By Abbe Hamilton, MS candidate, Agronomy
I’m only one generation removed from a poultry hatchery, but that one generation brought me a decidedly non-agricultural upbringing in suburban Western Massachusetts. I have no family farm to inherit and did not grow up washing eggs and watering calves. The only weed-pulling I did was in the flower beds at home. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), I found my first job at a small greenhouse and farmstand operation when I was sixteen and jumped into it with all my heart. The flower beds at home subsequently suffered.
I worked on the farm through high school and college whenever I was out of school and between internships. It was hard and satisfying work, but my schedule limited me to seasonal activities in April through June. I was never around for a long enough stint to make it worthwhile for me to learn how to properly perform some of the more technical duties.
I was ready for more responsibility one summer during college and became the official “Agricultural Intern” for a raw milk dairy up near Vermont. That summer I witnessed all the daily activities of the 100-acre farm, from mailing milk samples to the USDA lab to tractor troubleshooting… but most of what I did was planting, weeding and harvesting vegetables. School started back up and I left with an idea of what it’s like to run a farm, but still little practical experience outside of field labor.
Touring the Dickinson College Farm was an inspiration. I was instantly jealous of the opportunity that these students had: here were landless children of suburbia like myself who made business decisions for a functioning diversified farm. They were balancing whole-farm management experience with coursework and saw to the daily functions of the operation year-round. Everybody still participates in the day-to-day field labor, but they also have a more participatory role in planning rotations, preparing marketing schemes, doing repairs on equipment and buildings and other essential farming activities that seasonal hires are unlikely to experience. After all, there’s no better way for people to learn to become farmers than to become farmers.
Some of the farm crew at Dickinson College Farm
I know there’s a good number of Penn State students in the College of Ag who are interested in becoming farmers. Some of those I’ve met come from farm families, others don’t, and many seek internships or WWOOFing positions during the summer. I think the student farm concept and its emphasis on experiential learning provides a more complete experience than the limited duties a person might be hired to do at a typical summer farm internship gig, with the added benefit of it being close enough to school for year-round work experience.
When we broke for lunch on the farm tour, I met confident student employees who projected a sense of ownership and understanding of the farm’s operation. We saw the tractors that they help to operate and maintain, and the diversity of greenhouses, fields, pastures and compost windrows that all require specific, attentive planning and management. We saw prototypes of the biogas experiments for which students play an active role in both development and usage of the final product. The yurts on-site provide an additional opportunity for students to immerse themselves in sustainable living and the unique experience of living upon the land they work.
One of the apprentice yurts for three-season living at Dickinson College Farm
The atmosphere of the farm was public and orderly, but with enough weedy grass strips and heaps of building material and wooden stakes to assure me that it is, in fact, a working farm. Everyone we spoke to on the farm and in the dining commons seemed happy and proud of the farm’s successful history. I likewise see a student farm providing an intimate, immensely satisfying and grounding student experience within a mountain of a university like Penn State.