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Urban Farmer
Organizational Description
Dig Deep Farms, a social enterprise of Black Ag Tech, is an urban regenerative farm operating 53 acres in Alameda County cultivating specialty crops that directly focus on serving to benefit and improve the well-being of individuals and the larger community through access to fresh, locally grown foods, jobs, and skill building. In addition to regenerative agriculture, Dig Deep Farms jointly implements Permaculture whole systems designs and applications.
Job Summary
Urban farming involves strenuous physical work in all weather conditions. Examples of daily activities include crop row preparation, transplanting, seed sowing, watering, weeding, tilling, thinning, composting, harvesting, produce handling, storage, some minor construction, and marketing.
The DDF Urban Farmer will be responsible for supporting a wide range of farm operations under the guidance of farm management. This includes participating in daily tasks, learning and applying regenerative agriculture and permaculture practices, and assisting in meeting the collective goals of the farm. This role also involves maintaining the farm's infrastructure, accurately recording day-to-day operational data/documentation, and providing hands-on support for DDF's mission. The Urban Farmer will help foster a positive and productive work environment, support the crew, interns, and volunteers with time management, and proactively prepare for daily tasks. Additional responsibilities include harvesting, washing, and packing produce for clients with efficiency and accuracy, as well as ensuring timely and thorough cleanup of the farm site(s).
The DDF Urban Farmer will work in a crew of urban farmers, interns, and volunteers under the direct supervision of the Farm Manager. The DDF Urban Farmer crew will rotate farming tasks across sites. It is expected that farmers will complete all assigned tasks as directed and come up with additional tasks that facilitate the accomplishment of the general goal of developing an intensive urban farming operation. DDF will facilitate and coordinate informal and important training in healthy farming practices, food systems, and food justice. The goal of the DDF Urban Farming program is to produce healthy food for community members throughout Alameda County and to generate enough revenue to sustain the program, to bring new jobs and new opportunities to the community.
Black Ag Tech General Competencies
These are the qualities that all Black Ag Tech employees are expected to exhibit.
- Efficiency: able to produce significant output with minimal wasted effort.
- Organization: Plans, organizes and budgets time in an efficient, productive manner, focuses on key priorities. Does not let important details fall through the cracks or derail a project.
- Proactivity: Acts without being told what to do, brings new ideas to the organization. Moves quickly and takes the initiative on matters of importance.
- Tenacity: Asks questions until the way forward is clear. Demonstrates a willingness to go the distance to get something done. Follow-through on commitments.
- Intellectual curiosity: Learns quickly, and demonstrates a desire to absorb new information and put it into practice.
- Flexibility: Adapts quickly to changing priorities and conditions. Copes well with complexity and ambiguity.
- Innovation: Creates new approaches to intractable problems. Isn’t tied to old ways of doing business or solving problems.
- Respect: Maintains courteous and professional relationships with staff, faculty, and the public; is responsive and fair toward all co-workers. Follows through on all requests.
- Communication: Keeps coworkers and other parties informed of relevant meetings and work progress. Communicates expectations clearly, gives timely feedback; delegates responsibility where appropriate based on co-workers’ and subordinates’ ability and potential
Key Responsibilities
To do daily:
- Farm tasks
- Farm Logs/Documentation
To do weekly:
- Provide technical guidance to new farmers, interns, farm trainees, and/or volunteers
To do monthly:
- Discuss and provide progress of activity implementation and development with farm management
Qualifications for this position include:
- Ability to use critical thinking and technology to problem solve independently, ask questions where needed, and don't get daunted by roadblocks, but continue to follow up and ask questions until each task is done.
- Ability to use a calendar effectively - to set up regular tasks on a calendar, and do them without having to be reminded
- Excellent follow through, never lets anything fall through the cracks
- Attention to detail
- Ability to work with new technologies
- Ability to research technology and other operations solutions
- Ability to problem solve and course correct when operations are not as efficient as they could be
- Ability to arrive on site on time
- Ability to communicate clearly and respectfully with community member, coworkers, interns and volunteers
- Knowledge and interest in organic, regenerative farming
- Desire to take the initiative to fix problems and fill needs as they arise
- Ability to lift, carry and move up to 50 lbs
Organizational Role and Supervisor
The Urban Farmer will report to the Dig Deep Farms’ Directors, Farm Administrator, and Farm Manager.
Location
The DDF Farm Site in Fremont (34600 Ardenwood Blvd., Fremont, CA), and occasionally at other designated farm site locations in the area as needed.
Type of Employment
The position is a full-time hourly position at $21.00/hour.
Interested in applying? Complete the form below.