English In Spring last year, a change to employment law brought to light the unlawful nature of unpaid farm traineeships, which had hitherto been a common route into the agroecological sector. Here, we offer some reflections on the impact this has had (both for those offering and those seeking on-farm training) and an exploration of the challenges and opportunities that have ensued.
For a long time, farmers and growers with skills to share have offered work-based training on their farms, providing food, accommodation and sometimes a stipend, in return for a trainee’s labour. However, in spring last year, it came to light that the understanding on which this model of work exchange was thought to be lawful, was in fact erroneous. As a result, unless you’re a charity or not-for-profit, unpaid traineeships are not a viable model for offering on-farm training.
The Recent History of Informal Traineeships
For many years there was very little on offer in terms of formal on-farm training. In the 1990s and noughties a few organic farms offered training arrangements.Most people organised working or learning arrangements on farms they happened to know, and gathered experience that way – usually for very little or no pay. From 2007 the Soil Association ran a two year apprenticeship scheme (which ended in 2015), and in 2013 introduced a six month long “Future Growers” scheme (which ended in 2017). Apprentices and trainees had to be paid at least the minimum wage, and apprentices paid a fee for participation at the start. These schemes folded due to it being hard to find enough hosts who could provide full-time employment throughout the winter, although the up front fee was also a barrier to some.
The most common path into organic farming and growing was to join WWOOF and identify farms in the WWOOF directory that provided the kind of experience they were seeking. In many cases, the informal traineeship evolved from it being mutually beneficial to WWOOFers and hosts for a longer term arrangement, often for the duration of the main vegetable growing season and for the host to provide a small stipend on top of the board and lodging offered. By the time the LWA was founded in 2013 a few of these arrangements were starting to be called traineeships, and several people who are now running successful market gardens or farms benefited from these opportunities.
We first sought legal advice to ensure the lawfulness of the traineeship model in 2016 and were advised by solicitors from ACAS that unpaid farm traineeships could be offered under the ‘family member exemption policy.’ This decreed that a worker did not need to be paid National Minimum Wage (NMW) if they were living in an employer’s household and were provided with food and accommodation free of charge – which was often the case with farm traineeships. During 2016, LWA co-authored “Future Farmers II: A guide to running a farm based agroecological traineeship” with Sustain, OGA, CSA Network and PFL, and ACAS.
In 2018, with the number of informal traineeships increasing, an initial meeting was held to explore the possibility of establishing a traineeship network. This arose out of an awareness of the variability of trainee experiences being offered, including different levels of formal teaching and a range of living and payment arrangements. The aim of the network was to enable trainee hosts to support each other to improve the quality of their traineeships, and create opportunities for trainees to visit and experience a wider range of operations. In 2020 LWA funding was secured to create a part-time traineeship co-ordinator post in the South West of England, and shortly after funding was obtained for a similar post in Wales. During this period concerns started to be raised that trainees were not being supported adequately, which led to the development of traineeship standards and training for trainers, along with putting resources into developing alternatives to informal traineeships as well as publishing the trainee syllabus. Between 2020 and 2024 the evolution of the New Entrants and Training Team at LWA was quite rapid, with funding being gained for the creation of a Farm Start Network and then a New Entrant policy position.
In 2022, ACAS again confirmed that unpaid traineeships were legal, but in early 2023 the trade union SALT (Solidarity Across Land Trades) raised concerns that the exemption was designed with domestic workers and au-pairs in mind, and was therefore not applicable to landworkers. On April 1st 2024 the government revoked the ‘family member exemption policy’, on the basis that it was leading to instances of worker exploitation. Through further legal advice, the Landworkers’ Alliance was finally informed that the exemption had indeed referred to work carried out within the household and had therefore likely never been applicable to farm-workers.
Where we are now (January 2025)
As a union which represents new entrants and business owners, employers and workers, trainers and trainees, we recognise that the impacts of these developments have been broad and wide-ranging for our members. However, it is worth emphasising at the outset that there is more that connects us than divides us.
Some will be frustrated at the resulting lack of available training in the short-term, or the limits placed on the transfer of skills, whilst others will celebrate the phasing out of unpaid placements. Yet we are all united by a common recognition that agroecological education is essential if we are to create a better, fairer and more sustainable food system.
Where tensions arise, they result from the very economic and political system that, together, we’re fighting to change: low prices for produce which make it difficult for business owners to pay themselves, let alone their trainees; a lack of government support for those wanting to offer on-farm training, and a policy environment that is often disconnected from the grassroots.
In spite of these challenges, it is essential that we find ways to work within these constraints, to establish educational routes that inspire future generations into farming and which ensure the ongoing transfer of vital knowledge. In the following sections, we explore the tensions as we try to navigate towards a solution that meets the needs of aspiring growers and those who wish to pass on their knowledge.
Supporting all of our members, which includes both trainers and trainees
The updated legalities on traineeships have been received in different ways amongst our members. Many of us have had brilliant, formative experiences through farm traineeships, which have served as a springboard into paid positions or have been a first step towards starting our own businesses. Those who would have liked to start their journey into agroecological training this year may be disappointed at the current lack of opportunities.
For those who offered traineeships, they’ve been a way to inspire others and to pass on vital skills and knowledge, whilst working within the financial constraints placed upon small-scale producers by a wider economic system in which food production is undervalued. It is worth emphasising that we recognise that before Spring this year, many trainee hosts were offering, in good faith, an opportunity for new entrants to gain skills outside of formal education and training schemes. outside of formal education and training schemes. Our change in understanding of the law doesn’t mean that such hosts have suddenly become “bad people” for doing what we thought before was legitimate, though not ideal. It does mean, however, that the LWA can no longer support a practice which it now knows to be unlawful and undermines workers rights.
There will be many who are happy to see unpaid traineeships phased out, because for all the positive experiences that they offered, there have also been trainees who felt the exchange to be unfair or exploitative, and others who were excluded altogether, because it was simply not possible for them to work without a wage.
For this reason, in spite of the immediate impact these changes have had on the availability of on-farm training and the challenges they raise for some of our members, overall we view this development as an opportunity, a call to action for us as a movement, to step-up our efforts to establish alternative training pathways which are accessible to all those seeking a career in agroecology and through which we can manifest the social justice values at the heart of our vision for a better food system.
Keeping hold of our problem solving DIY culture whilst upholding workers’ rights
LWA is part of the global peasant network La Via Campesina (LVC), which is a grassroots movement characterised by resistance and bottom-up solutions. The emergence of the traineeships in the UK is a valuable example of this, where those committed to passing on vital agroecological knowledge responded to the failures of mainstream agricultural education. In this case, informal traineeships were set up due to the lack of a more formal and affordable training path. This was done in good faith and the belief that the arrangement was beneficial to both the trainee and the trainer, and in many cases it was. However, the fact that income was a limiting factor in most traineeships, meant that not everyone was able to access them; going against our aims of achieving equity.
While many, both trainers and trainees, benefitted from informal DIY training arrangements, the LWA cannot support any practices which are unlawful, and which may leave some trainees exposed to poor working conditions and underpayment. The moratorium on informal traineeships and shortage of training opportunities has led to the LWA Training and New Entrants team doubling their efforts to create alternatives. Enhanced government support will help us to establish viable alternatives to the traineeship model in the long-term. At the same time, the Campaigns Team will continue to lobby hard for support measures for farms and market gardens that reward them for the public goods they offer and the labour that the delivery of such public goods requires .
Modelling an ideal system in an imperfect world
In pursuing our declared aim of Food Sovereignty, we recognise a third inherent tension. Although we are trying to model the aspirational system that we are working towards, including respecting workers rights, we are currently operating in an imperfect system, which sometimes makes it extremely hard for food producers to pay a national living wage. Those running the business are often themselves in financially precarious positions, dealing with insecure land tenure, planning disputes, indebtedness and low-prices for their produce.
The current capitalist economic system has financialised land and housing to such a degree that it has driven up the price of buying or renting a home, leaving the income of many households squeezed and unable to afford good food. This has resulted in a race to the bottom in which supermarkets drive down the price of food, undervaluing food and those who produce it, and hiding the hidden costs. The current capitalist economic system has financialised land and housing to such a degree that it has driven up the price of buying or renting a home, leaving the income of many households squeezed and unable to afford good food. This has resulted in a race to the bottom in which supermarkets drive down the price of food, undervaluing food and those who produce it, and hiding the hidden costs.
While much of the campaigning and advocacy work in which the LWA is engaged is focussed on changing that system, we know that these changes won’t happen overnight. Somehow, we need to find a way to navigate this tension and support existing landworkers to stay in business and pass on their skills, while upholding worker rights and making pathways into growing, farming and forestry accessible and attractive to all. This is a tension which is inspiring much discussion within the LWA staff and Co-ordinating Group, and is galvanising us to redouble our efforts to both change the system and find a way for growers and farmers to offer paid training opportunities.
Where do we go from here?
In light of these developments, we’ve been working to ensure that all of our members, whether trainers or trainees, are equipped with the information they need in order to be protected under the law. We’ve produced two new documents to support this: ‘National minimum wage requirements in the context of on-farm training and volunteering’, and a ‘Train the Trainer’ handbook, which we will be publishing in the coming weeks. This latter resource will include examples of various viable models for offering on-farm training, with case studies from some of our members. In addition we will soon be publishing a third document aimed at trainees: ‘Understanding your rights as a new entrant in training’.
Alongside this, we’ve been looking into ways we can establish accredited routes into the agroecological sector. One of the main options we’ve been exploring is apprenticeships, since they’re a way for trainees to earn whilst they learn, whilst placing less financial pressure on employers, because apprentices can be paid a lower wage for the first 12 months whilst they’re finding their feet.
There are apprenticeships available in horticulture, agriculture and forestry across England, Scotland and Wales and we’ve been working with training providers in each nation who are keen to tailor the apprenticeships for agroecological businesses. We’ve begun a series of Q&A webinars for those interested in employing an apprentice on their farm and we’re now accepting expressions of interest in forming part of a first pilot cohort of apprentice employers for the start of the 2025 growing season.
Better Together
The past year has brought difficulties, both for aspiring trainees who found there was a sudden dearth of training opportunities, and for trainers who found themselves unable to take on trainees. Thankfully it has been possible for some training arrangements to continue, such as those associated with The Apricot Centre and the Biodynamic College.
It is important to remember amidst all these changes that we are part of a movement that is trying to transform the food and farming system, and that is extremely challenging. The food sovereignty we aim for needs existing growers to survive and thrive, it needs new entrants to become skilled, and it needs there to be an attractive and dignified way of life for all who work on the land. This requires an approach which balances pragmatism and ideals, and will require wisdom. We are confident that we can find that wisdom among us, but it will require collaboration and deliberation at times.
As individuals, we don’t always get it right, but our motives tend to be good, wherever in this movement we are working. None of us can make these changes alone, and if our movement has any hope of food system transformation we need to work together to achieve it.
We hope with this blog we have managed to move the conversation forward, and reassure all our Members that we are committed to finding a way forward in which training can be offered and received within the law. However, we are keen to hear feedback about how the traineeship situation is affecting you or your business, whether you are feeling supported by LWA or have found our approach lacking. Feel free to get in touch via info@landworkersalliance.org.uk.
