Farm Employee Training Resources and Standard Operating Procedures
This collection of resources includes videos, fact sheets and websites to help farm owners and managers train employees in general farm processes and advanced farm operations.
Topics include best practices for farm safety, tips on harvesting produce, basic animal husbandry, basic pest management approaches, as well as, soil testing and field preparation for planting.
Experienced farm employees can benefit from this resource list as well, through demonstrations of specialized pruning techniques, in-depth pest management approaches, blossom thinning and vine canopy management, cow and calf feed balancing, and much more.
The resources listed here are free and were created by agricultural college and university staff throughout the country and reviewed by Cornell Cooperative Extension specialists during the spring of 2020. It is our hope that by improving access to training resources, farm owners and operators will find it easier to onboard and manage employees during the COVID-19 Pandemic and beyond.
Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Cornell Small Farms Program will monitor and update this list regularly.
Use the menu below to select the relevant commodity resource collection. This will open a new window with an online spreadsheet that outlines the resources by topic, intended audience, key points, and more. The final columns of the spreadsheet include the source of each item and links to the resource.
Continue Building Resilience with Labor and Workforce Planning
Whether you hire labor or rely on your family to support a farm’s operations, or you work on a farm, you need to be prepared for the possibility that you or others working beside you may fall sick due to COVID-19 this season.
Now is a good time to review your farm plan and redesign activities for physical distancing. It’s also important to have backup plans to make sure the essential work gets done, and consider how to care for those who may fall ill.
The Cornell Small Farms Program created a curated list of resources on labor and workforce issues for farmers and employees to navigate COVID-19.
