Volunteers and “Free Labor”

Volunteers on your farm could either be the best thing that happens to you, or the worst. Like most things in life, the difference between the two is– “it depends.” There are a lot of factors that determine the outcome of the experience, but before we get into all of them, let’s discuss some of the pitfalls and get a few of the common misconceptions out of the way.

First off, if your farm sells in any market other than direct to consumer, volunteers are a potential food safety risk. And unless you’re set up as a non-profit, volunteers can be a significant legal liability if someone gets hurt and decides to sue. And once your farm has reached a certain scale, bringing in someone who doesn’t know your systems isn’t worth the hassle – you’ll spend more time training them than they’ll spend helping.

But if you’re a new farmer, or you’re selling direct to consumer and have people interested in volunteering on your farm, the thinking usually goes like this: Volunteers are free labor, so even if it takes them an entire day to do something that a regular worker could do in 5 minutes, it’s still a good deal. Right? Well not exactly, because there are a lot of hidden costs that come with bringing a volunteer onto the farm. 

First of all, volunteers require supervision. Like any new worker, you’re going to have explain a lot of the specific ways that things work on your farm, and then you (or someone else) is going to have to watch them closely to make sure they actually do what they are told (not always a guarantee). So for every hour that a new volunteer is working on your farm, it’s also going to cost you or someone else an hour of their time to supervise them. What else could you be doing with that time? You might be able to multitask, but if so, you’re not going to be done anything really that important. 

Secondly, most volunteers require training. Now this is similar but slightly different from the explanation part from supervision, because you’re not just telling them where the tomatoes are and where the fertilizer is, but also what a tomato plant looks like, what fertilizer does, how to scoop it out and spread it properly, and so on. This kind of training can be very hands-on and tedious. It’s even more frustrating when you have to train someone twice (or thrice), because they forgot how already. That’s ok if the volunteer is going to be with you for a while, but often they just don’t show up consistently enough (they get tired of it, and they aren’t getting paid, so why not skip a couple of days?)

Now you might be thinking, “Ok, what about something simple, like spreading mulch or planting seeds?” Sure, that might not take very much training, but as farmers we take for granted how much knowledge and experience we have. It’s hard for us to step back and put ourselves into the shoes of a beginner. Even something as simple as that can still be screwed up (and believe me, I’ve seen it done). It seems like common sense– don’t bury the plant in mulch, but also don’t just sprinkle a light dusting of mulch around the edges– but these things are not obvious to many volunteers. 

Or even worse, volunteers mess something up so badly that it takes you more time to fix it than to just have done it yourself in the first place. I’ve seen volunteers plant seeds in rows that are so curvy you’d think they were doing an art project. So then months later it takes even more effort to harvest and weed. Or if you ask them to weed around the plants, and they end up pulling the plants up themselves! Not every volunteer is that bad, but hey, you are rolling the dice.

These points so far may be unsurprising. Of course volunteers are going to require some education, that’s why they reached out in the first place! They told you they are fascinated about farming and want to learn from you, to follow you around and listen to all your wisdom! That’s all well and good, but a lot of people want to learn how to play the guitar too, until they try it for a while, and realize that it’s just “not for them.”

So at this point you’re probably saying to yourself, “Alright, I get the picture: volunteers bad, regular workers good… But what about that part at the beginning about how volunteers can be the best thing to happen to you?” Well that’s a good point. Because it’s not all doom and gloom. So now that’ve we mentioned some of the issues and cleared up some misconceptions, let’s talk about the opportunities. 

For one, volunteers don’t have to be free, or untrained, or as fleeting as a rain shower. You can get  volunteers who have already done some farming, and pay them a lesser amount that is commensurate with their experience level and their status as a learner. You can enter into a contract with them that lasts months (an entire season or two), instead of days. You can even set up an internship program. You can set up an arrangement like WWOOF, in which you trade them housing and food in exchange for their labor.

While these seem promising, there are still some caveats to be aware of. These arrangements can solve the issue of people leaving before they are able to get trained up and start working autonomously, but there still isn’t a guarantee upfront of whether you will get a good worker or not. You might be able to ask for references, but you might not. And regardless, in all these situations, there is still a lot of turnover. It’s just the nature of non-full-time employment. And this can put a burden on the really good workers or those who stay around a long time. 

With or without these types of arrangements, volunteers can still be useful on certain tasks requiring large groups: untangling drip tape (though really, you should have put it away properly), laying down and securing tarps, moving large amounts of hay or mulch or fertilizer.

Still, these types of task raise the ultimate question: why do you have volunteers? If you are depending on this kind of labor to keep your farm running, then something is inherently wrong with the business. We’ve talked about the Farmer’s Sense in the previous post, and this ties back to the same idea- you ought to know when something is going wrong.

But you might have volunteers for another reason– if your mission is to educate people and get them interested in agriculture. Maybe those volunteers won’t really help your farm become more profitable from an operational perspective, but you are investing in the next generation of farmers. You might give someone a once-in-a-life time experience, imparting with them a real appreciation for where their food comes from. You might change someone who buys the lowest quality, cheapest manufactured food products into someone who gets to know their local butcher or grocer, who buys fresh food from farms like yours. 

Again, it really all depends. It depends on how much extra bandwidth you have, how much you are willing and able to invest in the community, in potential new farmers, in people that may become lifelong supporters of agriculture. In the ideal scenario, you might be able to do all of these things, while also getting some extra help around the farm on some of the most laborious tasks (that no one else wants to do). You might even get some really quality volunteers who decide they want to become full-time workers on your farm. You might make some friends and relationships that will last a lifetime. Just be aware of some of the risks, and know your own reasons for getting volunteers.