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Are you an aspiring ecological farmer who wants hands on experience working the land and living in community? Rosy Farms in Alcombdale, Alberta might be the place for you!
About the Farm
Rosy Farm is a certified organic, regenerative haskap orchard and research farm.
It is located on treaty 6 territory, the traditional meeting grounds and gathering place of the Cree, Saulteaux, Blackfoot, Nakota Sioux, and Métis peoples.
They produce haskaps for wholesale, farmers markets (summer & year round), retail, and U-pick.
With 37 acres in production of their overall 76 acres, every summer Rosy Farm opens their doors to the community through their U-Pick. They are expected to host over 6000 people through agritourism activities.
The farm is B-corp certified and committed to environmental best practices. They believe in healthy soils, regenerative farming, and caring for customers from the ground up. It’s about much more than just organic farming; we are slowly regenerating it back to a lush environment with highly productive soil.
They work with the land, not against it, incorporating native plants into the shelterbelt and between orchard rows. With time, this is helping to create a multifaceted ecosystem that invites all manners of life back in.
This makes Rosy Farms a unique operation and a first for haskaps. It is truly a beautiful place to grow.
Website: https://www.rosyfarms.com/
Instagram: @rosyfarms
Facebook: www.facebook.com
Our Workplace Culture
Farm operations are supported by a seasonal team of apprentices, interns, farm workers, marketing and social media staff, so you will have a whole team to support you.
About the Farmers
Your main mentor will be Andrew Rosychuk. A city slicker turned farmer, fuelled by a deep curiosity about how the environment works and how we work in it. In 2005, while taking the Production Horticulture Diploma program at Olds College, Andrew started growing haskaps on his grandparents’ farm, making him Alberta’s first haskap grower. He loves to create and experiment and see how and why life lives. As part of his experimenting, Andrew planted sour cherries, currants, and haskaps. The deer loved the sour cherries, bugs loved the currants, and Andrew fell in love with haskaps. All of his life experiences have culminated in this love and passion for horticulture. This has spirited him on to build a haskap orchard that will change Canada’s fruit industry. His main hobby when he’s not working is running after his two small kids.
About the Apprenticeship
This apprenticeship covers growing to direct marketing of haskaps, and you’ll be involved every step of the way.
The spring season starts off busy with building, taking cuttings and maintaining the haskap propagation beds of roughly 5,000 haskaps. You’ll be working with Andrew and the staff to apply the fertility program, pruning, weeding, and packing fruit for weekend markets.
The summer season ramps up into a flurry of production and on farm activities with the U-pick opening. There is a focus on the maintenance of haskap crops, fertilizing haskap propagation beds, tractor mowing and foliar application.
You’ll be working alongside the harvesting crew, handpicking fruit when needed. After harvest priorities include sorting, grading and packaging the fruit for market. You’ll learn about GAP food safety rules and paperwork. As a fast paced operation, there are often times when solving problems on your own will be expected.
The U-pick brings the public to our farm and apprentices will be part of the customer service team. This includes running the till, assisting customers and answering their questions. Three days a week you’ll be traveling to farmers markets in the area to sell products.
There is a detailed staffing manual and you will be supported with a learning plan that will be worked on through the season. You will get to spend one on one time with Andrew and ask any questions you have.
Rosy Farm believes field research is an important part of supporting regenerative farming in Alberta and encourages Apprentices engage in projects. Some areas of interest are: fertility trials, sodium abatement, pruning, cover crop trials, etc.
The ideal duration of employment is for the haskap season, which runs from May to October.
The job requirements are
- Curious
- friendly
- self-driven
- willing to work outdoors in all sorts of weather
- Able to lift, bend and move boxes of fruit
- class 5 driving license
- vehicle
- cell phone
Apprentices are willing to learn these skills:
- Observing biodiversity
- Assessing soil health in the field
- Techniques for managing fertility
- Harvesting crops
- Getting harvest to market
- Crop storage / preservation
- Compost making & application
- Truck & tractor basic operation
- Truck & tractor troubleshooting & maintenance
- Marketing & packaging
- Customer service
Compensation
We offer a wage between $17-$22 per hour
About the Community
Rosy Farm has great connections with neighbours and the community to enable an apprentice to learn about many different aspects of agriculture.
The farm is about 15 minutes from the town of Morinville which has all amenities, as well as a leisure centre, library and restaurants. There are a growing number of farms and small businesses in the area that raise, grow, make products on farm; flowers, garlic, soaps, honey, etc. and there is good community support for these. There are quite a few lakes and natural areas to explore as well.
St. Albert is 25 minutes away, Morinville is 15 minutes away, Edmonton is less than an hour away.
Accommodations: not available
We look forward to seeing you!