Why We Don’t Use Apprentices

We hire employees every summer and always have. We pay them slightly higher than minimum wage, and we teach a variety of skills to each of them. Generally, we really enjoy them – we get art majors and English majors and environmental studies majors and kids who aren’t planning on going to college at all. They’re almost always fun and interesting to have around. We know that they work hard for us, and we expect them to pay attention to what’s going on and think and truly contribute to the farm. For all of this, they deserve to be paid. They have the opportunity to learn as much as they would in an apprenticeship program, but they get paid for their labor, which seems to us to be a basic human right.