Bio-dynamic Farm Crew Internships in CA

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Bio-Dynamic Farm Crew Internships at Live Power Community Farm in Covelo, California – 2020

Bio-dynamic farm crew internships now open at Live Power Community Farm in the epic Round Valley, Northern California! Stipend, meals, housing, WIFI, experiential education provided. Join 3 skilled crew members, 2 farmers, numerous volunteers, animals and livestock on this unique, legendary, biodynamic farm. Fun fact! Live Power is one of the first community supported agriculture farms in California, started in 1988.  Come seize the opportunity to work and learn on an entirely self -supporting family/small community scale biodynamic farm operated with “Live Power”: draft horse tillage. Crew participates full time, with mentoring, in intensive vegetable production for 100 members, school children class visits, livestock and forage raising for food and land and fertility management, and overall farm care maintenance and operation. Crew will participate and be mentored in:

1. All aspects of the vegetable garden. 2. Biodynamic field practices. 3. Feeding and caring for livestock. 4. General farm maintenance. 5. Participation in school class visits. 6. General farm planning and management. Full day work schedule with ample meal times and afternoon break in hot weather. 5 1/2 days a week.

Skills Required: Good communication skills, a grateful and respectful attitude and willingness to receive and practice technique directions specific to this horse powered CSA farm.
Skills Desired: We prefer to work with people who have at least one season of farming experience and who are committed to pursuing a career in agriculture. Knowledge of, or interest in, Biodynamic agriculture is helpful.

Bio-dynamic farm crew Internships Start: As soon as possible
Bio-dynamic farm crew Internships End: November 25, 2020
Number of Internships Available: 2
Application Deadline: As soon as possible
Minimum Length of Stay: 3 months

To apply for Bio-dynamic farm crew internships Please email or call Live Power community farm and mention your name, age, experience farming, available start and end date, email and phone number. Please send your resume for the position. After this juncture, we will be in touch to send an Internship/crew application. Our phone number is 707-983-8196 and email is livepower@livepower.org

Live Power Community Farm, located in the heart of Northern California, is a unique, legendary, biodynamic, horse powered farm. Live Power is one the first community supported agriculture farms in California, started in 1988. In a pristine environment, Live Power land is secured in a specialized agriculture land agreement that dedicates the 50 acres permanently to Biodynamic farming. A crew member receives gardening, animal husbandry and ecologically sustainability skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.  This experiential education is imparted through seasoned biodynamic farmers, Gloria and Stephan Decater. This work learning opportunity includes a monthly stipend. Crew receives an incredible diversity of healthy foods from the garden, as well as all local, organic staples. Crew members receive clean, newly built boarding with 3 like-minded apprentices in their 20’s and 30’s, composting toilet, solar powered shower, kitchen, WIFI room, washer, clean water from the aquifer. Live Power has an extensive community of CSA members who markedly built and support the culture and infrastructure of this place. At the end of a long meaningful work day, jump in the gorgeous Eel River only minutes down the road.

        Live Power’s commitment is to Biodynamic agriculture and a whole farm organism which attempts to generate all of its needs-animal feed, fertility, tillage and mechanical power- out of its own organism. This is unique in today’s largely fossil, energy dependent agriculture model. This is healthier for the climate, the earth and all living beings than modern input/output agriculture. As people are a very important part of the farm organism, we attempt to keep the farm open and in support of people re-entering the Garden and through their own direct experience developing the love and skill and strength to care for it. We believe that besides transforming farming practices, we also need to transform economic practices. We believe economics needs to move towards associative and co-operative economics. This includes social relationships where the bottom line is the good of all the players as we too often experience in market capitalism. This requires developing concern for others, self-discipline, and recognition that everything in the farm is giving to and serving others.

          The diversified garden utilizes both raised beds and row crops, all watered with overhead irrigation. While soil preparation and row crop cultivation are initially done with the horses, there is a good deal of handwork in the garden. We start all of our seedlings in potting soil that we make ourselves, and raise the vegetables for our 100 household CSA, generating our own fertility. The garden harvest is distributed weekly to 100 families in Mendocino County from May through November. We generate our own fertility through compost, no till regenerative cover cropping, and field rotation. The farm produces most of its own hay and uses intensive rotational grazing for a small herd of beef cows and a flock of sheep. We keep six draft horses, dairy cows and a flock of hens for our own eggs and dairy, and raise feeder pigs each year. We also maintain a small orchard of apples, pears, peaches, and plums. Field crops include annual and perennial pasture, alfalfa, 26 acres of hay and occasional grain and other forage crops.

         Joining the farm for a season provides the opportunity to try small-scale sustainable farming without capital investment, risk, or living expenses on a 40 year old producing farm in a work-study environment with guidance from experienced farmers. The farm is in a beautiful rural setting at 1300 feet elevation in a 7 mile diameter mountain valley bordered by the Mendocino National Forest and Eel River. It is 1.5 miles from the small town of Covelo, population 3500, which has an excellent library. It is 30 miles from the main Hwy 101 corridor and 50 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. It is not easily accessible to public transportation.

       The area receives approximately 45 inches of rainfall from October through April or May. It is a clear, dry, and hot Mediterranean climate in the summer month with January low temperatures in the 20’s at night and warmer in the day. Frost generally ends in early May and returns in mid-October. Summer temperatures range from 100-110 Fahrenheit but cool to 50 or 60 at night with low humidity and light afternoon breezes in the summer. We also host 7-10 school classes of 3rd and 6th graders each year. During their three-day stay on the farm, the children participate in all aspects of life on the farm, including plowing with the horses, shearing sheep, and making compost. Live Power also hosts various workshops and field days throughout the year.

Bio-dynamic farm crew Internships:

Work/learning opportunity in an entirely self -supporting family/small community scale biodynamic farm operated with “Live Power” PV solar electric and e-tractor, draft horse tillage, and on farm generated fertility to minimize fossil energy use and climate pollution in food production. Interns participate full time, with mentoring, in intensive vegetable production for 100 members, school children class visits, livestock and forage raising for food and land and fertility management, and overall farm care maintenance and operation.

Interns will participate and be mentored in:

1. All aspects of the vegetable garden –CSA crop planning, bed preparation, planting and sowing, raising transplants, weeding and cultivation, setting up sprinkler lines, harvesting, watering, processing, trellising.
2. Stirring and applying BD field and crop sprays and compost making-collecting manure and crop residue materials, building piles, inserting BD preparations, and loading manure spreader to distribute compost.
3. Feeding and caring for livestock-setting electro-net for strip grazing, herding animals, stacking hay, castrating and docking, hoof trimming, cow milking, and hand shearing sheep and custom on farm slaughter.
4. General farm maintenance- Fencing, repairing fence, clearing blackberries out of fence lines, repairing farm tools, wheelbarrows and hoses, and fruit tree pruning.
5. Participation in school class visits-leading groups of children in farm activities during school class visits.
6. General farm planning and management.

Educational Opportunities: Crew will rotate through the various areas of learning/responsibility. Tuesday after breakfast there is an organizational meeting to outline work for the week and field questions and communications. Crew tasks are explained and supervised by farmers until the crew is proficient. As time and energy allows there are hands on discussions of individual tasks in the field and 1-2 hour educational discussions on general basic topics such as garden planning, cover cropping, composting, Biodynamic preparations and uses, forage plants, hay making, animal management, strip grazing, farm log and record keeping, draft animal equipment and tillage practices, harness and harnessing, basic work horse handling, field irrigation, garden irrigation, sprinkler and plumbing maintenance, cultivation, crop timing, community farm operation, and associative economic principles. We will help crew attend the quarterly Northern California Biodynamic Association meetings at other farms in the region and local Farmers Guild meetings and educational workshops.

 

• Learn more about farming and food jobs and internships, or learn how to post a job, internship, or apprenticeship opportunity on beginningfarmers.org by going to https://www.beginningfarmers.org/internship-and-employment-opportunities/