How to Manage Farm Volunteers

Greetings Steemarians!

It has been quite a while since my last post. I have been quite busy doing the following:

• Teaching an Introduction to Permaculture Course
• Buying lots of Cryptocurrency during the recent crash
• Stepping in as Volunteer Manager on our farm and moving loads of rocks

While I am tempted to write about Cryptocurrency, I have recently decided that I need to let that be for a while and focus on my other interests, which generally revolve around the farm.

Our farm, [Atitlan Organics] (http://www.atitlanorgaincs.com), is located in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala and has been operating for over 8 years. For the past 5 years, we have hosted volunteers.

Farm Volunteers: Great Help or Huge Distraction?

To be honest, I go back and forth on the actual value of farm volunteers. At the beginning of the farm, when we were not making any money and had loads of heavy lifting to do, we weer anxious to get people to come and help us. Our farming systems were not set up and everything was new and still being created.

For 3 years, we hosted volunteers and absolutely loved it. Sure, they did silly things like pick all the oranges when they are green and very under ripe, or leave the goat barn door open, which led to dozens of small trees to be eaten down to nothing. But their enthusiasm kept us excited to work with them. I personally enjoy talking about farming and also about sharing my passion for growing food and living sustainably with other people.

Volunteers have helped us plant orchards, build animal houses, terrace land, chop and drop in the young food forest, and more. Their energy kept us going, excited to face the next day on the farm.

But as the farm began to develop and put production systems in place, trained labor became more important than "anyone we can get".

As a Farm Matures, Are Volunteers Less Useful?

Our farm produces ten products: Salad Greens, Cooking Greens, Eggs, Chicken, Pork, Goat Milk, Goat Yogurt, Goat Cheese, Honey, and Coffee.

As we have grown and evolved, we have slowly begun to put systems in place that keep the the production up and our team organized. I have realized that even someone with 5 or 10 years of farming experience would have a learning curve on any farm that is already organized and functioning. I would never go to an operational and expect to immediately be useful to the day to day operations. I would need to learn loads of details about how they do thing there in that place and time.

We began to notice that our volunteer program was no longer a priority and that we had to devote energy to keep them busy and also prevent them from disrupting the production systems that keep our farm growing. For the past two years, we had to hire a volunteer manager to keep the program alive and functioning well. It worked well, but it felt like it was another 'system' that we had to maintain and devote energy to, and one that was not integral to the farm's continued success.

Recently, our volunteer manager left and in the new year, I have stepped up, once again, as Volunteer Manager. The production side of the farm is working well, and I am actually less involved in the day to day of the farm business. Thus, I had the time an availability to play the role of volunteer manager.

At first, I was not excited by this prospect. I would much rather be in y back garden, growing vegetables and listening to crypto podcasts :-) But I knew it was a good thing for me to do. I needed to get back out into the farm, not just in my own bubble in my garden behind that house.

How I Learned to Love Volunteers Again

So I began doing my job as volunteer manager. In the week after the Intro to Permaculture Course, we had 9 volunteers from 5 different countries. This is not unusual. People from Sweeden, United Kingdom, Columbia, Brazil, USA, Canada, and other places all eager to help and to learn about sustainable farming and homesteading.

I greeted them on the first morning and gave them a brief orientation. Bathroom here. Toolshed there. Dont use pruning sheers as a shovel. Etc. Then we broke into work groups. It is coffee harvest season for us, so a group began harvesting coffee, and then finished the day by depulping it and leaving it to ferment.

Harvesting Coffee is a great is for volunteers. Just pick the red berries. And no need to rush!

This is the depulping machine, which is also easy and safe for volunteers to use.

The other group helped me move boulders. If you have ever been to our farm, you know that we have rocks. Loads of rocks. More like boulders. If you want to learn how to move enormous rocks with only hand tools, come volunteer on our farm.

We pumped the music loud and set about terracing a new area for more salad greens production. The sheer enthusiasm of the volunteer team make the work incredibly fun and the days have been flying by. One after another, we tackled massive boulders that seem impossible to move.

When the fourth or fifth rock finally got set into place in a nearby dry-stack wall, it hit me.

I Could Not Do This By Myself

The volunteers, at that moment, reminded me of the power of small groups working together. Work turns into fun and the cultural exchange that happens when people of different backgrounds come together is incredible. Small groups of motivated people setting their minds to achieve a task is how things get done. I realized that the volunteers help keep the farm fresh and exciting. They also help to keep me interested and motivated.

I think the key to running a good team of volunteers is to be organized and ready for a list of jobs that can be done by a wide range of skill sets. It also involves being ok with mistakes. If you want everything to be perfect on your farm, then maybe volunteers are not for you. But if you want to get some work done, motivate others, and learn and share with amazing people, then volunteers may be just what you need.

As I finish this post, it is getting close to the start of the work day and I know the volunteers will be arriving soon. As I think about the farm and what needs to get done, I am excited to know that an international group of motivated young people are here, by our side, ready to help. That is a very satisfying feeling and it makes me excited to see what the day will bring.

I am curious what other homesteaders think about volunteers. Do you have experiences hosting volunteers? How has it been for you. What are the challenges? What are the benefits? Let's hear it!