Family Labor
My suggestions in this area are consistent with the food-production premise of this book—small, man-ageable, and efficient. The family is the best source of labor for the small-scale farm. So the most impor-tant recommendation is to set up an operation that is small, manageable, and efficient enough to be run
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ou cannot get good help nowadays.” “People don’t work hard enough.” “People don’t care.” “They want too much money.” “They aren’t depend-able.” Labor can be a problem. Many of these comments may be valid, others not, but all are worth noting. It is wise to make some serious choices ahead of time before you find yourself muttering those very sentiments.
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Labor
Some of the wonderful young people who we have hired.
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farming urge hidden behind an urbanized facade. While most are still dreaming about it, your farm is a reality. So offer potential helpers not so much a job as rather a part-time outlet for their dream. It is sur-prising how many people share this dream but have not yet decided to pursue it. Offer that reward to those people.
Finding Willing Workers
The potential labor pool extends from the young to the old, from students to retirees. Homemakers whose children are now in school or college are often looking for a new challenge. Working on an organic farm can give them meaningful part-time work and a chance to turn their energy and compe-tence into valuable assets. There are many such people who are reliable, intelligent, hardworking, interested, and motivated and would love the chance to share in someone else’s dream. For them the rewards are only partially financial. Since work hours are often limited to evenings or early morn-ings (harvesting for market, say), the possibility of fitting farmwork into standard schedules is increased. Where to look for willing workers? Some of the following are good places to start:• Retirement communities• Supermarket bulletin boards (put up help-wanted signs and specify the benefits)• Local colleges• Food co-ops• Garden clubs• Condominium and apartment complexes
Be Efficient and Flexible
Be efficient. Maximize skills, minimize deficiencies. Labor should be hired to do what the boss does not do best or what the boss does not need to do. Ideally, the boss is going to be good at growing and mainly by family labor. Why? Because farming is hard work, and the rewards at the start are measured more in satisfaction and pride than in large salaries. The farm family will do the work because it is their dream. It is their canvas, and they are painting it the way they’ve always wanted it to look. Hired help who can involve themselves from the start on such an intense level of participation are not easy to find.This production system is planned to make the most of family labor in the following ways:• I have chosen equipment for ease and efficiency of use and repair.• I recommend growing a broad range of crops to spread the work more evenly over a long season.• I take a management-intensive approach for fertilization and pest control.• I stress forethought and pre-planning to avoid panic.• I propose imaginative marketing approaches to save time and energy.Most important, this system is based upon a phi-losophy that aims at stability by establishing long-term, self-perpetuating, low-input systems of production as opposed to short-term, high-input systems.
Outside Labor
The best-laid plans don’t always run true, and chances are the grower will sometimes need outside labor. When paid helpers are required, I have some suggestions that may prove useful.If you find good employees, plan to keep them. Pay a fair wage, and investigate profit-sharing options and other rewards. One good worker famil-iar with your operation is worth three inexperienced workers. Be imaginative. What does the farm have to offer that will attract the ideal people? The usual pool of labor available for part-time farmwork has never been the best. But think further. For many people farming is exciting. Most everyone has a
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Weeds that are allowed to go to seed one year will increase the weed problem for the next seven years. The quality of each job will affect the efficiency of the entire operation. Poor work must not be tolerated.Along with quality production goes excellence of skills. Set work standards and stick to them. Most people have never learned the necessary bodily coor-dination needed to work well with simple tools. This lack of training and the consequent awkwardness result in making a job much more difficult than it needs to be. Show your helpers how it’s done. They should be taught to use garden tools just as carefully as they would be taught to play a musical instrument or speak a foreign language. Remember, any physi-cal work is made easier by planning the job out beforehand, working at an efficient rhythm, and dividing the job into attainable pieces.marketing. Fine. Then hire help to harvest, wash, crate, and distribute. Whoever is best suited for a certain area of the operation should spend his or her time doing that as well as it can be done. Overall efficiency will be greater. Hire labor to complement rather than replace family skills.Be flexible. Work out a solution for the particular labor needs of the moment. If the labor arrangement of the farm does not parallel that of modern agricul-ture, let it be of no concern. Many unique situations are successful. A farm may be next door to a large vegetarian community that will buy everything at a premium and help out to boot. Students from a nearby college may provide all the part-time labor on a work-study program. The farmer may have a dozen brothers and sisters living nearby who eagerly come and help out whenever they are needed. Ignore any claims that a farm only succeeds because of a special arrangement. Success simply means that a farmer is doing something right. Remember, too, that no mat-ter how good a deal you may have at the moment, it should never be assumed to be permanent. Always have an alternative solution or two on hand.
Getting Quality Work
Jobs should be done correctly. The complement to labor is management. That is what the boss must do, and the quality of management determines to a large degree how well labor performs. Horticulture is a skilled profession, and there is a need to work quickly but precisely. Standards must be set. I was impressed in Europe to see how horticulture is respected and understood. The employees are professionals, are proud of their work, and take satisfaction in doing it well. In the past this may have been true elsewhere, but rarely anymore. The boss has to instill that spirit of professionalism.The repercussions of slipshod garden work are cumulative. Rows planted crookedly in a moment of carelessness cannot be cultivated efficiently and will require hand-weeding for the entire growing season.
Different spacing for different crops.