SARE Farm Apprenticeship

ECO’s apprenticeship program is a 3 year program funded by a SARE education and research grant.

 

2025 will be the third year of the grant, and will ideally include 3 to 5 apprentices. This apprenticeship is only available to graduates of our Beginning Farmer Training Program.

 

The goal of ECO’s apprenticeship program is to give BFTP graduates paid, management-level farmwork experiences for the course of a season. This program is meant to provide a next step for graduates who are interested in gaining farmwork experience and potentially managing or owning their own farm one day, but are not ready to transition out of their current job.

 

Trainees will also be paid to attend weekly farm team meetings, in which farm tasks are discussed and set for the coming week among ECO staff. Finally, trainees will be paid to attend an educational event of their and/or the apprenticeship cohort’s choosing.

 

Compensation is likely going to remain at $17.50 an hour. 

 

The apprenticeship will run from early March through the end of October.

 

Apprentices will meet a weekly 8 hour work requirement (likely split into two 4-hour shifts), with an additional 1 paid hour a week to attend a farm team meeting (potentially a hybrid meeting), and an additional 2-4 paid hours to attend an educational event each month. This comes to about 40 hours of paid work a month.

 

 In order to graduate from the apprenticeship, apprentices must meet 80% of all program hours, or 32 hours a month. There is potentially some flexibility in how apprentices construct their schedules, and also potential to fill specific roles on the farm (food forest manager, beekeeping apprentices, etc).