Website Land Institute
Land Intern
Tasks & Responsibilities:
Students will perform end-of-season research tasks such as threshing and weighing seed, sieving roots from soil cores, threshing more seeds, and milling plant tissues samples. The work is absolutely essential to the steady progress of the Institute’s vision of ecological intensification of agriculture.
Qualifications:
Students who are careful, patient and can work long hours will thrive in these jobs. If an individual has well-developed laboratory skills or greenhouse skills, she or he might be asked to undertake more specialized tasks. Excellent position for environmental science major or bio-med (genetics component and possible opportunity to work in lab).
Learning Opportunities:
Students will gain a broad understanding of how incremental work contributes to a sizable, long-term goal—that being transforming how humans have grown food for the last 10,000 years. They will also gain first hand insight into how a research oriented non-profit functions. Finally, the students will be challenged to think critically about topics ranging from agricultural sustainability to local foods and the global economy.
Additional Comments:
The Land Institute works to develop agriculture that is informed to a much greater extent by the structure and functioning of native ecosystems. While this carries many implications, the two greatest emphases of our work are breeding perennial versions of grain crops, and learning both how and why to grow them in mixtures. The Land Institute owns a guest house that is available to rent for $200/month. This is the same rental policy we have for interns that work during other times of the year. The house is within bicycling distance of the work site, and sits very near some of our research plots.
