Bendale Market Garden, Farm Manager Position
Posted: April 25, 2011
Categories: Food in the News
FoodShare Toronto, Bendale Market Garden, Farm Manager Job Description
FoodShare is looking for a farm manager to run the Bendale Market Garden, a
school-based market garden at Bendale Business and Technical School in Scarborough, Ontario (please see background section below for more details on the Market Garden). The farm manager will generate his or her income from produce sales, while supporting the educational and food access mandates of the project. There is no guaranteed income for this position. This is an opportunity for a farmer/ educator to have access to land, tools, seeds, and labour and to build experience running a teaching farm in an urban context. We are open to creative proposals for this position.
Detailed job description:
- Create and manage the farm plan (crop planning; logistics of production, harvest, and distribution; documentation; strategy)
- Grow food in a mix-vegetable market garden
- Oversee the daily operations of the Focus on Youth students, farm interns, volunteers
- Communicate with Focus on Youth funder (reporting on the students’ hours, giving feedback)
- Communicate with CSA and market customers
- Liaises with FoodShare staff support person and Bendale staff for educational programming and overall strategy for farm plan
- Ongoing support of co-workers learning process
- Generate your own salary through sales of produce through CSA shares and at market
- Maintain the Market Garden so that it looks good
- Act as a spokesperson for the Market Garden and FoodShare in the community, with the school, and with the broader public.
Qualifications and skills:
- Farm management experience (preferably small-scale, organic, direct marketing: CSA and markets)
- Exceptional people management skills (good at delegating tasks, helping people feel valued)
- Strong communication and organizational skills
- Business or farm planning experience
- Experience and comfort working with youth
- Willingness to do hard physical labour outside in all weather conditions
- Computer proficiency (ability to use excel spreadsheets for planning, write clear emails)
- Knowledge of and experience working with diverse communities
- Background in education and community development an asset
- Ability to speak multiple languages an asset
- Knowledge of the Dorset Park/ Scarborough community an asset
- Background in permaculture an asset
- Holding a valid Ontario Drivers License an asset
- Police check clearance (to be able to work with students)
Hours and Compensation:
- Set your own hours, generate your own income
- The supplies, space, and labour described below
- Support from FoodShare in building relationships with the school, markets, CSAÂ customers
- Support from FoodShare and Bendale Horticulture department with the farm planning and monitoring process
- As much produce as you want to eat personally
- Most of your seeds and seedlings
Duration: beginning of May running through to November (negotiable). There may be a possibility for paid winter employment doing environmental educational programming. There would be a possibility for renewal of the farm manager position for 2012 growing season.
How to apply:
Please email your resume and a brief proposal for how you would generate income and support the educational and food access mandates of the farm to Ian Hepburn-Aley at ian@foodshare.net.
This is a new model for FoodShare. We are open to creative ways of structuring this position.
If you are interested and have questions please call 416-363-6441 x241. Please do not contact Bendale BTI directly. Please note: this is a FoodShare job not a Toronto District School Board job.
Deadline for applications: April 25, 2011
Background
Location and Neighbourhood
Bendale BTI is located 1555 Midland Avenue, just north of Lawrence in the Dorset Park neighbourhood. This community is highly diverse, with many newcomer families. Housing is primarily high-rise apartments.
The Lawrence East TTC Station is a five-minute walk from the school. If you are coming from downtown Toronto, you can take the Bloor-Danforth subway line east to Lawrence East (transfer at Kennedy Station to the Scarborough RT).
FoodShare Toronto
FoodShare is a Toronto non-profit community organization whose vision is Good Healthy Food for All. Founded 26 years ago to address hunger in our communities, FoodShare takes a unique multifaceted and long-term approach to hunger and food issues. We work to empower individuals, families and communities through food-based initiatives, while advocating for the broader public policies needed to ensure that everyone has adequate access to sustainably produced, good healthy food. Working “from field to table,” we focus on the entire system that puts food on our tables: from the growing, processing and distribution of food to its purchasing, cooking and consumption. FoodShare’s programs reach over 145,000 children and adults every single month across the city of Toronto and countless others across Canada, bringing them fresh, nutritious, affordable food, and cultivating the knowledge and skills that build healthy communities.
The Market Garden
During the 2010 growing season, FoodShare worked with Bendale’s horticulture department to turn the front and back lawns into about three quarters of an acre of production space. Because it is a high foot traffic area, all the beds are built as permanent raised beds with two by ten cedar lumber. We used lasagna gardening approaches to build soil in some of the beds and for others we brought in Arntz triple mix. Beds are all four feet wide and vary in length from twenty to forty feet long. All beds are in full sun.
Along with the beds the Market Garden includes:
- A recently planted fruit orchard and herb garden
- Asparagus, raspberry, rhubarb, and strawberry starts for planting this season
- Two small greenhouses that are looked after by the horticulture classes
- Access to a walk-in cooler for storing harvest
- Rain barrel system (six large barrels)
- Two three-bin composting systems
- Easy water access and we have twenty fifty-foot lengths of soaker hose and mulch for irrigation and water retention
- Lots of signage (banners for the market, educational signage throughout the farm, etc).
- A dedicated shed for tool storage
- An Earthway seeder, a wheel hoe, rototiller
- Hand tools: digging forks, shovels, hand hoes, trowels
- Occasional access to carpentry and plumbing tools (power saws, cordless drills, etc)
- A market tent and table
- About fifteen harvest baskets
- About thirty Rubbermaid totes for storing and transporting produce (to market or to CSAÂ customers)
- An eight-foot modular Bikes at Work trailer for transporting produce and market supplies
- A bike, helmet, lights, lock
Educational and Food Access Mandates
Bendale is a technical high school. It offers horticulture, plumbing, carpentry, culinary arts, business and other classes. The Bendale Market garden is an educational farm, tied in with the activities of the school. During the school year, horticulture classes help maintain the garden and culinary arts students learn to cook with fresh produce. The school community is engaged and enthused about the market garden.
Because the Market Garden is on Toronto District School Board property, students need to be involved in the whole process. Last growing season, over the summer months, we were able to hire three students through a program called Focus on Youth to work full time in the garden for July and August. We also had two co-op students during the summer and three in the fall semester, full time in the garden. Other Bendale students and community members from the neighbourhood came to volunteer. We are hoping to engage all these groups during the 2011 growing season plus possibly bringing on one to three part-time farm interns, who would have a deeper background in agriculture and could exchange work for learning. The farm manager would be responsible for supporting the learning process and managing the labour of this group.
During the 2010 growing season, we ran a weekly onsite market for community members, students and staff. We sold the produce at very affordable rates because we wanted to make sure price was not a barrier to access. All the food we provided to the kitchen was free of charge because we were not yet at a volume that could offset cost of ordering from their main supplier.
FoodShare will support the Farm Manager in creating a plan that allows for generation of a living wage for the Manager while also providing access to good healthy food for the school and surrounding community.