Organic Vegetable Farming

Hiring: Post-Harvest Production Lead – Organic Vegetable Farm
Farm: Fertile Ground Farm
Location: Hanover/Neustadt area, Grey County, Ontario

Our Farm

We are a community-oriented, organic vegetable farm operating on a beautiful 100 acre property near Neustadt, ON. Our mixed production includes 4 acres of garden, pastured laying hens, hay, garden seedlings, and some poultry & pigs for meat. We serve our customer base in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Since building relationships with the people we feed is really important to us, most of our produce is sold through our 350 member CSA (Community Shared Agriculture), supplemented by an online store and some local restaurant & retail sales. Our members donate to a Community Shares Fund which we use to grow $10K+ for the Cambridge Food Bank and to offer sliding-scale CSA shares. We have a heated greenhouse for seedling production and 3 unheated tunnels for season extension and tomatoes. Our work is a blend of human and tractor scale: our 3 Farmall tractors are used for primary tillage and in-row cultivation but we continue with plenty of hand work as well. Our team includes 4-5 full time workers. Although we just relocated our farm to Neustadt for the 2025 season, we continue to serve our CSA and restaurant community in Kitchener-Waterloo. The 2025 season will involve lots of springtime infrastructure and wash/pack systems set-up!

Skills & Assets to Thrive on Our Team

Diversified market gardening is highly skilled work. Applicants will ideally have experience on a vegetable farm. Whether experienced on not, the ability to absorb and integrate detailed instruction and feedback is key. We are looking to build a team with quick hands, positive & collaborative attitudes, strong observation skills and tenacity to see tasks through start to finish. Adaptability to roll with rapidly shifting task priorities, curiosity to drive your learning, a desire to contribute creatively to the ongoing improvement of our farm systems and a sense of humour are all highly valued.

Our work is physically and mentally demanding, with long hours outdoors in all weather. Great stamina, and in particular strong back and knees are essential.

Baseline Qualifications

• Legally able to work in Canada
• Minimum 2 yrs vegetable farming experience
• Skilled at washing & packing of vegetables
• Efficient field skills
• Ability to work hard physically incl deep bending & lifting 50lb regularly

Work Overview

During harvest season (June-Oct) ~50% of your work will involve managing and carrying out post-harvest production and ~50% will involve working with the rest of our crew as a field worker. Most tasks require quality work at a quick pace, often under pressure. The wash/pack area in particular involves a constant hustle - you will only enjoy this position if speed is your jam.

• Field work incl planting, harvesting, weeding etc
• Washing/packing vegetables for CSA and orders
• Greenhouse and tunnel work
• Endless problem-solving
• Hosting CSA distributions weekly June-Oct

Key Responsibilities (3-4 mornings/wk)

• doing the majority of vegetable washing
• packing wholesale & retail orders
• ensuring post-harvest systems are maintained & improved
• managing cooler inventory
• training staff to assist with post-harvest work

We will be operating out of a BRAND NEW wash/pack facility on our new farm in 2025! If you have a keen mind for developing efficient workflow in both physical and organizational capacity, this will be an exciting year to join our team.

Additional Assets

• basic tractor experience
• online store management experience
• skilled at simple repairs & infrastructure management

We are also hiring staff for our Field Crew.

Hours & Remuneration

We are an Ontario Living Wage certified employer

• $23.05/hr starting wage
• April 15-Oct 31 (with PT negotiable through November)
• 40-50 hr/wk Mon-Fri, typically 6:30am-4pm June-Aug
• 1 wk holidays paid at 75%
• 1 professional development day for tours/workshops
• plenty of vegetables & eggs for personal consumption

To Apply

Please send resume and cover letter outlining your relevant work and farming experiences, as well as your motivations for working with us to: angie@fertilegroundcsa.com

Please mention you saw this at FoodWork.ca.