Seven exciting new internships with CALS Extension available for 2024!

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and UVM Extension are the foundation of UVM's land grant mission.

Apply before April 15th for an internship to work with UVM Extension and help implement programs throughout the state.  Cultivate healthy communities, earn credit, and get paid a $4000 stipend, paid weekly. 

Students will register for CDAE 3991-internship (3 cr.) or SINT 2991 (see advisor) to be eligible for an Extension internship.  

Open to all UVM students.

Across the Fence, Production Assistant Intern
Location: 23 Mansfield Avenue, Burlington, Vermont *Travel Required
Dates: May 15th, 2024 – August 9th, 2024
Hours: Approximately 20 - 25 hours/week 

Description:
Welcome to the world of video production! Across the Fence runs from 12:15pm to 12:30pm, Monday through Friday on the local CBS affiliate in Vermont. You would work as a Production Assistant which means NOT getting coffee ... EVER! You would assist the Producer and Multi-media Journalist in studio and on-location for shoots and tapings of our daily television news program.

Interns will become well versed in:
1. Video storytelling
2. Broadcast writing
3. Video editing

For more information on Across the Fence, click here.

The deadline to apply is April 15th, 2024. Click here to apply.

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Northwest Crops and Soils Program, Integrated Pest Management Intern
Location: Alburgh, St. Albans, Burlington, various farms across Vermont *Travel required
Dates: May 20th, 2024 – August 9th, 2024
Hours: Approximately 10-15 hours/week

Description:
This is an opportunity to work with dairy farmers across Vermont to research the efficacy of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies for pest flies of cattle. Horn flies, stable flies, and face flies all cause cattle significant discomfort in the summer months resulting in production losses for farmers. Flies can transmit livestock disease including mastitis and pinkeye, and animals bothered by flies spend less time grazing and are stressed. It is important that farmers have strategies to reduce fly burden, but there is a lack of information regarding the efficacy of IPM techniques and alternatives to chemical pesticides, especially for organic producers. Diverse strategies are used, from biological control using parasitoid wasps, to fly traps, cow 'vacuums', essential oils, and chickens. The work you do on this project will result in data documenting the efficacy of IPM strategies alongside common pesticide treatments to provide farmers with increased information on alternative fly management and improve confidence in selecting strategies that are right for their farms. You will visit farms every 2 weeks over the summer and learn how to estimate burdens of face flies, horn flies, and stable flies by observing animals whilst grazing.

There will also be the opportunity to work with a subset of farms to do a dung beetle survey and learn taxonomic identification for the dung beetles for Vermont. Dung beetle and pest fly populations are closely related because they both breed within manure patties out on the pasture and compete for this resource. Dung beetles are therefore natural enemies of pest flies and can help to suppress their populations, however common livestock pesticides have off-target toxic impacts on dung beetles, negatively affecting their populations. Alternative and IPM strategies for pest fly management therefore have the added benefit of conserving dung beetle populations on Vermont pastures. This aspect of the work will involve collecting manure and setting up dung beetle traps on three of the farms during the usual 2 weekly visits and learning to identify beetle specimens using a microscope and taxonomic keys. You will also learn how to correctly pin and box these specimens to create a reference collection, which is yours to take home at the end of the project.

The deadline to apply is April 15th, 2024. Click here to apply.

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Northwest Crops and Soils Program, Forage Management Intern 
Location: Alburgh, VT; various farms across Vermont *Travel required
Dates: May 20th, 2024 – August 9th, 2024
Hours: Approximately 10-15 hours/week

Description:
This internship will investigate relationships between forage diversity, soil health, and below-ground invertebrate diversity in Vermont dairy pastures, to learn how forage combinations might impact soil biological communities, soil health outcomes, and carbon stocks. It will also explore the environmental co-benefits of high tannin forages through a controlled research trial. Forages high in condensed and hydrolysable tannins are thought to reduce methane emissions from cattle as well as naturally reducing internal parasites such as stomach and intestinal worms, decreasing the need for livestock pesticides. There will be a mixture of on-farm research working with grazing dairy farmers in Vermont, and controlled research trials at Borderview research farm in Alburgh.

Through the activities involved in this work, you will learn how to take soil samples for soil health analyses using soil probe equipment and will travel to farms across Vermont with a research partner to achieve this. You will work on a plot at Borderview research farm to harvest, dry, and grind forage samples in preparation for forage quality and tannin analyses. Finally, you will learn how to identify grasses, legumes, and forbs using morphological characteristics, and take quadrat samples of mixed forage plots to estimate dry matter proportions of each type. There will be the opportunity to contribute towards the data analyses and publication of results.

This internship will provide experience of working with a team of highly active research and extension specialists to contribute towards new research results that will be helpful and informative for dairy farmers across the state and provide options for improving sustainable intensification and economic sustainability of forage-based dairy systems.

The deadline to apply is April 15th, 2024. Click here to apply.

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Description:

The Vermont Fresh Network is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1996 with the mission of advancing relationships among farmers, chefs, and consumers to grow markets and eat more locally grown food. Our membership is dedicated to a flourishing local food system for the benefit of our environment, our communities, our health, and the overall strength of the rural economy. All of these connections drive local economies and are vital to thriving communities. We’re the only statewide 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works at the intersection of the agriculture and the culinary sector. We undertake a variety of projects each year, from agricultural and culinary tourism to market development around specific Vermont products to participation in statewide policy initiatives.

Our purpose also is the education of our consumers. Through the two websites we manage, events, and published materials, we hope to educate the public on the quality and diversity of Vermont grown foods, as well as the economic impact of supporting local businesses. Through our collaboration with other non-profit organizations around our DigInVT partnership, we inspire travelers to seek out local food and authentic culinary experiences. As part of our public facing work to increase agricultural literacy and support the growth of agritourism in Vermont, we manage the agritourism and culinary tourism platform DigInVT.com and produce Vermont Open Farm Week annually in August.

This internship position will undertake a variety of administrative and project-related tasks relating to Vermont Open Farm Week. Open Farm Week is a celebration of Vermont farms offering visitors a backstage pass to learn more about local food origins, authentic agritourism experiences, and the chance to build relationships with local farmers. Farm visitors can look forward to maple and honey tastings, yoga on the farm, ice cream socials, behind-the-scenes tours, on-farm dinners, 5k races, concerts and much more. (In 2023, 52 farms in 12 counties across the state held 180 Open Farm Week events.) 2024 will be the 10th year this event has brought the community to meet their farmers. This year, Open Farm Week takes place August 4th - 11th.

The intern will largely work behind the scenes with the Vermont Fresh Network team, recruiting farm participants, communicating with farms, posting events online, preparing outreach materials to participating farms, and helping to promote the week.

Responsibilities:
• Outreach to local farms for recruitment.
• Update DigInVT.com event information and build website event pages.
• Collect and manage information supplied by farms. Assist VFN staff with follow-up calls to farms to be sure we have the information we need in a timely fashion.
• Coordinate with VFN staff on events and farms for promotions and editorial content.
• DigInVT website content updating and development.
• Work with VFN staff to ensure that participating places receive resources and materials for promotions (physical materials like lawn signs & digital resources) - mailing and delivering as appropriate.
• Social media support for Open Farm Week.
• A small amount of image editing and graphic development in Canva.
• Collect images to use in promotions: this may involve traveling to farms within a reasonable distance to take pictures or acquiring photo permissions.
• Attend some OFW events: help the Open Farm Week committee collect social media content.

Qualifications:
• Strong attention to detail
• Good communication skills, especially writing, editing, and on phone
• Interest in agritourism
• Interest storytelling for Vermont’s food and farm sector
• Excellent computer skills
• Experience with digital content management systems
• Positive attitude and team player
• Personal computer and vehicle
• Some project coordination experience

The deadline to apply is April 15th, 2024. Click here to apply.

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Vermont is losing forests to other land uses, but to date, we do not have a good understanding of the rate of forest loss or the spatial patterns. For this summer project, the intern will assist Dr. Kosiba with an analysis of forest cover change. To do this, the intern will evaluate the accuracy of a pre-developed satellite-derived dataset of forest cover in Vermont, estimate the rates of forest loss by year and county, and summarize results. The outcomes of this project will help inform planning and conservation across the state of Vermont. No previous experience with GIS data is necessary. The intern will also have opportunities to contribute to other projects in the UVM Extension Forestry Program.

The Intern will:

1) Develop proficiency in satellite imagery analysis: Through hands-on experience, the intern will gain the skills necessary to effectively analyze and interpret remote sensing data.

2) Develop understanding of statistical concepts: Through this project, the intern will learn concepts such as random sampling design, commission and omission errors, and summary statistics.

2) Develop ability to summarize results: Through this project, the intern will enhance skills in summarizing, displaying, and communicating results.

For more information visit https://www.uvm.edu/extension/forestry. 

The deadline to apply is April 15th, 2024. Click here to apply.

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We are seeking an intern interested in learning and writing about sustainable agriculture throughout the Northeast.

The work includes drafting media releases for sustainable agriculture grant projects, helping update contact database following events, and a capstone piece of content such as a video based on a Vermont-based Northeast SARE project. The work will be conducted online and the intern will meet remotely with their supervisor bi-weekly to discuss progress and refine idea for final project.
The intern will develop applicable skills in:
• Writing press releases
• Maintaining a CRM system
• Video production

For more information on SARE visit https://northeast.sare.org/

The deadline to apply is April 15th, 2024. Click here to apply.

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The Huertas Project, Community Outreach Intern (Spanish Speaking)
Location: Franklin County and Northeast Kingdom *Travel required
Dates: May 20th, 2024 – June 21st, 2024
Hours: Approximately 30 hours/week

Description:
Huertas is a community-based food security project that enables Latino/a migrant farmworkers and families living on Vermont’s dairies to access culturally familiar and local foods through cultivating kitchen gardens. Now in its sixth year, with an established network of farmworkers, growers, and volunteers, Huertas builds gardens and distributes seeds and plant starts to Latino/a migrant farmworkers living in rural Vermont.

The intern will support Huertas. They will help consolidate and sort donated starts and seeds, prep plots with interested households, ensure access to needed tools and assist in the delivery and planting of garden plots.

Students will learn how to analyze impact of Vermont’s social and political context on food access among farmworkers through internship experience & draw connections between previous, current, and future academic work and their Huertas internship.

*Strong conversational Spanish language skills are required for this internship

For more information about Huertas please view the following:
• https://www.uvm.edu/extension/agriculture/huertas
• https://blog.uvm.edu/nwolcott-/about-migrant-health-programs-at-uvm-extension/

The deadline to apply is April 15th, 2024. Click here to apply.