Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Terry Griffin / Rosburg Farms is a crop farm in Northwest Iowa that specializes in corn and soybean production. The oldest farm operator, Richard was looking ahead to retirement while the next generation, Brian has been working to identify an entry strategy into the operation as a beginning farmer. The purpose of this research was to identify and evaluate candidate alternatives that Brian could bring to Rosburg Farms and to understand if the operation was at a point where Brian was needed as full time labor. Three candidate scenarios including renting additional crop acreage, building a hog facility, and building a poultry layer house were evaluated via SWOT analyses. The SWOT analysis results indicated that renting additional crop acres was the best candidate alternative for the farming operation. To understand how adding the additional acreage to crop production affects the timeliness of the operation and to identify binding resources a whole-farm linear programming planning model was parameterized. Parameters included available labor, machinery, days suitable for field work, crop rotations and available acreage. Production enterprise budgets for corn and soybean production and a projected cash flow were developed to understand if this acreage expansion would be profitable for the multi-family farming operation. The results of the planning model indicated that the field work operations would be completed with the available labor, machinery, and days suitable for fieldwork. The production budgets and cash flow results indicated that Rosburg Farms would remain profitable once farm size was expanded with additional rented acreage. Considering Brian employed off the farm, it was not necessary for him to quit his job to farm full time at this point. Future analysis should be used to understand at what farm size are needed to justify Brian leaving his off-farm employment to farm full time. These results are applicable beyond the Rosburg farm and are of interest to beginning farmers, farms anticipating transition to next generation, and professional specializing in succession planning.

The average age of principal farm operators rose from 50.3 years in 1978, to 57.1 years in 2007, as farmers retire and new farmers do not enter farming (NASS, 2013).With declining numbers of entrants into farming, agricultural educators and service providers must better understand strategies for effectively preparing beginning farmers. On-farm apprenticeships in the U.S. show promise as a means to prepare farmers and are increasing in number (Niewolny and Lillard, 2010). Lave (1988) writes 'knowledge-in-practice, constituted in the settings of practice, is the locus of the most powerful knowledgeability of people in the lived-in world' (p. 14). Thus, farming, as a complex set of interwoven skills, is best learned in situ, as situated learning. On-farm apprenticeships therefore may allow learners to construct knowledge in context, and build identities as farmers. In this thesis, I share findings from a mixed methods study that explored what kinds of on-farm apprenticeships are available, and to whom; and important educational practices, structures, and institutions that support on-farm apprenticeship learning. This study comprises data from a survey (N=45) of Virginia farmers who host apprentices, and interviews (N=12) with farmers and on-farm apprentices. Findings describe who undertakes on-farm apprenticeships, and suggest that apprentices develop expert identities through situated learning with farmers. Findings describe how farmers participate as educators, and how farms function as sites of situated learning. This study also found that on-farm apprenticeships are embedded within alternative food movements, with social reproduction potentially occurring. I also explore broader implications for preparing beginning farmers. / Master of Science in Life Sciences

On-farm apprenticeships are gaining momentum as an important strategy for beginning farmer training. They are also a space for identity work and rehearsal of alternative agrifood movement practice (AAMs; MacAuley and Niewolny, 2016; Pilgeram, 2011). AAMs embody and recursively construct values of biophysical sustainability, food quality, egalitarianism, and agrarianism (Constance, Renard, and Rivera-Ferre; 2014). However, AAMs have been critiqued for disproportionately representing upper- to middle-class white cultural norms (Allen, 2004; Guthman, 2008a; Slocum, 2007), for romanticized agrarian ideology (Carlisle, 2013), and for mechanisms reproductive of neoliberalism, which buttresses the dominant agrifood system (Guthman, 2008b). These AAM discourse elements are expressed in on-farm apprenticeships. On-farm apprenticeships are variably understood as beginning farmer training (Hamilton, 2011), as inexpensive farm labor (MacAuley and Niewolny, 2016; Pilgeram, 2011), and as sites of tension between economic and non-economic attributes (Ekers, Levkoe, Walker, and Dale, 2016). I illuminate these dynamics within on-farm apprenticeships through the complementary theoretical lenses of cultural historical activity theory (Engeström, 1999), cognitive praxis (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991), and cultural identity theory (Hall, 1996). I employ critical ethnographic case study methodology to explore issues of power, social reproduction, and equity. I conducted 53 days of participant observation, worked alongside 19 apprentices on six farms for 37 days, conducted interviews (n=25), and completed a document analysis (n=407). I observed white spaces and class-based work values re/produced, mediated by AAM discourse. Furthermore, I observed three distinct objectives within the activity system: beginning farmer training, inexpensive labor for farms, and an authentic farm lifestyle experience. In contrast to the first two, this third objective, the authentic lifestyle, resists market-based logics. Instead, logics that did govern behavior include membership in a movement; an ascetic bent; the valorization of farmers and the authentic farm lifestyle; alignment with clean, healthy, and dirty parts of the job; and communitarianism. These logics point towards the creation of a third type of nonmarket/quasimarket space (Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy, 2013). I describe several considerations for on-farm apprenticeship to lead to greater equity, reproduction of viable small farm labor models, and stabilized and legitimate nonmarket understandings of what makes on-farm apprenticeship function. / Ph. D. / On-farm apprenticeships are gaining momentum as an important strategy for beginning farmer training. They are also a space where people express and craft their identities as members of the alternative agrifood movement. Alternative agrifood movements promote the environment, food quality, egalitarianism, and agrarianism, but may be more culturally relevant for upper- to middle-class white social groups. They also promote romanticized notions of farming and agrarianism, while supporting neoliberal dogmatic approaches to social change. On-farm apprenticeships are treated as beginning farmer training, or cheap/free labor, and as sites of tension between economic and non-economic attributes. I examined this scenario using cultural historical activity theory, cognitive praxis, and cultural identity theory. With critical ethnographic case study methods, I conducted 53 days of participant observation, worked alongside 19 apprentices on six farms for 37 days, conducted 25 interviews, and examined 407 documents. I observed how whiteness and class-based work practices are being mediated by AAM discourses. Furthermore, I observed three distinct objectives for participants’ involvement in on-farm apprenticeships: (1) beginning farmer training, (2) cheap labor for farms, and (3) having an authentic farm lifestyle experience. In contrast to the first two, this third objective, the authentic lifestyle, defies the rules of economics/neoliberalism. Instead, behavior appeared to be governed by: membership in a movement; an ascetic bent; the valorization of farmers and the authentic farm lifestyle; alignment with clean, healthy, and dirty parts of the job; and communitarian values. These rules point towards the creation of a nonmarket/quasimarket space. This study highlights how on-farm apprenticeship can be tweaked to promote greater equity, reproduce viable small farm labor practices, and stabilize and legitimize a nonmarket understanding of the ins and outs of on-farm apprenticeships.