A Week In The Life of a Non-Profit Training Farm
Farms are amazing, productive, fast-moving places! All at once, they are:
geologic sites with specific legacies from the previous thousand years;
biological units with crazy dances between things living in the soil, on top of the soil, and in the air and water all around;
meteorological and climatological landscapes over which farmers have no control;
and human systems that rely on individual and collective physical energy, mental health, complex planning, clear communication and good humor.
In other words, every week is an adventure on a farm, we just add a few aspects of running a non-profit organization for good measure. It’s a life we love and think we manage well, but we realize much of it is hidden from your view. So, here’s a quick overview of the past week.
Monday morning began with the arrival of Janie, from the Greenacres Farm in Cincinnati. That farm is one program of a handful, run by an endowment funded foundation. Their beginning farmer training program has goals similar to ours (yay! This country needs lots more new farmers!), but is run quite differently and is only in its third year of operation. Janie came to spend a few days with us to see how and why we do the things we do.
Fifteen minutes after she got to the OFS, she joined students in the classroom for their session on bookkeeping. One student had come down with the wicked cold that’s going around, so there was a quick technological shuffle to make sure we could record the class for them to review later.
After class, staff, students, and Janie all walked the Farm for the weekly Field Walk. A farmer’s version of grand rounds, everyone evaluates each bed of the Farm…what is in it, does it look healthy, how has it changed since last week, what needs to happen in it this week, is it ready for harvest, how much can be harvested, to which outlet should that harvest go, what’s going in next, and who will be responsible for what? Students take turns leading these walks each week, as the ability to describe what’s happening on a farm is a key component of their future success.
From the walk, everyone goes to the big white board in the classroom where more definition is added to the plan…of all the tasks identified in the Field Walk, who does what on which day? What equipment will need to be coordinated as multiple people take on different tasks? Do we have enough fuel? Is all the equipment in working order? Do we have the tasks lined up in the right sequence?
By Monday afternoon, everyone has a work plan and off they go to tend to them. Some doing solo tasks, others forming teams. On Tuesday, the day starts with harvest. Nothing is planted at the Farm without thoughts about where it will end up, so harvest days are “run” by the student supervising wash pack for the week. They gather up orders for the Farm Stand, direct-to-retail, and other customers, establish totals to be harvested as well as subtotals that will direct how produce is packed. They send the team out to gather, and then make sure it’s all washed and quickly stored in the cooler for freshness. I bet you haven’t spent much time thinking about how many times your food is handled from seed to plate, but our students can give you some hints.
Tuesday afternoon, volunteers arrived to help with yet another step in construction of our new high tunnel! Their help was so important, as that tunnel was purchased with a reimbursement grant, meaning we don’t get reimbursed until it is complete and inspected. The faster we finish it, the sooner that money goes back into our cash flow - a topic we call students’ attention to all the time (creating a budget is one thing, managing a cash flow for a farm is quite another).
As the volunteers worked, students and staff prepped for the chicken harvest that would happen the following day, but they also moved irrigation lines, started on a round of transplanting, and perpetuated the ongoing work of weeding.
Wednesday morning was completely taken over by the chicken harvest. Students, staff, and even a couple of alumni all reviewed the process…gather birds in small batches, dispatch, de-feather, eviscerate, and chill. Within 5 hours they had processed over 175 birds, but more than that, they had brought an important learning cycle to completion.
They remembered all of the excitement of getting the chicks in the mail, the daily challenges of feeding, watering, and keeping them safe, the work of moving chicken tractors to distribute the fertility of the birds as they helped with pest and weed management in our fields, and the intense morning of transforming the birds from feathered field workers to healthy and nutritious food for our community’s plates. Next week, they’ll look at the financial implications of each of those steps.
Adam, our hospitality manager, made lunch for the students at the wood fired oven. That in itself was a task of prepping everything, timing it for the readiness of the students, and awkwardly answering questions in the middle of it all from a reporter who was working on an article about our new Farm Stay program. It’s important to share our story with the community, so we’ll take such awkwardness just about any time.
Right after lunch, the Pop Up Farm Stand took center stage. After a slow start in the spring, the community seems to have “found us” again, which is always a good sign for the non-profit as well as for the students who are eager to interact with all of you!
Adam prepared take-away meals for our new Friends of the Farm members, and then as a final element of the day, we hosted Perry Lovelace up at the Feed & Seed for a “Dishing Up The Dirt” conversation around WATER. We take it so for granted, and yet without abundant, clean water, there is no food. Think about that.
On Friday, volunteer Farm Stewards joined me up at Keystone Farm & Forest Preserve. We gather every Friday morning from 9-11am. This week, we concentrated on mowing and string trimming an area that will soon become a demonstration plot for cover crops. Kirsten works with a different group of volunteer Farm Hands at the Maxwelton site, typically on Tuesdays, but more frequently these days as we work to get the Farm looking super spiffy for the upcoming Outstanding in the Field dinner! It’s not a fundraiser for us, but has great potential to increase our visibility outside of our island boundaries - and program visibility is so important when it comes to recruiting new students.
And of course, while volunteers were working, so were staff and students. So many transplants to be put into the soil, so much irrigation to be strategically moved around to keep everything healthy, so much cultivation to keep weeds at bay.
Saturday was a bit quieter without the broiler chickens to care for, but still, the student in the Farm Manager role this week was on site, responsible for feeding and watering the pigs and sheep, rolling up the sides of tunnels to keep plants from overheating, irrigating things that still needed a drink, and in general keeping an eye on the place.
You might think that Sunday brings a welcome chance to breathe, reflect, and plan…and it does BUT, someone also will be loading up produce, tables, table cloths, a cash box, and a canopy to go to the Sunday Tilth Market. Will we see you there? We hope so, because seeing your smiling faces as you fill bags with OFS produce gives us the boost we need to start all over again tomorrow.. with classes, a Field Walk, and all the other things that make training at the Organic Farm School so deeply meaningful, effective, and inspiring.
I’m absolutely sure even I didn’t see everything that happened at the Farm this week. Jeff and his team work so hard to keep all of the pieces moving forward in ways that a non-farmer simply cannot imagine or track. But I think you get the gist…community scaled farming is important, and it’s a LOT. Our hope is that we all take just a minute or two each day to think about how farmers across the country do their own version of this dance to keep us all healthy and fed.