Fresh Roots is seeking a new Farm Manager to help grow Good Food on schoolyard farms. If you’re a farmer who loves to share your knowledge and help build beautiful farms that provide healthy food and joy through food – this is the place for you.
Thank goodness for solstice
We need sun till at least 5ish!
As that sunshine rebounds
We’re sending this job posting around
We’ve extended the date
to help us locate….YOU!
ABOUT FRESH ROOTS
Fresh Roots stewards 1/2-acre market gardens on school grounds across the lower mainland. Its fields produce good food for the community, empower youth through vocational skills development, and serve as hands-on outdoor classrooms for over 5000 students each year.
Everyone should have access to healthy food, soil, and community. Fresh Roots enacts this vision by cultivating engaging gardens and programs that catalyze healthy eating, ecological stewardship, and community celebration.
Find Fresh Roots on:
Facebook: facebook.com/freshrootsfarms
Instagram: @freshrootsfarms
GOOD FOOD: FARM MANAGER
Application Deadline: January 18th, 2019
Applications reviewed on a rolling basis
Good Food For All
Everyone should have access to healthy land, food, and community. We do that by growing educational farms at schools across the lower mainland. Our schoolyard farms grow more than just food. These are productive agricultural spaces adjoined to cultural food and medicine gardens, orchard spaces, indigenous and sensory foodscapes, and more. Through these spaces, we provide good food for the community, empower youth through vocational skills development, and serve as experiential learning outdoor classrooms for over 6000 students each year.
We’re looking for the right person to help us GROW (all puns intended)! Help plant your vision of educational farming by managing our schoolyard farms and food lands to be places of production and learning; a farm oasis in the city. Our work starts with the soil, and our sites are the starting place for all of our programs. You’ll get a chance to help frame and create what educational farms should be on school grounds in the lower mainland.
What You’ll Do
In this role, you will be our Farm Manager, growing and sharing food with the community. You will lead our team towards our production and educational growing goals. Fresh Roots’ farms have been in production for five years, and we’re looking for you to help steward and grow our schoolyard farms into the future. If you love to share your farming knowledge, and love growing and sharing healthy food, then this is the place for you. In your role, you will:
Grow Good Food!
- Grow and sell $20,000 of food from our Vancouver Schoolyard Market Gardens through CSA, farmers market, community partners, and our youth programs
- Manage year-round farm and site logistics, crop and farm planning.
- Support program teams across Delta, Coquitlam and Vancouver.
- Work with the Executive Director to understand resource needs for successful growth.
- Support the growth and development of cultural food and medicine gardens, perennial spaces, and indigenous foodscapes
Train young farmers
- Recruit, train and manage our Good Food Internship program for four post-secondary youth learn to grow, share, and farm.
- Embed high school and elementary school programs to ongoing farm operations.
- Formalize intern training, and ongoing management of our Schoolyard Farms; support our farm and youth staff on all sites.
- Empower all Fresh Roots staff and volunteers to grow and share healthy food on site.
- Support ongoing volunteering on Fresh Roots Farms.
Qualifications
- +1 Year Farm Management Experience; with 2 years applied farming or gardening skills.
- +1 Year management experience.
Required Skills
Farming:
- You are a productive grower who is able to crop plan, and prepare nutrient, pest, and seeding plans; you feel comfortable planning using Excel.
- You are curious about new plants and cannot wait to show us seeds that you’ve found from a seed library.
Managing:
- You love to grow new farmers and can successfully hire, train, and manage your team to support the growing and sharing of Good Food.
Relationships: You will inspire the school community to get involved and share good food. - Must have a class five driver’s license and access to their own vehicle or car share.
Key Details
- $40,000 – 48,000 annualized salary; plus benefits.
- 40-hour work week M-F, schedule subject to markets; increase in hours during the height of the season; decrease in hours during the winter season.
- This position reports to the Executive Director and is based in Vancouver.
How to Apply
E-mail a short cover letter (500 words), resume, in one pdf. Please also include a crop plan and harvest record that you have created in the past to jobs@freshroots.ca. The subject should be “Your Name – Good Food.” Review of applications will begin immediately upon reception.
Interviews scheduled for week of January 21. Ideally employment begins February 1st.
Diversity: Fresh Roots is committed to employment equity and encourages applications from underrepresented groups.
We regret that due to the high volume of applicants only those selected for interviews will be contacted.
View the Young Agrarians jobs blog for more job listings.