You Don’t Have to Be Big to Be Profitable: Teaching Youth How to Meet Community Needs, Maintain a Farm System, and Treasure Family

One youth (Student Intern 1) was hired for the duration of the 2023 production and agritourism season. She worked 240 hours and was paid at $10.50/hour. She completed a remaining 30 hours during the 2024 production season. She spent her time focusing on the following educational areas:

• Agritourism - local farm and other farms
• Value-added production and sales
• Rotational grazing meat goats and dairy goats (and the different needs associated with each herd)
• No-till gardening
• Online marketing
• Annual herd management
• Public education
• Quality of life of farm + family

Time was spent on the host farm, four other agritourism-focused production farms to gain perspective on farm demands and different ways of maintaining sustainability of farm and family. The farms featured the following production models:

• Multi-species grazing (cattle, hogs, goats, and poultry) and direct-to-consumer sales
• Vegetable production and direct-to-consumer sales
• Direct-to-consumer hogs and dairy
• Llama and alpaca fiber production and farmer's market sales

Youth student intern 1 was also taken to one commercial meat goat farm to witness and participate in large-scale meat goat herd management, including banding, vaccinating, and tagging.

Youth student intern 1 participated in 12 webinars throughout the season to gain further knowledge on rotational grazing, marketing, and no-till gardening. She was provided a list with many webinars to choose from and selected the ones that most appealed to her interests. This farm provided a long list of webinars from FACT (Food Animal Concerns Trust), ChopLocal, SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education), the Kansas Rural Center, US-USU-SDSU Extension Sheep and Goat Monthly Webinars (University of Idaho Extension, University of Wyoming Extension, and Utah State University Extension), and Youtube presentations from presenters including Greg Judy, Joel Salatin, and "The Shepherdess".

On-farm, the youth student intern 1 helped in dairy product processing and development. She spent time in the farm shop initiating face-to-face client sales and building relationships with the "regulars" of the business. She additionally participated in product development by experimenting with different cheese flavors and understanding proper dairy handling. For agritourism events towards the end of her internship, the youth student intern 1 was required to develop a proposal for an educational display, including a budget. Once approved by the host farm, she created and presented her educational display on rotational grazing and answered all grazing questions presented by guests.

Throughout the course of the season, student intern 1 independently developed a 4-acre pasture plan to rotate a small number of goats and learned the technicalities of proper set-up, internal parasite prevention/management, and general herd care. She participated in a 20-acre rotation for the remainder of the 25-member goat herd.

In addition to goat rotation, student intern 1 worked regularly alongside farmers in the personal-sized no-till garden, learning techniques of optimal pruning and companion planting. Her interest in gardening was not as strong as other areas, so less time time was spent in this area. The goal of the internship was to train in multiple areas, but also to focus on the intern's interests as much as possible. In this case, it proved to be livestock management and public education.

Lastly, youth student intern 1 was encouraged to participate in all aspects of farm life, including witnessing educating our own children (aged 6 and under) "in the moment" and falling into family-centered routines. These included communal mealtimes and acknowledging the natural need for rest in a given day or week, despite a heavy workload.

A second intern was intended to join for this internship intensive, but was a complete no-show after hiring. Instead of hiring a second intern late in the season, the host farm instead opted to open an internship for the 2024 season.

In 2024, a second youth (Student Intern 2) was hired for the duration of the 2024 production and agritourism season. She worked 272 hours and was paid at $10.50/hour. She spent her time focusing on the following educational areas:

• Agritourism - local farm and other farms
• Raw dairy management and product safety
• Value-added production and sales
• Rotational grazing meat goats and dairy goats (and the different needs associated with each herd)
• Internal parasite control
• No-till gardening
• Online marketing
• Annual herd management
• Public education
• Quality of life of farm + family

Time was spent on the host farm and three other agritourism-focused production farms to gain perspective on farm demands and different ways of maintaining sustainability of farm and family. The farms featured the following production models:

• Vegetable production and direct-to-consumer sales
• Direct-to-consumer hogs, dairy, and produce
• Llama and alpaca fiber production and farmer's market sales

Youth student intern 2 was also taken to one commercial meat goat farm to witness and participate in large-scale meat goat herd management, including banding, vaccinating, and tagging.

Youth student intern 2 participated in 2 additional webinars throughout the season to gain further knowledge on rotational grazing and improved nutrient availability and soil health through sustainable pasture management. This intern was not provided a list of webinars to choose from, but was instead given content to watch that explained the "why" behind pasture management. Student intern 2 also watched 4 hours of training content through the Raw Milk Institute to learn the importance of proper milk handling in raw dairy. This was a critical training element for empowering student intern 2 to safely handle raw milk.

On-farm, the youth student intern 2 helped in dairy product processing and development. She proved to have in innate "knack" for managing goats and an incredible patience for learning how to milk. We saw this strength and empowered her to milk safely and independently. She participated in product development by making different kinds of cheese and improving processes in milk handling. Student intern 2 did spend some time in the farm shop marketing products. For the fall agritourism tour at the end of her internship, the youth student intern 2 was required to develop a proposal for an educational display, including a budget. Once approved by the host farm, she created and presented her educational display on internal parasites in goats and their management. During the fall tour, she answered all guest questions on this topic.

Throughout the course of the season, student intern 2 rotated 30 goats and learned the technicalities of proper set-up, internal parasite prevention/management, and general herd care on 20 acres. She also witnessed the unexpected loss of 4 goats due to a lightning strike.

In addition to goat rotation, student intern 2 worked regularly alongside farmers in the personal-sized no-till garden, learning techniques of optimal pruning and companion planting. She also assisted with moving the grazing areas of the laying hens. Her interest in gardening and chickens were not as strong as other areas, so less time time was spent on these areas of focus. The goal of the internship was to train in multiple areas, but also to focus on the intern's interests as much as possible. In this case, it proved to be livestock management and dairy production.

Lastly, youth student intern 2 was encouraged to participate in all aspects of farm life, including witnessing educating children "in the moment" and falling into family-centered routines. We had a baby born spring 2024, so she was exposed to the many blessings and challenges of farming with a infant during this internship. We spoke freely of making business decisions that allowed the family to thrive, and how these decisions look different year-to-year. Sometimes the choices made to accommodate the needs of the family were not the same as the choices that would be made to make the most money for the farm. We discussed at length how that the work of the farm changes across different seasons of the family. This was a really important concept we wanted to discuss, because we view farming to be supportive of the whole family while blessing others with the products we raise.

When assessing this project, we conclude that it was beneficial for the farmer and for the students. Students had the opportunity to determine if goat farming is something they want to pursue as a career. It was also great to have help in completing routine tasks and building trust with an intern to properly handle raw milk, sales, and client relationships. We also found it helpful to use teenagers as our interns because those hired wanted to give their ideas and we encouraged them to try new methods of moving fence, developing mobile shelters, and handling goats (and encouraged them to keep trying if something failed!).

It is worth noting that student internships are a significant investment of time and resources to make it worthwhile for the students and farmer. Although we initially planned on having two interns at one time, we were grateful that it just happened for us to host only one at at time. That allowed for more focused teaching to each intern. At the beginning of the season, interns have to be walked through every step of everything, which takes energy to explain it all, time to make mistakes, and time to teach. Because we hired students without a background with goats, and one without any agricultural background at all, it took awhile to train them. We learned we need to be very clear in setting expectations and teaching things that might seem like common sense to us (ex: always putting electric fence on an insulator instead of directly on a metal t-post), but will not necessarily be that way to someone learning. However, once the time was put in through the first half of the internship, we noticed great freedom in the second half, where the students felt confident in their abilities and could complete familiar tasks independently. Many jobs were easier for all to do together, so we frequently worked with each other. Sometimes we would intentionally give interns more challenging or unfamiliar tasks to encourage their own critical thinking skills, and then debrief. 

The last suggestion we would make is to plan ahead.  With our first intern, we worked on routine tasks (rotating goats, milking, educating) without much of a schedule, and would then toss in special projects as we saw fit. Fortunately, Intern 1 was very flexible and flowed well with finding out what she would do every day when she arrived. With Intern 2, we worked really hard to have a more consistent schedule (ex: set up all new paddocks for the week on M/T and assess pasture health; special projects on W; value-added products/marketing/client sales/education on Th; field trips or other various activities on F). We found the schedule helped all of us know what to expect. As the farmers, we would also spend time each weekend loosely planning out the next week for our interns within these general guidelines. In the deep heat of the summer, we would also adjust our hours to earlier in the day (as it worked for each intern). On standard weeks we started at 7 AM, but in very hot weeks, we may start as early as 5 AM.

We are so thankful we extended this internship project from one summer to two because it helped us be better intern hosts. It sounded easy at first, to host an intern, teach them what we know, and have help. But we found out it was a lot of work to do it well, and yet SO fulfilling. We would highly recommend taking the time to recruit quality student interns! As we told them all along, "agricultural experience is not required, but integrity and a willingness to learn are 'a must.'"