Good news for new farmers: Chesapeake CRAFT fields a second year of visits and classes

For the second year, a small but determined cadre of local farmers and farm managers has launched a program to help interns learn as much as possible while laboring long hours on working farms.

It’s called Chesapeake CRAFT – Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training – and more than two dozen interns, farmers and mentors got together April 13 at Attila and Shawna Agoston’s Mountain View Farm, on the 900-acre Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship north of Neersville on Harpers Ferry Road in Loudoun County, for the first of a dozen farm visit, classes and potlucks for the 2011 season.

“We all started as interns,” said Emily Cook, self-described “Jewish girl from D.C.” who today manages the Farm at Sunnyside in Washington, Va. Cook, one of the organizers of CRAFT, introduced the group to “the binder” – a leap forward in organization from last year and packed chock-full of information and guidance for farmers-to-be.

Look at the last page, Cook directed the group –lists of skills and knowledge, behaviors, and future trends and concerns for farmers.

“General skills and knowledge” – fellow organizer Pablo Elliott of the Local Food Project at Airlie admitted it is pretty comprehensive and can be overwhelming – looks like the four-year curriculum for an MS in farming: plant and soil science, animal science, ecology, meteorology, IT skills, regulatory expertise, supervisory skills, time management, basic business and bookkeeping, marketing, crop production, equipment operation, construction (especially carpentry), maintenance and repair, tool use, first aid.

And don’t forget “basic physical fitness.”

Cook started her internship in Pennsylvania with a master’s in horticulture but “I had to work on equipment operation, learn about animals, about maintenance and repair, about using tools. I wish I had had this list when I started as an intern.”

“I have tools and construction background,” said Bert Richards, who just started working for Cook at Sunnyside. “But I don’t have much in terms of farming and no experience in basic business or bookkeeping.”

Others in the group are learning to wield a sledgehammer and build deer fencing. Some scanned the list and said, “I just don’t know enough to know what to ask yet.”

Interns tend to be young, well educated, idealistic, and for the most part totally ignorant about farming. Many sign up for the growing season on a working farm to find out if that’s what they really want to do with their lives.

Ben Stowe, 26, met that description: he majored in creative writing and adult education at New York University and taught GED classes in English for immigrants in Brooklyn for three years before setting off for a farm job in Wisconsin. He’s in his second week of interning at Waterpenny Farm in Sperryville, Va.

This is his chance to spend an entire season on the farm – the Wisconsin farmer’s goal for a 400-member CSA faltered and he laid his interns off in the middle of the summer – and to find out if he has the makings of a farmer, Stowe said.

Chicago native Megan Liggett and Pennsylvanian Keith Marshall just got back from two years with the Peace Corps in Paraguay, where they worked as agri-forestry technicians. Liggett majored in organismal and population ecology and has some background in gardening. Marshall majored in philosophy and religion, clicked with rural life in Paraguay and said he hopes to use the season at Mountain View Farm to see if he wants to commit to farming as a career. “I’m doing this to see if that is what I want. I want to experience all the work, planning and managing.”

Part of Class 1, “Working on a farm,” was a visit from Alissa Harris, Harpers Ferry Chiropractic, to talk about “how to keep your body healthy for along term future in farming. Your body talks to you,” Harris said, “what is it telling you?”

Do you walk with your head hanging forward? Strengthen the muscles in the back of the next with some chin tucks.

Lower back pain – usually the result of being out of shape, particularly over the winter – and tendonitis are the most common injuries in farming, Harris said. She proceeded to analyze the posture of several of the interns.

Then there’s the common sense remedies: squat don’t bend to pick things up. Pay a little extra for lighter tools. Use knee pads (and avoid prepatellar bursitis or Milkmaid’s Knee). Carry produce in smaller boxes. Ask for help with bigger jobs. Make a raised workspace, whether a table or a vegetable bed, and avoid bending – there’s a reason field work is called “stoop labor.” Keep a water bottle with you at all times – you might not take the time to go get a drink if it’s on the other side of the field.

“We started this because we were interns and there was no course for us,” Cook said. “Assess the skills you have and the ones you don’t. Pick the ones you are most scared of – for me it was the equipment – and ask your farmer to get you working on those.”

Remember, Cook counseled, that farmer hired you because he saw you as smart and hard working. “Farming can be exhausting and stressful, and they are trying to be mutually beneficial. If you have questions, find a good time to discuss it.”

A good time is not mid-day in the sun halfway down a row of ripe chard. Maybe after dark, when farm work takes a brief breather.

Chesapeake CRAFT is modeled after other CRAFT programs in the United States, and is organized by farmers interesting in improving practical new farmer training – more than half the farmers in the country today are older than 55, and getting young people into the profession is vital to its future. The program entails networking in the region, particularly in sustainable agriculture. It aims to coordinate learning opportunities for farm apprentices, interns and workers through a combination of farm visits, classes and potlucks. Member farms are in Virginia and Maryland, are within a two hour drive of Washington, D.C. and showcase successful ecological approaches to agriculture.

The rest of the agenda for the summer of 2011 includes visits to The Farm at Sunnyside, Washington, Va.; Holterholms Farm, Jefferson, Md.; One Straw Farm, White Hall, Md. (Class 2: Soil fertility management); Butler’s Orchard, Germantown, Md.; Red Wiggler Community Farm, Germantown, Md. (Class 3: Pest control); Local food Conference at the Airlie Foundation Warrenton, Va.; Black Ankle Vineyard, Mt. Airy, Md.; Waterpenny Farm and Mt. Vernon Farm, Sperryville, Va.; Stoneybrook Farm, Hillsboro, Va. (Class 4: Next steps); and Moutoux Orchard, Purcellville, Va.

Program Coordinators are Shawna and Attila Agoston, Mountain View Farm, Va.; Emily Cook, The Farm at Sunnyside, Washington, Va.; Pablo Elliott, The Local Food Project at Airlie, Warrenton, Va.; and Mike Snow, Accokeek, Md.

For more information or to get involved (as an intern or a farmer), e-mail Mike Snow at Chesapeake.craft@gmail.com.