Role | Description | Rights |
|---|---|---|
Farmer AKA Farm Owner | 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. | |
Supervisor AKA Foreman, Farm Manager | 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. | |
Worker AKA Farm Labourer | 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. | |
Sales Representative AKA Marketing Rep | Responsible for activities relating to the sale of produce including marketing / invoicing of pre-sales, CSA box programs. Also may be responsible for bringing food to weekly markets, setting up display table-day sales. May be responsible for promoting and arranging sales with restaurants, wholesalers, and grocery stores. | |
Quality Control | May be the same person as sales. Determines 'pick sheets' (instructions to workers as to what crops to harvest in what amounts as needed for the day) then monitors the harvest to ensure it meets quality standards before delivery. | |
Organic Manager | Some operations have one person who is responsible for all things related to organic certification. These activities include certification renewal, maintaining compliance documentation, communication with their certifying body, and ensuring inputs are approved and used according to regulations. |
Use Cases
Below are a few examples of how the above roles may look in the field. Not all roles exist at all farms!
Use Case 1
Farm Manager walks around and discusses with Workers the weekly plan. Uses verbal cues like, “Don’t forget tomorrow we have to do x.” Specific days are scheduled 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 holding space for ad hoc jobs such as a fence repair, irrigation needing 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. Workers are paid 8 hours per day, 5 days a week.
Use Case 2
The Farmer often resorts to paper journal to track tasks and whether they are completed. They do this because it is simple and doesn’t require training Workers. They verbally confirm things such as spacing depth, width, etc. the day of planting with Workers. Workers sign in and out on a daily basis for payroll. Each morning, there is a group meeting to assign the days tasks. The farmer sets days for harvest, market, and wholesale during the planning part of the season (e.g. November). Each Monday the Farmer creates target harvest for the week. Workers then record actual harvests as they go.
Use Case 3
Role_X uses paper or large whiteboard in worker area that everyone can contributes 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. Role_X wants all employees to have a physical copy of the crop plan so everyone is on the same page. If the plan changes, the Role_X will print a new plan and post it in the common area. Role_X performs a weekly walk around to discuss the to do list for that week. They’ll use the crop maps and annotate as they talk. The visual plan. ID field name and Bed #, don't change much year to year - so the Role_X and Role_Y tend to know what they are discussing. Harvest days are set which allows Workers to self-assign weekly tasks depending on who feels like doing what. From the perspective of Role_X, as long as the tuesday list gets accomplished she doesn't care who does it. thursday review the list to see what did not get accomplished and set priorities for Friday work. set tasks such as flame weeding always scheduled for 5-8 days after seeding a crop
prints out desired harvest 'pick list' and gives physical copy to workers. precise, pre-ordered list as sells to CSA Box program and restaurants. prints out seeding instructions depth/spacing or annotate plan maps