this: Farm volunteers can work just a couple of days or up to a full season. An internship implies at least part of a season’s commitment, while apprenticeships can last even longer. Room (ranging from a tent pitched in the fields to private cabins) and board (meals with the family or free access to farm produce) is almost always provided. Apprentices sometimes receive pay – one article I read described a farm that provided “a salary of a $1000/month, room, board, a $50/month bonus for working until the end of the season, $30 extra for every farmers market they attend, and a performance bonus of up to $2000”. That right there is enough to activate the salivary glands of any liberal-arts graduate who has spent weeks unsuccessfully trolling Craigslist for work. (The farm ended the program after being sued for back wages – the hazy legislation around agricultural apprenticeships is one of the challenges its participants must deal with.) What kind of work is involved? Well, some farmers consider inexperienced but enthusiastic volunteers to be an easily exploitable source of free labor. Others expect a little self-direction and leave the worker to find his or her own work around the farm. Some apprenticeships, like mine, can include tasks like food preservation or even community outreach to build support for local foods. Although the words can often mean different things, for convenience’s sake, I’ll refer to volunteer, internship and apprenticeship program as “apprenticeships” here.

Other than a lack of standardization (and, let’s face it, standardizing things usually ends up making them boring and predictable) and sometimes bloated expectations on behalf of the apprentices, I believe apprenticeships are one of the most effective tools we have in revitalizing farming, its role in the economy, and people’s approach to food. The current generation of farmers is aging – in twenty years or so, they won’t be able to produce food for us anymore. Meanwhile, we import most of what we consume anyway, and our agricultural land is being gobbled up by subdivisions and freeways. But the realities of peak oil, climate change and economic collapse are making it abundantly clear that this is not the direction we want to be heading. We can’t all be farmers, but we can certainly do a better job of feeding ourselves, stop flooding the global market with agricultural surpluses, and clean up the planet a bit by transitioning to organic practices. A key step in this transition is training the new farmers. While traditional agricultural colleges are stuck in the old paradigm of industrial methods and bigger is better, organic farmers know better. When they open their farms up to apprenticeships, they have the opportunity to share their knowledge with clueless city kids in an environment that is unmatched in the world of public education. With the low student-to-instructor ratio (usually one or two apprentices per family farm), absence of tests, and abundance of real-world experience, learning in an apprenticeship is not simply an end result but a process that allows for personal as well as "professional" growth.

Granted, apprenticeships won’t work for every farmer or idealistic, world-saving graduate. As for my own experience in the trenches of hands-on agricultural learning, well, it was enlightening. Do I now aspire to possess my own ten acres, a cow and a pile of debt? Will the dirt ever come out from under my fingernails?

Stay tuned for next time.

In the meantime, you know you want to abandon whatever it is you’re doing to grow some vegetables, so check out the following sites:

Field Guide for Beginning Farmers  - This is a great place to start; it gives an overview of farming apprenticeships available in North America and what to expect.

Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms

SOIL (Stewards Of Irreplaceable Land) Apprenticeships (Canada)

United States Department of Agriculture - Sustainable Agriculture Internships/Apprenticeships database (North America)

Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association - Farm Apprenticeships (Maine, USA)

The Rodale Institute Classifieds (USA)

Northeast Organic Farming Association (Northeast USA)

Oh, and I now have a semi-professional blogging gig with Conducive Magazine. Read my posts here (and if you ever come across an ad on the site, by all means, click the heck out of that thing).

Class of 2009: The Earth is Hiring

The author Paul Hawken gave a speech at the University of Portland’s graduation ceremony last month, which beautifully sums up my thoughts on finishing my bachelor's in what some are calling the “worst year ever to graduate.” I highly recommend reading the entire thing, but here are the parts that really struck me (emphasis mine):

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.
...

This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

Before I read this speech, I knew I wasn’t going to take the typical career trajectory that most college graduates shoot for, even if they don’t make it. I just can’t see myself getting much joy out of – or helping many other people by – finding a 9-5 job in something I’m marginally interested in, going into debt buying a house and starting a family, and doing pretty much the same thing for the rest of my life. I know this is a route many people find great satisfaction in, but I think I’ve always known it’s not me, even if I temporarily allowed myself to believe, like most college students, that my degree would privilege me to this kind of future. The American Dream. Take it or leave it.
But now it seems that even if I’d wanted to do all that, this status quo – working purely for personal gain, keeping to our private family groups, expecting the next generation to fix the problems we create along the way – is no longer what we can expect maintain as a species. I think this is what Hawken is really saying, but in a nicer way: Wake up and smell the coffee, kids. The times, they really are a-changin’ now (with apologies to Bob Dylan).

Not too long ago, after returning from India and realizing the long stretch of time (yes, six months can seem like an eternity) before graduation, and waking up to hear news of the economy’s death throes every morning, it was a little tough to actually get out of bed and go to class. I actually felt sorry for myself: What, oh what, will I do with my seemingly useless journalism degree? How will I ever find a job and not disappoint my family and everyone who has sacrificed to put me through college?
Luckily, in the intervening time, I’ve gained a little perspective. That is, things are never as bad as the media would like you to believe – and a journalism student of all people should know this. As Hawken says, “We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant.” No kidding. In fact the situation’s gotten so bad, the best and brightest graduates this year appear to be steering away from Wall Street and financial jobs, applying their efforts toward endeavors that actually generate something for society other than cash – becoming doctors, scientists, and researchers, people who can bail us out of the jam we’re currently in. That was according to a New York Times article I read but can’t seem to find now.
It’s almost ironic: for decades, we’ve had a brain drain, similar to what countries like India are going through. There, smart kids succeed by going to study engineering and medicine at Western schools, then they never come home to apply those skills where they’re needed the most. In this country, those who are passionate about social justice, the environment and helping the needy go almost by default to the “developing” world. Every time I tell somebody about what I care about these days, they suggest I join the Peace Corps. As if there’s no poverty or need in this country. Sunita Rao, my India mentor, is on a Fulbright visit to the US, and she observes what she calls a “poverty of hope” – a problem just as severe as her country’s financial burden.
Here are a few facts I unearthed while writing my thesis: The percentage of farmers under 35 dropped from 15% in 1954 to 7.8% in 1997. Today, less than 1% of Americans work as farmers, a number so insignificant that the US Census threw out farming as a distinct employment category. In 2002, 77% of farm workers surveyed were foreign-born, and 53% lacked authorization to work in the U.S. Farm family members accounted for 69% of farm labor in 1998, but the average age of farm owners was 54.3, indicating that the next generation of family farmers is quite smaller than the one currently at retirement age.
So here we have two sides of the same problem: Too many people who want to participate in the second-tier level of the economy, activities like finance that are not directly related to survivability, and too few people focused on providing the very basics like food. Although we rank ourselves superior to the “third world,” our society is, in the words of S. S. Wilson, “overdeveloped.” Which way to turn?

A couple of months ago, I quit sending applications and resumes to floundering newspapers in my area, stopped gazing hopelessly at job listings (and the cost of rent) in cities like Portland and Seattle. I started looking into doing things that, as my father woefully points out every time I speak to him, I could have done without a college degree. And I started getting very, very excited. Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF), which connects people with internships and volunteer positions with farms around the world, is a wonderful program, as is its Canadian equivalent, SOIL Apprenticeships. After contacting several sites, I found one that fit my interests up on Vancouver Island, BC. I start later this month. Although I wish I had found a way to do this in my own country, have no doubt that I will return triumphant, a practical education under my belt, pitchfork in hand. And I have to say, Dad, that I’m not sure I could have done this without my liberal arts degree: Nothing else could have made me this idealistic. Or maybe it was just that darn trip to India. Either way, I’m excited and hopeful about the future. This could be the best year ever to graduate.

The digital age has arrived: A eulogy for broadcast

Television is dead. Long live television!

As of this morning, my TV doesn’t work anymore. I didn’t do anything to provoke this, and it’s not as if I wasn’t warned. The FCC set this date months ago for the final tradition to 100% digital broadcasting, and I, as usual, am behind the curve.
Considering that my rabbit ears were on their last legs, delivering a snowy and erratic signal to my screen, and that I only actually employed them once a week for Sunday night Desperate Housewives, this doesn’t have a huge impact on my life. My roommate and I will continue to watch previous seasons of Lost online and The L Word on DVD. Instead of investing $70 for the converter box that will allow us to receive the new digital signals, I’ll spend a few bucks on one of those cool cables that lets you put your computer screen on the television screen. When Sunday nights roll around, the wireless connection had better not go out.
But there are qualities about watching TV the old-fashioned way I’ll miss, and it’s not just the fun of trying to squint out what the ever-devious Housewives are up to in that suburban blizzard of static. The first thing is the inflexibility of it. DH is a big deal in my group of friends, and on Sunday evenings, there’s usually about eight of us squeezed into my living room. We tease and nag each other before turning on the TV at 9 to watch the same thing happening among older and more beautiful people on screen. How will I get everyone to shut up at 8:59 if they know we can now actually roll the show whenever we want? Come to think of it, how will I get them there in the first place? It won’t be too long until we’re all calling each other saying “You know, I just have too much homework, how does Monday night work for you?” Monday turns into Tuesday, then Wednesday, and then another week goes by without this important social event.
Another thing I like about broadcast television is ads. Yes, I usually mute them, but I live in a happy bubble of forward-thinking, largely unmaterialistic (mostly because we’re poor) people. How will I be reminded that people actually buy – no, wrap their entire lives around having – crap made by Lexus and Adidas if the television isn’t there to remind me that I should be too? I might grow large-headed without that constant sense of brand inadequacy.
So, TV, it’s sad to see you turned into no more than a very bulky laptop screen. Those rabbit ears are cute, but they’ll be out by the dumpster as soon as one of us gets around to getting rid of them, and some slightly less useless item will take their place on top of the stereo speaker. Perhaps my leftover New Year’s party hat or a kitchen appliance that I don’t have room for on the counter. I have no use for digital signals. Sorry, FCC, you may just have to change your name to Federal Internet Commission.