On March 14, I’ll be presenting a workshop on employee management for the Practical Farmers of Iowa. And while good management can make the difference between making headway on your farm's work or just creating headaches, the legal side of farm employment is almost guaranteed to lead to headaches, especially for market farmers.
Because it requires large injections of seasonally-intense labor, as well as having a legitimate reason to offer employees housing, farm work is often subject to slightly modified set of labor laws and regulations. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find concise answers in one place to all of the questions these exceptions raise. And for market farmers, the issues get even more complicated because many of the activities we engage in – such as cleaning, packaging, selling, and delivering produce – don’t fall under the traditional (and legal) definition of farm work.
Practical Farmers of Iowa, working with the nonprofit law center Farm Commons, has created a Farm Employment FAQ, with answers to many of these difficult questions for Iowa farmers, available here.
Farmers’ Legal Action Group has created a printable guide for Minnesota farmers, available here.
Kudos to both of these organizations for creating accessible information for this critical and often misunderstood area of farm management.
If you know of similar resources for other states, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Because it requires large injections of seasonally-intense labor, as well as having a legitimate reason to offer employees housing, farm work is often subject to slightly modified set of labor laws and regulations. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find concise answers in one place to all of the questions these exceptions raise. And for market farmers, the issues get even more complicated because many of the activities we engage in – such as cleaning, packaging, selling, and delivering produce – don’t fall under the traditional (and legal) definition of farm work.
Practical Farmers of Iowa, working with the nonprofit law center Farm Commons, has created a Farm Employment FAQ, with answers to many of these difficult questions for Iowa farmers, available here.
Farmers’ Legal Action Group has created a printable guide for Minnesota farmers, available here.
Kudos to both of these organizations for creating accessible information for this critical and often misunderstood area of farm management.
If you know of similar resources for other states, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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