The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - e.39: Farm Interns, Labour Laws, and Fair Compensation for Your Farm Help

Episode Date: March 4, 2015

Herein: we talk about the legality and ethics of unpaid and low-paid farm internships, and some best (and worst) practices in hosting farm interns. In light of two recent cases of disgruntled farm interns suing their hosts for unpaid wages, The Ruminant delves into the matter. This jumbo-sized episode features four guests:  Dennis O'brien, a farmer who was sued for unpaid wages in 2014; Mary-Alice Johnson and Robin Tunnicliffe, both long-time apprenticeship hosts with lots of good advice on who should and shouldn't be offering apprenticeships, and how to keep your apprentices happy; and Michael Ekers, a University of Toronto professor who has studied labour challenges and solutions on small farms in depth.  In the episode I referenced SOIL Apprenticeships, a non-profit organization that helps connect aspiring farmers with farms willing to host and teach them.

They shook my hand, they thanked me for everything, you know, that they learned on the farm. And I thought, cool, you know, this has worked out well. And then I got the call from the Labour Board. Folks, I'm in San Diego for tomorrow's Permaculture Voices conference, and recording conditions aren't great, so I'm going to be as brief as a blowhard is capable of. Also, it's Taco Tuesday in the hostel I'm staying in, and apparently in San Diego in general, and soon enough the tequila is going to start flowing downstairs and then you'll probably start hearing badly played bongo drums, and you don't want that, and I don't

want that. So let's hurry, shall we? This episode is about farm apprenticeships and internships. It's mainly for apprenticeship hosts, but there's a lot of useful stuff in here for apprentices both future and internships. It's mainly for apprenticeship hosts, but there's a lot of useful stuff in here for apprentices, both future and current. The episode was challenging to put together and requires a bit more setup than normal. Here goes. Aside from producing this podcast and being a farmer, I'm also the coordinator of Stewards of Irreplaceable Lands, which is a Canadian non-profit organization that helps aspiring farmers connect with farmers willing to offer them an apprenticeship.

SoilApprenticeships.com Aside from providing both parties with some resources for guidance, we aren't involved in the apprenticeship arrangements that result. That's up to each farmer and apprentice. In Canada, many of these apprenticeships involve the apprentice agreeing to work a full-time schedule on the farm in exchange for room and board and their education and a monthly stipend. Often this adds up to less than the minimum wage. The vast majority of the time both parties exit the arrangement very happy but occasionally one or both parties is very unhappy and in the last two years we've seen two British Columbia based soil host farmers end up being successfully sued for unpaid wages.

So, this episode is all about labour on farms, and specifically, apprenticeship labour on farms. We'll start with Dennis O'Brien, a Vancouver Island farmer who was sued for unpaid wages last year. He was bewildered by that, and I'm grateful he was willing to share his story. After that, interviews with two long-time apprenticeship hosts, who have some good advice for those considering hosting interns. Finally, I speak with Michael Eakers, a University of Toronto academic who has studied labour challenges in the small-scale farming context. It's a long episode, but I think it's worth the commitment if you're involved in farming apprenticeships in some way, or plan to be.

You can find some useful links about this topic in the show notes of the episode at theruminant.ca. First up is Dennis O'Brien. I was in an airport when I recorded our conversation, so please excuse the background noise. You'll hear Dennis refer to a woman called Evelyn. She was the other farmer I mentioned earlier who was sued for unpaid wages a couple of years ago. One more thing. If you want to hear the individual interviews that are assembled in this episode, you can go to the ruminant.ca and look for the post on this episode. And there you'll find that I've split up the interviews so that you can consume them in smaller pieces. So there's four different ones there, Mary, Robin, Dennis, and Michael.

Dennis, you have been hosting farm apprentices for some years now, and based on an experience you had last year, you have a bit of a cautionary tale to tell to other farmers hosting apprentices. Could you tell me a little bit about that? Yes. What we ran into, well, we'd heard about what had happened with Evelyn. So we rearranged the way things were doing. My brother Mike and myself sat down and we worked out how much it cost, what we were charging for people to stay on the farm, how much food costs were, and then worked out a package that it would work out that when we brought

an apprentice on board, they would get the least minimum wage, if not more, by the time we worked our hours and everything else into it. So we did that. Unfortunately, I didn't hear the talk that you had with Evelyn. If I had heard that, I would have changed things around and paid, done the minimum wage and then done deductions from there. So what happened last year, we ran into a problem with the, we had four apprentices. Two of the apprentices at the end of the season called the labor board.

So well after the season was over, we got a call from the mediator from the labor board saying that they had filed for going after us for minimum wage, that they weren't paid minimum wage. So I stated, hey, you know, we've got everything together showing that, you know, it was minimum wage. We've got receipts for all our food costs. We've got, you know, what it was. And it was stated there that she said that look you've got that you could fight it but if you lose you're going to pay a fine what you really need to have in place and what farmers need to have in place is pay the minimum wage and then from there make the deductions for

the you know if there's room costs if there food costs, and get the apprentices to sign on. That way everybody's clear exactly what's going on. And I've heard from other farmers where they say, oh, you know, we've got a good rapport with the apprentices. I thought we had a good rapport with the apprentices. All the way through the apprenticeship, we would have morning meetings, maybe not every day, but probably close to every other day at least, where we'd all have a sit and talk about what was going on the farm what was happening and we would make changes as they came up and as a matter of fact we end up changing that we they wanted to opt out of the apprenticeship and

just become you know just a regular worker on the farm and we did that with two of them it worked out great with the other two there was altercations at the end of the season with other staff um they finished up i think it was a week earlier than what originally they had planned and we ended up paying them a week's pay which being a farmer you don't have to but we did just to make the piece they were going to move off they shook my hand they thanked me for everything you know that they learned on the farm. And I thought, cool, this has worked out well. And then I got the call from the labor board.

So you never really know, being a farmer, if you don't have it set up that you're paying minimum wage first and then doing the deduction, anyone can come back on you. And it leaves the farmer vulnerable. And I guess from the point of the deduction, anyone can come back on you. And it leaves the farmer vulnerable. And I guess from the point of the apprentices, it also, it'll probably help them keep it clear in their head of, okay, this is what we're getting. This is what we're paying for. Well, what I find interesting about your story is just that it really does sound like you

and your other farm partners tried to be thoughtful about how you set up the apprenticeship. Not only just with the planning and trying to calculate all the different things you were providing and figuring it added up to a minimum wage, but also in terms of the communication that you engaged in with your apprentices all the way through, and yet you still ended up with a problem like this. Now, that ends up being a small, small percentage of incidents, as a percentage of overall apprenticeship hosting across Canada, at least as far as soil apprenticeships goes. But I'm sure you would have,

I'm sure you were, I'm sure, I imagine just the whole process of dealing with the labor board and then paying out the fine was not, is something you'll be wanting to avoid in the future. Oh yes, definitely. And I think the risk we run into now, George, is that because of what had originally happened from Evelyn, because it was brought up in one of our meetings, that they said, oh, you know, we saw the podcast or whatever, where Evelyn came out, you know, the labor band, these guys had gone through the labor board and she had to pay money into it. And so they brought that to my attention that, oh, know that's out there and they said oh not that you know that's an issue or we'd ever go that route and they all you know all four of them had said

no we're you know happy with the way things are and you know whatever changes we make we make along the way um but yeah still now that that is even out there more so, the farmer will run into a risk of, you know, everybody's aware of it, which is okay. But pay that minimum wage first and then do the breakdown from thereafter. Because, as you said, you know, we were. We were trying to be thoughtful in the beginning of going, okay, this is our cost. And we didn't even take all of them into consideration we gave the apprentices pieces of land to grow their um whatever they wanted to experiment with we gave them time um to do that on the farm um so if you don't mind my asking dennis then how let's okay how do you plan to to, with any future apprentice slash employees who are living on the farm, can you break it down?

I mean, okay, so you're going to pay them a minimum wage over the table that will involve the typical deductions like CPP and EI. But you'll be charging them in return for things you provide. Can you break down really quickly how, like, you know. Yes, sure. Can you break down really quickly how, like, you know? Yes, sure. So what we'd end up doing, of course, if they're living on the farm, then there will be a cost of staying on the farm because, of course,

we provide the hot water and the toilet paper and everything else. So, yeah, so we would take out the room costs from the minimum wage, and then we would charge and always give them the option. If they want, we supply the food and they eat the food off the farm plus whatever else we add to it. And then that would be agreed upon. Then that would come out of their weekly, but we do pay every two weeks. That would come out of the pay. And then if there's any instructional for teaching and it's taking my time up, then I would come up with an hourly rate for

myself and then deduct that from their wages. And so I guess, I mean, this is going to come up in other parts of this episode, this idea of charging for your educational services. I guess it just, I mean, it'll mean that I would imagine one potentially positive benefit is that it forces you to really consider just what kind of education you're providing because now you're assigning a financial value to that education. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And I think in a way, too, Jordan, it allows us to look at the whole thing with both. By having this on a piece of paper and they're looking at it from the apprentice's point of view, okay, I'm paying for this. What am I getting in

return? Because a lot of them come to the farm. They're pretty easy going. We're pretty easy going. And then it's not until you get into, you know, your full season where you're going full tilt and then all of a sudden, you know, questions will come up. Well, hold it here. You know, I'm not getting learning time or, but if this is all made clear in the beginning and it's spelled out, this is what you're paying for, this is what you're getting, and deductions are made accordingly, everybody gets to see what's happening. More transparency, for sure. Yeah, exactly. So Dennis, I'm going to use very rough numbers here, but we're talking in the British Columbia

perspective where everyone has to pay minimum wage. There are no exemptions for farmers. If you're paying minimum wage, once you factor in deductions, it's minimum $12 an hour when it's all added up. It's actually a bit more, but I'm just going to say $12. I'm going to assume a 40-hour week, so that's $480 a week that's costing you. You don't have to get into specifics, but in the end, how much of that will you be charging back on education, room, and board?

Do you have any idea? With ours, when we worked in room and board, education, it came to about half. Okay. So, I mean, this season here, what we were paying was just over $200 a week. Half of it was the cash that went back to them and the other half covered the room and board the food the food and that and okay so are you able to deduct all that stuff right off their check it's not you know you're not paying them in full and then they're paying you back separately is it all done as a deduction yes Yes, and I should just double check, as long as it's signed beforehand.

Yeah. Like even the educational fee, or does that have to be kept separate? That's a good question, Jordan. That I probably have to look into. Okay, but room and board, you can legally deduct right off their check? Yes, yeah. And that was in, there was a letter that I put out, or one that my brother, I just tried to see if I could find it off. I've got it somewhere on the computer, but it's from the labor board. And it says, you know, you cannot make deductions, blah, blah, blah, unless you have written approval. I see. Okay. And Dennis, one last question, I guess, then.

One thing that one might object to in the approach you're about to take is to lament for the simplicity of just an informal arrangement that works for like over 90% of host and apprentice relationships. like over 90% of host and apprentice relationships. Do you see, and I mean, that's easy to see that once you add, once you start formalizing things, it's just, it's just a little more complicated. Is there, but I mean, you kind of just spoke to this, but do you see any benefits to approaching it this way? So, I mean, one I see is simply that it protects you against risks like being, being sued for unpaid wages, but is there anything else that you're, like, anything else you can be optimistic about in terms of this new approach? Well, I think you kind of hit it on, is that, from the farmer's point of view, of taking a look, if we're going to charge or we're going to put a rate or something

to the educational portion of, package, then we've got to be making sure we're giving something that's worthwhile to the apprentices. So I think that would be a bonus more for the apprentices, but it's also good for the farmers too. Okay, well maybe I can chat with you again at the end of the season to find out how it went for you. Sure, yeah. And I do understand what you're saying with the other. We have apprentices that have come through here, and it's been easy, and they've been great because for the most part, you know, they're very excited about farming, and they know the value of learning as, you know,

we did. Like, I mean, there's been mistakes we've made, and it's cost the value of learning as you know we did like i mean there's been mistakes we've made it's cost a lot of money um that we you know it's like hey i would have paid so you know looking back like wow if i could have paid someone to let me know that it'd be worth no kidding i i know exactly what you're saying there's there's a lot of uh there's a lot of value to an apprenticeship that that can't be assessed easily in dollars and cents, just in lessons learned on someone else's farm so you're not paying for the mistakes later. Mm-hmm, yeah. Anyway, Dennis O'Brien, thank you very much for sharing your perspective.

You're welcome, Jordan. Have a great day. Hi again, everyone. Next, you'll hear from Mary Alice Johnson of ALM Farm on Vancouver Island, and then Robin Tunnicliffe of Seabluff Farm, also on Vancouver Island. So, moving right along. Mary Alice Johnson, you have been the president of Soil Apprenticeships for quite a while. How long have you been involved with the soil organization? Well, how long have you been involved with the soil organization?

I think from pretty much when I, well, within two years of starting farming. And I started farming in 1990. So I think I got involved probably in 92. Wow. Since early 90s to the present, you have been both hosting apprentices on your farm and also involved with this nonprofit organization that helps connect host farmers with people who want to do apprenticeships. Right. And at the beginning, I was doing the matching as you are now. So you've been hosting, I mean, geez, in all the years, I mean, I know a lot of years you have more than one apprentice. So, I mean, you've seen dozens of apprentices go through your farm.

It may be more than dozens. Let's see, if we say three to four apprentices per year, and we're talking easily 20 years, I think, here, we're talking about maybe somewhere upwards of over 100 apprentices, maybe. Wow. Okay. So I'm recording this episode to talk about some issues that have arisen in recent years around disgruntled apprentices who end up suing their hosts for unpaid wages. Have you ever had any problems like that in your 20 years

and 100 apprentices' worth on your farm? No, I haven't. No, I haven't. I have had apprentices leave under uncomfortable circumstances where I think both they and I agreed that it wasn't working out. Often that happens fairly early in apprenticeship that we see it's just not a fit. But I don't think any of my apprentices have left feeling they got a raw deal. I think they left because their personality clashes or they found the work too difficult on their bodies or they found me difficult to deal with.

I'm not the easiest person in the world to deal with. But I don't think they felt they had a raw deal. But I don't think they felt they had a raw deal. I think they came into it realizing what I was offering, and I think I carried through. I don't think I took advantage of people. They could see I was offering the best housing, the best stipend, and the best food I could, and that I was trying my best to teach them how to farm.

Okay, so let me just, let me dig into that a little bit. For a typical apprentice that comes through then, it sounds like you're offering room and board, their farm education, and a small stipend. Is that correct? That's correct. Right. So this is, that's, I think it's fair to say that of the soil organizations, roughly 80 host farms, that is the dominant model that is being employed. Right. Mary, in the last couple of years, we've had two high profile cases of soil host farms being taken to their their provincial labor board and and their their disgruntled apprentices successfully uh obtaining lost wages um first of the first one regarding that these issues that come up i mean one thing that i want to get your take on because it's

certainly my take is that while the vast majority of these hosting experiences are very productive and to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, the apprentice and the host, I think it's, is it fair to say though, that in any province in Canada, if you are creating an apprenticeship experience under the kind of room and board stipend model that on paper you will be in violation of labor laws? Depends on the stipend. If you pay a good enough stipend that you actually are doing minimum wage, if you're counting the room and board, I think you might

be okay. Well, let's just create a hypothetical, because I think it applies to a lot of farms, where when you add up the stipend and the room and board, it does not equal a minimum wage. I think that's true in the case at my farm. Right. So in that case, it is my impression that I suspect that any apprentice who took their case to their provincial labor board would have a high rate of success in suing for lost wages. In other words, these arrangements technically are in violation, generally speaking, of provincial labor laws. I mean, I agree completely. And I think I've been aware of that from the very beginning. Yeah. And I mean, I really want to emphasize that these cases are the exception rather than the norm. They represent less than 1% of the apprenticeships that are happening through our program each year. My point is, I think, you know, part of the point of producing this episode is to make sure our host farmers understand that they are taking a small risk.

Right, for sure. And I think I assume that farmers knew that because it's pretty obvious to me that, you know, we're not paying them a wage. And when the apprentice comes on, I make it very clear, I know they're not getting what I would wish they could, you know, what would be a fair wage. But I'm also saying to them, this is what the farm supports. And if you want to get into farming, I mean, my goal is to help people make the step into becoming farmers. My goal is in having apprentices, my goal is not to find labor for myself. My goal is not to find labor for myself. My goal is to help people move into farming. And I want them to know if they're going to become farmers doing the kind of farming I'm doing, they are probably not going to make minimum wage themselves as owners of a farm. So Mary, I think there are many host farmers offering very, very good experiences to their apprentices that may not add up to compensation equaling a minimum wage, but nonetheless offer very enriching experiences in terms of the farm education the apprentices

are getting, and those apprentices are walking away very, very happy. But as for the ones that don't walk away happy or the potential to create disgruntled apprentices, how does your farm avoid it? Because you've had very few problems in 20 years of hosting. What is the secret to your success in ensuring you're offering an experience that everybody's happy with? One thing I don't do is I don't have paid employees working side by side with apprentices.

I think when you ask an apprentice to do the same kind of work as a paid employee, I treat my apprentices' work differently. employee. I treat my apprentices' work differently. If someone comes on as an employee, I will ask them to harvest a crop, you know, to do a task, and I won't be that concerned that there's a learning experience associated with that. I mean, I want them to know how to harvest the crop. I mean, as an employer, I would want them to know how to do it. But I wouldn't go into all the background information. I wouldn't ask them to go visit another farm with me, to work with other farms to see how other farms operate.

I wouldn't send them off to conferences. I wouldn't send them off to enrichment programs at different farms. I wouldn't provide a huge library for them. I mean, I'm thinking about the kind of farm work, labor work that often people pay for where you want someone to go out in the field and harvest a field of tomatoes. It's just a different kind of a relationship. When an apprentice comes on, we ask them,

what is it you're most interested in? What do you want to learn? We talk about how the farm has operated in the past. We open up our books and show them where the money's coming from, where the money's going. They can see how the economy of the farm works and it's just a different experience and that seems to be

the apprentices realize that that's a part of it. So what about those host farms that are structuring their apprenticeships much more like a learn-by-doing apprenticeship? Do you think there's room for those types of, that type of structure in terms of justifying below minimum wage room and boarders type in? No, I don't. I don't. If you're looking just for labor, do not go into this this way.

Don't go into this soil program. Don't go into apprenticeships. If you just want labor, hire people. Okay, so you're drawing a pretty clear line between what you see as a farmhand and the apprentices that you accept onto your farm in terms of the added educational value that you're providing to them. If you don't see yourself as a teacher and you're not seeing this as a teaching experience and you are not thinking about this person as someone who's going to go on and set up their own farm, then I don't think you should have apprentices.

I totally not only understand your point of view, to a large extent I agree with your point of view, Mary, and as a soil host myself, as an apprenticeship host, I have in previous years hosted apprentices in the same way that you do. In more recent years, I have decided to start paying a minimum wage to my apprentices. Now in doing so, I have moved the structure of my apprenticeship a little more towards a farmhand position, although I also still provide a lot of education value, I believe. I'm just wondering how you as a host farmer deal with or can think about the fact that in my opinion, one way or the other, these apprentices are contributing to the economic activity of the farm, I suppose. And as such, I started to become less and less comfortable with not providing a minimum wage. But I know that at least among soil host farmers who really focus on the education, that there's a lot of those farmers who disagree with me.

And I'm just wondering what you think about that. think about that well would you okay uh do you figure you're making minimum wage uh let's just say for since i don't know exactly but since it wouldn't be much more let's just say i'm not let's say technically my do you think you ever will make minimum i think i might be able to pull that off. But let's just, I know where you're going with this, so let's just say that I never will. What kind of investment of time and money, capital, will you need to put into this farm before you get to minimum wage?

Well, it might be a fair bit, but let me just ask you, what are you driving at? What's your point? Well, I don't think farming, driving at? What's your point? Well, I don't think farming, I don't think the Canadian society is willing to pay farmers enough to pay minimum wage. And therefore that we don't, we're not going to get enough for our food. So but I want to grow food and I'll grow up whether I have apprentices or not. And if people want to come and grow food with me, for whatever reason, they want to learn how to grow vegetables.

I mean, I think there's a lot of young people today who think that this is a career that will produce an income of more than minimum wage. I think farming is a career that will produce a high, high quality of life, a healthy life, but I don't think farming is a career that will produce minimum wage. Mary, what about in terms of keeping everybody happy in an apprenticeship situation, what is the role of communication? Oh, it's absolutely crucial. And I wish I could do a better job of it than I do. I don't think you can ever do a good enough job.

I think that first of all, when you are choosing your apprentice, choose very, very carefully. And I really believe that no apprentice is much better than an apprentice who you cannot communicate with well. So make sure that you feel comfortable with that apprentice and that you check their references and that you really spend the time on initially setting up all the interviews and you really feel comfortable with the apprentice

and they feel very comfortable with you. Second of all, draw up a contract and really fill out expectations and what people get out of it, both sides, parties get out of it. And revisit that contract after six weeks and again after three months. make sure that you're spending time daily talking to the apprentice about the tasks they're doing and you're checking in on are they learning what they want to learn. I also think it's really good to give apprentices, give them tasks, not give them tasks, but give them responsibilities where they can focus their energy and really focus on growing specific crops

so that they get the experience of growing out a whole crop. Unlike an employee, you can just say, go over there and pick those peas. But I think with an apprentice, you want to sit down with the apprentice and say, okay, we're going to look at a pea crop. We want you to look at the succession plantings. We want you to know that peas do really well in market, all the different kinds of peas, the kind of harvesting you want to do. And then at the end of the day, you want to say, okay,

how much money did you actually make per square foot on these piece and the time and labor you put into it you really want them to understand that crop and maybe four or five other crops well so they can get a sense of of when they go out and start their own farm, what are the crops that are going to make them money and which ones they're going to bring in customers. You want them to learn from that. Right. And so I guess the goal with communication is just to,

or one major goal is to avoid surprises, to make sure expectations are matched up. Right, right. It just seems to me that when you create a situation where expectations are not aligned is where you have a potential for problems to develop. Exactly, exactly. And studying the two situations where a pharmacist has run into problems, you can see that expectations were totally out of line, totally. Particularly, I'm very familiar with the first case that came up, and you could see, yes, they were in totally different pages.

Right. And they weren't talking to each other, and at a certain point they began to realize that, and they didn't deal with it properly. And things disintegrated to the point where... Things disintegrated. So you had very angry employees. There were warning signs that people didn't sit down and talk about them early enough.

Right. Well, Mary, thanks very much for sharing your perspective today. Well, thank you for including me. Robin Tunnicliffe, how long have you been involved in farming apprenticeships in one way, shape or form? I guess I could say 16 years. I did an apprenticeship in 98. And then maybe five years after that, I started taking apprentices of my own once I had my own operation up and going and I knew what I was doing. And so in the years since you've been hosting, well, first of all, I should say, I imagine your experience as an apprentice really informed the way that you host your apprenticeships. as an apprentice really informed the way that you host your apprenticeships?

Yes. I did everything. I really got a slice of life, what it's like to be a farmer and food activist. And I was just grateful every day. I couldn't believe my luck that I got to shadow a farmer and learn everything. When I got to the farm, I really didn't have any skills. I had never really spent time on a farm. I knew that that's what I wanted to do, and I had a passion, but absolutely no skills at all. And here I was getting this practical, hands-on experience. When I got to live on the farm, I was fed, treated well. And after I started my farm, she actually helped me find land to lease. And then there she was

for the next five or six years helping me go find markets and visiting the farm, making sure everything was going well. So it really was a long-term relationship, and I just wouldn't have traded it for anything. So I imagine then that when you started hosting, you tried to emulate some of the structure and the values that Tina brought to hosting. Absolutely. When I take on an apprentice, I think of it as a really serious

endeavor where I'm teaching the craft of farmers, farming, and I want to train a future farmer. That's one of the questions I ask people before I take them on as apprentices is, do you want to become a farmer? And if the answer is yes, then I am devoted to helping them become a farmer. Can you very briefly just outline how you structure the exchange in terms of what the apprentice is getting and what you're providing? Or sorry, what you're providing and what they're providing you? What I offer the apprentices, they come and in exchange for a 40-hour week, they get room and boards and minimum wage.

The way we've gotten around, I don't know what I should say about this, but what I will say is we pay the minimum wage and then we charge them an educational amount and the whole amount works out to about 700 a month which was the stipend that we were paying people beforehand so kind of room and board and food um and then this stipend to kind of cover their and then they're stiffened to kind of cover their expenses. So sorry, if I could interrupt, Robin, just so I make sure. Yeah.

You mean once the – so you're paying them a wage, you're giving them room and board, and then you're charging them a fee for their education. And once that fee is deducted, what it works out to them receiving is room and board plus $700 a month. Do I have that correct? Yeah. Okay. Yeah that correct? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I think it's 735. And then that's what they get to take home after they've done their source deductions, after we've done the source deductions and they've paid their CPP and EI and all of that sort of stuff. So it's $735 in their pocket. that sort of stuff. So it's $735 in their pocket. First of all, it's really interesting to hear that the model that you're trying out now with charging an education fee and paying minimum wage, because this deviates a bit from what I would call the average or the norm with most of the, so most host farmers I know who generally speaking are providing room and board and a stipend of 50 to $200 a week. And that is all in exchange for the efforts of the apprentice. So one thing, I mean, I imagine that one positive, I mean,

in the end, you're paying out the same amount, it sounds like, that you used to, but you've just structured it differently. And that's really interesting. It seems like perhaps that will, if nothing else, it'll make you be thinking about what your apprentices are getting for that education fee. In other words, just make you reflective about whether you're really focusing enough on their education. Do you think that is one outcome? I think it's really good. You know, I've been pretty involved in the apprenticeship program. And I do get to hear some horror stories about farm apprentices who come to the farm and really aren't feeling like they're getting their value out of the apprenticeship. I also hear former stories on the other side of the equation where the farmer puts everything into the apprentice and then the relationship breaks down for one reason or another.

So I think that the educational fee that I'm charging every month will be a chance to reflect for both the farmer and the apprentice about, wow, is this worth it? And, you know, if it wasn't worth it this month, let's talk about it and let's see what we can do so that next month you feel like this is good value. I do a theoretical component to the apprenticeship where there's supplementary reading, to the apprenticeship where there's supplementary reading. There's kind of a theme each week because we're learning hands-on, but oftentimes there's not time to talk about every aspect of soil chemistry that you would like to during the time. And I know it and I've studied it, but it's not always on the tip of my tongue.

I know it and I've studied it, but it's not always on the tip of my tongue. So the theoretical, you know, week six, we talk about soil chemistry, and I have a list of readings that are associated with that topic. And if the apprentice does the readings, then there's time during our weekly review where they can ask me about it and I can reflect on, okay, you know what? I know what cation exchange capacity is. I have to look that up again because I don't know the exact amount. Yeah, I can relate.

I knew it at one point. My brain is fried right now. But it's a good reflection for me too too, because I have to stay up on everything. You know, I knew it all at one point, and I'm often doing things because I've always done them a certain way, and I know that I'm doing them for a very specific reason, but the teaching helps me reflect, oh, yeah, you know what? We put the compost on and incorporate it right away because, you know because the nitrogen escapes when it's in the sun.

And exactly the mechanism of that, now I'm reflecting on it because you've done the reading. You've talked about it. Well, I want to pick up on that because I think you've highlighted something, a really smart approach. And it's one that I've taken as well on my farm, which is it takes a lot of effort to to to actively teach this stuff and so if if i if i hear you right then then one thing you do is you do require your apprentices to show a bit of initiative show the desire to learn that stuff before you will be willing to to sit down and talk about it i.e you ask them to read up that chapter before before you will be willing to sit down and talk about it, i.e. you ask them to read up that chapter before you talk about it, which makes a lot of sense to me and is why I use that approach

on my farm because not every apprentice wants to hear all that theory. And it seems like a waste of everyone's time if they're not showing, you know, an actual interest in talking about all that background science, etc. So Robin, one last topic, I guess. Elsewhere, I have made an argument that in spite of any educational benefits being passed on in an apprenticeship, that I think the average apprenticeship is sufficiently contributing to the economic output of the farm that they're worth minimum wage in addition to the the educational value they're getting and you and I debated about that in in another forum and I'm just wondering if we could cover that real quick because I know you don't necessarily agree that that applies in all situations and I'm wondering if you have any

thoughts about that yeah I um I do have thoughts about that I um I feel that when when the average apprentice comes and you know there are definitely exceptions to the rule, but I often take people who have never been on the farm. They're kind of like I was when I first started, pretty wide-eyed, not super familiar with how a lot of physics work. And when they come on the farm, they're actually not very valuable when they start. And I invest a lot into them and they learn tons and slowly, slowly, and mostly they learn through mistakes. Some of the mistakes that get made are just really expensive and a huge hassle. And for a farmhand, I wouldn't be able to take that because it's too much.

But when you're teaching a new farmer, it's a whole different mindset of, okay, you know what, that was a mistake and now you've learned and I've learned as well that now that I'm describing a job to an apprentice, you know, when you're hammering a post, a foot, that'll be good. So I think when people first come to the farm, they're not that useful to me. But learning and growing together, by the end of the season, they are. And then when next year comes and they apply for a job, I'm happy to pay them.

And we pay them more than minimum wage. Robin, I think that's a totally reasonable point of view, especially for someone who, even in this conversation alone, has clearly demonstrated their dedication and commitment to the educational part of the apprenticeship. I just, and yet I want to, I want to, I guess I wonder why, how, why farming should be any different in terms of the standard you've set out than any other industry. I mean, we generally, I mean, it's not perfect,

but a minimum wage is meant to reflect the wage you pay someone with no experience. That's why it's the minimum wage. And I guess I should qualify that, that, you know, if I hire somebody to dig a hole, anybody can dig a hole and I could leave them out there all day. But if I'm going to teach them, you know, this is the way you want to dig a hole to plant a raspberry plant. You know, you need to have it in wild grain soil. You need to have it this deep, this spacing. Think about the trellis. Think about this. If I'm going to be training them, I don't want to have to be paying them. Right. So it sounds like for you, I mean, you'd sooner just take on farmhands. If, you know, if you're going to be, if you'd be paying a wage, you'd sooner take that on and then not have the extra challenge and responsibility of the enormous effort that goes into teaching.

Yeah, I guess so. And, you know, my preference would be to pay a seasoned apprentice well to work on the farm. Well, I think it is noteworthy that you have both types of positions on your farm and that there's no better to illustrate to host farms and potential host farms that they're really in your mind. As you consider hosting, there really should be a difference. And I'm talking... Yeah, and there is a big difference. Yeah, and especially if you're not going to provide a wage to your apprentice, then you should have a clear idea of what makes the apprenticeship different that it justifies that approach. Yeah. Yeah, and in my mind, they're completely different positions.

Well, Robin, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. And thanks for doing this, Jordan. It's really an important conversation to have. Hey there. It's me again. Last up, we have some very insightful commentary from University of Toronto professor Michael Ekers, who has studied the issue of labour challenges on small farms in depth. Michael, today we're talking about the challenges of finding and affording labour on a small scale farm and the legality and feasibility of taking on apprentices as a solution to those labor challenges. First of all, since you've been studying the subject, I'm wondering how much of a

challenge it is for small-scale farmers in Canada to solve their labor problems by offering internships or apprenticeships. I think that your question is a good one in that I think that a lot of've heard in our research is that interns are essentially replacing off-farm inputs like chemicals and pesticides. So we have a very labor-intensive form of alternative food provision that's extremely important, yet it poses huge issues in terms of retaining labor and recruiting labor on farms. Yeah, I think it's a difficult one. I think a lot of farmers think that they can't afford labor.

A lot of that comes down to the cost of potential minimum wage. If someone's working 50, 60 hours a week at minimum wage, it's a huge, huge cost to the farm, as you know while you are a farmer. At the same time, the productivity that you're getting out of your interns probably is much, much lower than if one was willing to actually pay a skilled worker, a skilled kind of agricultural worker a wage. So one of the things that we've heard from some farms that have transitioned away from internships and moved to paid work

is that they find the productivity and the net benefit to the farm received through kind of paid workers is much higher than the investment in internships. So I think that there's an assumption that farmers can't pay workers, yet the farmers that then transition away from interns to paid workers are finding huge gains in that transition. So I think that often farmers think that they can't afford it, but perhaps that might be holding them back, I think. Well, I'm really glad you kind of went down or followed that vein in answering the question. Because first of all, I am one of the farmers who used to host apprentices under a stipend and room and board model, which is common for a lot of farmers hosting apprenticeships.

And I have transitioned to paying my apprentices a minimum wage. I still call them apprentices because I still, as far as I'm concerned, minimum wage is still not a lot of compensation. And so I see the education focus as a further inducement to come and to attract good labor. But I might be putting my thumb on the scale with this question a little bit or revealing my own biases is what I mean. But is it, do you think part of the problem as you've just described it is that because farmers see that they have the option not to pay a minimum wage they they then it's easier psychologically for them to say well I can't afford it rather than I just don't want to afford it? Yeah, no, that's a great question. Well, I think that one of the important things to think about

with the farm internship and the non-waged work issue on farms is that this has been a theme for farmers for hundreds of years in Canada, the US, and more globally, that for generations, farmers have managed to reproduce themselves, sometimes profitably, sometimes just at a subsistence level, through relying on non-waged workers, whether it's the labor of women, whether it's the labor of children, or broader community networks. This has been a persistent feature of farming. That's the first thing to note, is that I think that these internships have to be contextualized within kind of a broader tradition of farms reproducing themselves through

non-waged workers. So the second thing to be said then is that, as you probably know, there's a lot of discourses around agricultural exceptionalism, that farms are different, farming is different, farmers are broke, therefore we need non-waged workers, or we need lower labor standards, we need migrant workers, and the list goes on. We need exemptions to minimum wage, we need exemptions to overtime pay. It's a very long list in terms of once you start thinking about how kind of agricultural exceptionalism works at a legal level, policy level, but also at an ideological level. I think what that provokes me to think about is how do we get away from some of those discourses? Some of those debates around agricultural exceptionalism have meant that farm workers

are underpaid. They have far less rights in terms of legal protections, in terms of employment protections. So I think that we need to be very cautious about this notion that farmers are different, farmers are broke, therefore we need exemptions to kind of classic labor policies and laws. Does that answer your question at all? Yeah, no, no, definitely. Now, I'm just wondering, you must also encounter just in terms of your work talking to farmers and researching this topic, you must encounter farmers who are really adamant that the educational

experience that they're passing on to their interns is something very, very valuable. And that is more than worth the absence of, say, a minimum wage. So first of all, is that the case? Do you encounter that argument a lot? And do you, I don't know, do you have any response to that? Yeah, no, no, of course. It's something that we heard a lot about and it's something that we're going to continue to hear a lot about, I think,

is that the value of this education is such that, in a way, farmers sometimes see themselves as paying the interns. They seem to think that the quality of education is such that the value of that education is far greater than the return in labor, to kind of put it in plain terms, right? That there's this labor-education balance, and a lot of farmers think that it's strongly kind of tilted towards the education side. And I think at times it is. But I think one of the things that we heard a lot about from farmers, from interns, is that interns are not skilled. They don't know how to farm. Now, my response to that is that most people that enter some form of job, they're trained. They're provided

with paid training to learn whatever job it may be, whether it's flipping burgers or working in a legal office, whatever it may be. My TAs here are trained and they're paid to be trained. So I think that, again, there's something about kind of the agricultural exceptionalism that plays into this, the sense that people don't feel like they're trained or that they're skilled, pardon me. Therefore, because they're unskilled, they don't deserve a wage. To me, I find that discourse a bit troubling because I think that a lot of people bring different sorts of skills. And when Charles and I walked away from farms this summer, sometimes it was very clear that even if people didn't have a set of skills in terms of being kind of farm workers in the past, they were contributing a lot of labor to these farms. I would also add that, I mean, just in my experience, and I hope't sound, sound smug or anything like it, but that another problem I have with that, that argument, I suppose, is, is just that in my experience, it doesn't take all that much to, okay, to me it doesn't take that much to get that new hire trained up to a level that is at least satisfactory. Yeah, and I think you're right.

One of the things that makes these internships unique is that they're quite long. They're six to eight months often. If you even invest two to four weeks training someone, then they're working for you for another six or seven months. And this isn't to discount the level of education taking place and the sustained character of that education. But as you mentioned before, I think that paying a wage doesn't necessarily mean that you're not training someone, right? That, as you suggested,

a minimum wage is still far from a fair wage, probably. And so coupling that with the education, I think, makes a lot of sense. I think, if I can put it this way, a much more just way of thinking about these internships. Because I think one of the, at a broader level, just to scale back a little bit, I think that if the alternative food movement, alternative agriculture wants to see itself as a social movement, as a social environmental justice project, then questions of labor justice and what fair labor looks like therein is a really important thing that needs to be worked through. And I think that there are people like you doing this, and Charles and I are trying to work on this. And certainly in the US, there's huge movements trying to kind of work through questions of fair labor within the alternative agricultural sector.

So Michael Eakers, can we talk a little bit about, I have a sense that because of your research, you have as good a sense as anyone about the legality of unpaid or less than minimum wage paid farm apprenticeships in Canada, in the provinces. Is it fair for me to suggest that pretty much in every province and territory, if you're not paying your apprentice a minimum wage, you're probably exposing yourself to some risk as far as being sued for unpaid wages later on. Yeah, it's a great question. There's a real provincial patchwork in terms of the agricultural exemptions to labor laws. exemptions to labor laws. So in Ontario, for instance, there is no requirement to pay minimum wage,

overtime, holiday pay, anything for agricultural workers at all. If you're a harvester, it's slightly different. Like if you're specifically a harvester. But if you're a full-time farmhand, if you will, or a farm worker, then the exemptions to the labor law are so deep that you don't have to pay people. Wow, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. So the best way to answer your question then is that these agricultural exemptions differ in every province. There's some similarities to be sure, but for instance in BC, and this is why these

lawsuits have occurred in BC probably and not in Ontario, there are still minimum wage standards for agricultural workers. There's still a number of other exemptions. I don't know the specifics of them, but I do know that in BC there is no exemption for minimum wage on the farm. So that's different from Ontario. So Alberta, as you might imagine, is the worst, by far the worst. So agricultural workers in Alberta have far less rights than any other kind of group of agricultural workers in Canada, and that's also around a minimum wage. So it's difficult to answer your question then on an aggregate level,

at a Canadian-wide level, because the exemptions to labor law specific to agriculture differ in each province. How can a farmer find out? I mean, do you have any general tips for if a farmer wants to wade into that? How can they figure it out? Yeah, of course. The easiest way to do it is to Google agricultural exemptions, British Columbia, labor law or something to that effect, employment law. But I think that one of the most important things to think about is whether these are, and this goes back to your original question, whether interns are employees.

So, for instance, there's all sorts of people that run internships yet treat their workers formally as employees, right? yet treat their workers formally as employees, right? Paying into CPP, paying into workers' comp, paying into EI, these sorts of things. So they're a worker to a T minus the wage. But the exemptions to the labor law mean that that's okay. But if I had to kind of give one piece of advice to farmers, it would be to treat your interns as employees.

Have contracts. Pay into EI, into workers' comp. All these sorts of formal protections. They protect the farmer and they protect the worker. And they create much more clear frameworks for these internships to take place. Right. Okay. So I wanted to, I've been tossing around an idea.

For those who really believe that the quality of the education they're giving is very, very good. And also that their farm just can't afford to pay at least a minimum wage. Have you ever, have you heard this tossed around at all? Like, um, I've suggested that perhaps that farmer could, could pay a minimum wage with all the deductions you just talked about. Uh, but also invoice their apprentice on a weekly or, or monthly basis for their education. And what I've suggested elsewhere is that if they did this, one added benefit. So that would be, that would be a means of actually clawing back some of,

of what they're paying the apprentice. And to me though, what it would do, it was really, it would make a lot more naked, I guess the, the like it would, it would really encourage an analysis of just what kind of education is taking

place because now this this apprentice has to be paying for it as a separate thing it might cause both parties to really reflect on just how much education is taking place yeah of course that's an interesting one so there are farms here in ontario that have tried to do that they've tried to create this really detailed accounting of the time that's poured into education versus the time that's being committed to on-farm work. And I see its value. I think in some of the farms that we visited, it didn't really work or it created some tent. Like formalizing, I'm kind of ambivalent on it,

but I can tell you what I heard from interns and farmers is that it created a bit of kind of ambivalent on it, but I can tell you what I heard from interns and farmers, is that it created a bit of ambivalence, because as soon as you start counting time, that's going to be a bit of a subjective thing as well, right? In terms of who's putting how much time into what. And so there was some blowback about those types of approaches. Not that I'm necessarily opposed to them. I think that you're right that they do provide a lot of clarity about the terms and conditions of both the work and the education, but I think that there were some interns that felt like they were doing way more work

than what the farmer thought they were doing, or that the value of their labor was different. So if one wants to do that, I think that clarity in open communication channels is really important, but having a conversation and discussion about those terms between farmer and intern strike me as very important, right? So it's a deliberative, collective conversation that takes place. And it probably has to be an ongoing conversation as well. I think that farmers need to be really honest with themselves about thinking about the net benefit question.

Is that, in turn, a net benefit to the farm? And this goes back to what you were talking about earlier in terms of trying to kind of think through the justifications of these internships. So I think that, yeah, farmers need to spend a bit of time kind of soul searching, really thinking seriously about the net benefit question. If they feel like those interns are a net benefit and their farm can't continue on without these internships, then they probably need to find a way to pay them in a very clear way. But if you have a different setup, if you're a non-profit

and you're really focused on farmer training, then you come to different conclusions, I think. Michael Ekers, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today to share your perspective. Yeah, of course. Thank you very much, Jordan. It's a great conversation to be part of and thanks for bringing me in okay that's it i hope you enjoyed that and i hope that if you like this podcast you'll support it by sharing it far and wide let me assure you if you search out the ruminant on facebook and then share a recent episode post with your contacts. You'll do the podcast a lot of good. Thanks. All right, I'm off to buy a bathing suit.

Talk to you next week, folks. All we'll need is each other a hundred dollars And maybe a roll of duct tape And we'll run right outside of the city's reaches We'll live off chestnuts, spring water, and peaches. We'll owe nothing to this world of thieves and live life like it was meant to be. Because why would we live in a place that don't want us? A place that is trying to bleed us dry We could be happy with life in the country