The average age of principal farm operators was 58.1 years in 2022. With this reality, agricultural educators, extension personnel, and agricultural businesses are looking for innovative strategies to recruit and effectively train the next generation of diverse farm operators. On-farm apprenticeships in the U.S. are an increasingly popular method of training future farmers. However, these apprenticeships tend to be informal with little or no formal curriculum. Registered apprenticeships are an emerging trend in workforce development with rapidly increasing popularity among non-traditional trade occupations such as healthcare and information technology, but are still relatively new in agriculture. Registered apprenticeship programs have been shown to help recruit and develop a diverse and highly skilled workforce, increase productivity, allow employers to participate in training, and increase job retention. At the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS), we developed North Carolina’s first two registered agricultural apprenticeship programs. This session will cover the basic components of registered apprenticeships and how they can meet the growing need for skilled farm labor in vegetable operations. We will share how we created the Sustainable Vegetable Production Apprenticeship in North Carolina, including curriculum development, administrative logistics, and the opportunities and challenges associated with registered agricultural apprenticeships. We will also share reflections on the successes and challenges of our first three years of the program. During the first two pilot cohorts we had 123 applications with more than 40 applications from military veterans with 13 veterans joining the apprenticeship program. Our pilot program demonstrates that registered agricultural apprenticeships are a viable pathway for recruiting and effectively training veteran and minority beginning farmers.
