Thoughts on SOIL four years on

It's been just about four years since my girlfriend and I flew out to Nova Scotia to start my SOIL apprenticeship, and about three and a quarter since we capped that apprenticeship by driving back to BC in a '91 Dodge Spirit that we bought for two hundred bucks. We did that over six weeks. In minus twenty winter weather. And it turned out that the car's heater didn't work. And it had to be towed to a wrecker the day after we reached Vancouver. But that's a story for a blog called My Life as a Dumb Idiot.

OK, so four years ago, Vanessa and I applied to do a SOIL apprenticeship. Not because we wanted to be farmers. We just wanted to see food production through a farmer's eyes. The day I was to leave for Nova Scotia, my dad only half-jokingly warned me that I had better not be thinking of farming as a career. I assured him he had nothing to worry about.

As I write this in February 2011 I can look out the window on the farm on which I reside (I'd love to be able to say 'our farm' but this is a leasing situation) at the small piece of land Vanessa and I will use for our nascent market garden this spring. In BC's interior. Can we call ourselves full-blown farmers yet? Hard to say. Most of our income will come from farming this year. So, maybe?



Anyway. In getting from there to here, Vanessa and I did two SOIL apprenticeships. The first was an organic livestock operation in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. The second was a two acre market garden with a tiny bit of everything else (orchard, livestock, bakery, flowers) on Vancouver Island. The owner of the latter asked us to stay on a second year, along with two other apprentices, to farm as a partnership. Which, on the whole, went really well. We then spent a season on our bikes touring farms in Eastern North America.

So here are my thoughts on SOIL and apprenticing: an excellent idea, and a lot of fun, as long as you use your noggin. Going in, you need to be very honest with yourself about what your goals are, and even more honest about the terms and conditions of under which you're willing to live, work and learn. While on Vancouver Island I coordinated monthly workshops for apprentices in the region for two years, and so I got to know a lot of of them. Here are some observations I've made:

• Too many apprentices (including myself) go into the farm selection process wearing rose-coloured glasses. They're bursting with enthusiasm and idealism, and trust that the apprentice-gods will ensure that their apprenticing experience will be fruitful and rewarding. So they're not diligent about researching the farm into which they're about to pour six months of love and hard labour for a financial pittance. Some are also unrealistic about the living conditions they'll be able to handle. Not everyone is suited to living in the same house as strangers. Or using an outhouse for four months. Or sharing a bunkhouse with other apprentices. I think that required reading for anyone considering a farming apprenticeship are the couple of chapters George Henderson devotes to the subject in The Farming Ladder. The book is out of print but can be downloaded from the SOIL and Health Library. I challenge any SOIL applicant to be as thorough in their farm selection process as Henderson was.
  
• The best way to avoid apprenticing on a farm that's not right for you? Read SOIL's resource materials, and take them seriously. They've been written by people who have been through the process, and are trying to help you avoid the mistakes they made. Also, take advantage of the SOIL Ambassadors project, which gives you the option of having a former apprentice help you select your farm.
  
• Expect to work very hard. And much of your learning will be hands-on, which is a euphemism for hard, sweaty labour. But you're an apprentice, not a farm-hand. There's a difference. Your farm host should appreciate that. You can make sure they do by asking them to articulate it. If you're not satisfied with that articulation, that should be a red flag.
  
  
  
  
  Here are the do-overs I'd want, if I could have them:
  

• Since I didn't intend to be a farmer at the time, I was kind of wimpy about learning certain skills during my first apprenticeship. I told myself it was because I was worried about damaging equipment or hurting animals or myself, so I shied away from the following: operating the hay-mower and baler; limiting my role in the slaughter/dressing process; chainsawing; shearing sheep. All skills I wish I had now, or had to develop at a greater price later on. You're giving a lot of your labour away to learn, so be willing to put yourself out of your comfort zone to learn as much as you can.
• There were some vague promises about one type of financial compensation for one of my apprenticeships that I didn't push for clarity on out of a desire to avoid awkwardness and not be seen to be lacking trust in my host. Dumb move. You know why I bolded that? Because if you do that, you will vastly increase your chances for disappointment or resentment later on. More communication up front means less misunderstandings later on.

To anyone reading this, I hope you have a wonderful apprenticeship. For Vanessa and me, it was a great way to build the skills necessary to become farmers. And you will have a good time, if you're honest with yourself about what you're looking for and find the farm that is offering just that. Good luck!

Oh, and I have a website now that features cool small-scale farming innovations: The Ruminant. Please check it out!

A Look at our Specific Arrangement

I think SOIL's greatest virtue is the flexibility it offers applicants in creating an apprenticeship that's right for them. However, the program's lack of structure can leave the first-time applicant a little clueless about what to expect. Below is the exact arrangement Vaness and I had with our hosts/teachers, to give applicants one example of how an apprenticeship might be structured:

Type of Farm: Family farm; produced organic beef, lamb, chicken, eggs, field crops, berries

Apprenticeship Duration: I arrived April 2, but Vaness couldn't make it until June 15. We left together on October 24.

Hours/week: On a typical weekday we worked from 7:00 am until 6 or 7 pm, with at least 2, and often 3 to 4 hours worth of breaks during the day. On Saturdays we were up at 6 am and helped run a market booth, which ended at 1 pm. Generally we took it easy after that. Sundays were usually days off.

Accommodations: lived in house with family of four. Shared all meals. See blog entry on accommodations.

Stipend: $25/week each, plus a $250 bonus (each) at year's end (plus room and generous board).

Other benefits: we were given 3/4 acre of land on which to grow our own food. We were free to sell this food at our own booth at the local market. We were also allowed to borrow a vehicle most times we needed it, including for the odd weekend trip out of town.

Typical Day: There was no typical day, but our farm had lots of animals, thus every day began and ended with chores--feeding and cleaning up after animals.

Type of learning: hands-on/informal. We had no classroom time, did no projects, experiments, or reports, and mainly used informal conversation to answer our many questions.

That about sums up the conditions of our apprenticeship. Remember, apprenticeships vary drastically!

Sleeping and Living arrangements on the farm

On the farm we chose, Vaness and I lived in a bedroom in the house of the family hosting us, a family of four including two young children. This was okay for the majority of our time on the farm, but by the sixth month I think the family was ready to have their privacy again, and so were we. We also had the occasional conflict over kitchen use. Thus, I have concluded that the ideal situation is for an apprentice or apprentices to sleep in a separate residence, if not cook and live there; after working with your hosts all day, it's nice to have complete privacy in the evening. This isn't always possible, however, so here are a few questions to keep in mind when you're faced with the possibility of sharing your accomodations with your host family.

Where is your bedroom located in relation to other rooms in the house?
Our bedroom was on the same floor as the others, and right next to one of the kids. Thus we rarely felt comfortable having private conversations in our bedroom, or on the phone--inevitably an apprentice will have calls from friends who will ask them about their experience. Being candid can be difficult when you're worried about who else is listening.

How often is the house empty?
If you can expect occasional opportunities to have the house to yourself, than can go a long way to meeting your need for your own space. In seven months Vaness and I had the house to ourselves no more than a few times, each time never more than a few hours.

How big is the kitchen, how much is it used, and how warm are they to the idea of other people using it regularly?
The kitchen on our farm was the source of the most conflicts for us, even though we ate all of our meals with the family. The problem was that the kitchen was small, and used a lot. Vaness and I both like to cook, bake, and preserve, and so did the family. Plus, the family's main kitchen user had a hard time dealing with strangers in the kitchen who used the equipment differently and put things away in the wrong place. If you expect full access to the kitchen for your apprenticeship, talk out the details with the family ahead of time.

Are you being realistic about your ability to tolerate certain conditions of the house?
Our family was very clear with us that they kept a very messy house. We told them, and ourselves, that that was okay with us, that we could tolerate it. In the end it bothered us a bit--a period of months can be a long time to tolerate something you find difficult. Thus I suggest would-be apprentices be very honest with themselves about their expectations and needs. Don't commit yourself to living conditions you're not completely sure you can handle.

How, and why, the SOIL program works

On SOIL's website, anyone can view brief descriptions of participating farms from around Canada by clicking on the region of Canada they are interested in. Once you have paid your $30 administration fee, SOIL then sends you detailed profiles of your top five choices, plus some advice on what to look for in an apprenticeship, questions to ask during the interview, how to arrange the "contract," etc. From there, applicants are left to contact their top choices for interviews. Should none of your top five choices result in an apprenticeship, SOIL will send you the profiles of your next five choices, and so on until you have secured an apprenticeship.

SOIL worked well for my girlfriend and me because of its simplicity, and its flexibility in letting us determine the structure of the apprenticeship. Our requirements, like most people's, were quite unique: we wanted to be on a mixed-operation family farm, preferably on a large acreage; didn't want to engage in a research project or write reports, wanted more emphasis on hands-on rather than classroom instruction, didn't want or need educational credit, and wanted to be on a farm in the maritimes. SOIL has many participating farms, so it wasn't hard to find farms that met our needs. Of our top five choices, four gave us interviews, and three of those offered us an apprenticeship.

I have since visited a number of other SOIL-linked farms, and am convinced that there is a farm listed for every type of apprenticeship.