Farming on a small farm requires significant labor to produce the food people enjoy. 

Farms today struggle to adequately staff their farms, often using a combination of family members, hourly workers, visiting workers from other countries or engage in apprenticeship programs to fill their labor needs, according to representatives with Asheville’s Organic Growers School. In 2015, the agency conducted a “Barriers to Farming” survey and concluded that labor was a significant barrier to farm success.

“One of the biggest challenges farm owners and managers face is finding and keeping the same labor force year after year,” according to one of the farmer presenters, Danielle Hutchinson, of Beacon Village Farm. “Farm work is challenging both physically and mentally, it is unpredictable and ever changing. Farming is not for the faint of heart and finding labor who is willing to stick with it day in and day out, year after year is always challenging. We discovered that creating a sustainable work environment increased the retention rate of our crew.”  

Beacon Village Farm grows 50 acres of Certified Organic produce and sells into the wholesale market in the Southeast. This year, they are also growing 7 acres of hemp.

Farmers are often balancing production demands, seasonality of work, ebbs and flows of product, natural disasters wiping out crops, especially this year. Learning which labor structures best fit one’s farm operation and how to train and educate farm employees and apprentices is critical to success, agency representatives said.

“When we began Beacon Village Farm, we made very specific labor decisions based on previous farm labor experiences,” Hutchinson said. “Even though we believe in educational experiences and learning through hands on work, we knew we needed to hire experienced and skilled labor. We understood what was necessary to grow, harvest and process our crops and we hired contract labor based on those specific needs.”

Organic Growers School’s upcoming four-hour workshop — which will take place from 4 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21 at the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy Incubator Farm, 180 Mag Sluder Road, Alexander, North Carolina — will showcase how to structure labor on a small farm through the eyes of established regional farmers. This workshop is for those who are already farming or who are just starting out to understand systems and structure of on-farm labor.

Legal and financial considerations will be highlighted and discussed to better understand which labor structure best fits your farming model.

Vanessa Campbell, of Full Sun Farm and one of the farmer presenters for the workshop, has hosted apprentices on her farm for 20 years. She will present and share her expertise with other farmers at this four-hour workshop, and participants who attend will have a chance to delve into how to structure labor on their own farm for increased success and education.

Participants will:

• Learn about different ways to structure labor on farms, including apprenticeship, paid hourly workers, visiting farm workers and volunteers.

• Learn how to incorporate education on the farm.

• Understand legal considerations for a farm’s labor structure.

• Be aware of equity issues with on-farm labor.

• Hear about labor from experienced farmers running successful farms in western North Carolina.

Those interested in learning more may visit organicgrowersschool.org/farmers/managing-farm-labor.

– Submitted by Nicole DelCogliano