...
Role | Exists for … | Description | Rights |
|---|---|---|---|
Farm Owner AKA Farmer, Owner | All farms | The owner of the farm. In some cases, they are the sole owner/operator of the farm business. In others, they work with their spouse or other partner, possibly just occasionally bringing in temporary workers / WWOOFERS. Other farm owners are more removed from the day-to-day management, leaving that up to a Supervisor to tend to, while they are mainly involved with the planning stages, tracking price lists, financials, overall farm issues, payroll, weather monitoring etc. However, that said, most Farmers are pretty involved with monitoring daily farm activity. | Full access. |
Farm Manager AKA Foreman, Farm Supervisor | More mature, larger farms | Responsible for enacting the day-to-day activities in order to keep on track with the farmers overall cropping plan for the year. Assigns tasks to workers and monitors their work as well as overall farm activity and fertility. Reports back to the farmer. This position is often year round. Depending on the size of the farm, there could be multiple supervisors - e.g. Greenhouse supervisor, Berry supervisor, etc. | Almost full access. May not see worker wages or financial insights. |
Farm Worker AKA Farm Labourer, Farmhand | Almost all farms | Workers come in many permutations. Some work standard 8 - 5 type schedules for a season while others are hourly. Some workers are “floaters” that are assigned tasks for a specified time period, e.g. to help this person or that person while others are brought on for a specific activity, e.g. to harvest, to work in the greenhouse, to run or maintain machinery, etc. | Read on most things. Write on some items. |
...
Farm Manager walks around and discusses with Workers the weekly plan. The Farm Manager uses verbal cues like, “Don’t forget tomorrow we have to do x.” The Farm Manager schedules specific days in advance as harvest days for the season. The Farm Manager schedules special wholesale orders and they reoccur weekly. The Farm Manager uses an app called “To Do List” as a communication tool for ad hoc jobs such as a fence repair, irrigation repair, etc. Everyone on the farm has access to the app, so the Farm Manager can assign jobs to employees and the Workers can report when they complete tasks in near real-time. Workers are long-term and knowledgeable. Workers are paid 8 hours per day, 5 days a week.
...
For this use case, Workers and Farm Managers don’t have a whole lot of knowledge. There is churn from season to season. Farmer or Farm Manager uses paper or large whiteboard in worker area that everyone can contribute to. Everyone will jot down notes, checks tasks as completed, and list new tasks as needed. Oftentimes, info is lost week-to-week when the whiteboard is erased. Farm or Farm Manager wants all Workers to have a physical copy of the crop plan so everyone is on the same page. If the plan changes, the Farmer or Farm Manager will print a new plan and post it in the common area. The Farmer or Farm Manager performs a weekly walk around to discuss the to do list for that week. Farmer, Farm Manager, and Workers will use the crop maps and annotate as they discuss. For example, the Farmer might say:
“Carrots go into Jupiter Field 4 bed, row 3. They should be spaced at x, y, and z.”
...