We are seeking interns for the 2020 season to help with either animal care or veg/fruit crops on our familyrun 75-acre organic farm in the rural hills of central Italy. The farm’s primary goals are self-sufficiency, sustainability and education, putting into practice concepts from permaculture, agroforestry and rotational grazing. We provide full room and board in exchange for an average of 6 hours of work, 6 days/week. We would like to find 1-2 interns to specialize in animal care and 1-2 in veg-fruit crops who will be on-farm for a minimum of 3 months between April and September 2020
Animal care intern: learn to feed, care for, handmilk goats, sheep and one very gentle Jersey cow, take our herd to pasture daily, filter the milk, wash up, make yogurt, kefir, and cheese (chèvre, feta, brie, Parmesantype, gorgonzola, scamorza and others), help with fence maintenance, shear sheep, trim hooves, muck the barn, vaccinate, stack hay bales, move electric fencing, packaging cheese and a variety of other tasks. Experience handling large animals is highly desirable. Also very important are interest, work ethic, conscientiousness and common sense. This is an excellent opportunity for someone interested in one day having their own dairy animals: we are happy to invest a lot of time and effort in teaching and sharing what we have learned over 15 years of handling dairy animals and making cheese, hoping to transfer these skills to people who will use them!
Veg and fruit crops head intern: maintenance of vegetable garden, herbs, berries, vineyard, orchards and olive groves, seeding, transplanting, harvesting, watering, setting up and repairing irrigation equipment, weeding, mulching, food processing (jam/juice/drying/canning/fermenting), supervising farm volunteers and a variety of other tasks. Experience in agriculture is highly desirable, at minimum some experience with a family-scale veg garden. Also important are interest, work ethic, organizational skills, and the ability to communicate, work and live with other people. This is a great hands-on opportunity for someone who wants to start their own market garden, agriturismo or CSA!
If interested, please write to us to share information about yourself and your background, experience, interests and skills, before January 31st, 2020!
We hope to conduct Skype interviews with promising candidates in early February. If you like, we can put you in contact with previous interns.
For more information about the farm and accomodations please see here.
For more specific information about the internships or to express interest, contact Darcy at gordondarcy [at] gmail [dot] com (gordondarcy at gmail.com)