Eugenio Rhoads

I did my first-year internship at Ekoto, because I wanted to learn how an organic Dutch farm works. The main reason why I came to this farm was to learn about strip cropping, I had insights in organic faming because back home my mother owns a small organic farm. But I didn’t have any knowledge about strip agriculture. Arriving to the farm I was impressed of the beauty of the place; the fields were like a biodiversity oasis in the middle of a mono cultivated area. This gave me a good starting feeling, and good expectations for the upcoming weeks.

At the farm I did different tasks, from weeding to driving machinery. I would say that the big number of tasks to be done was an advantage, because the variety of acquired knowledge was bigger, also it was never boring. I had daily tasks such as feeding the pigs each morning, and random tasks which depended on the necessity of the context. I would say that I really enjoyed controlling weeds with the available tools at the farm.

Throughout the work I was able to interact with other trainees and with Ivar, this gave me the opportunity of learning about other cultures, opinions, and interests. Throughout the work and talks I was able to acquire new insights about strip cropping, but also about organic certification procedures. I was able to acquire a lot of theoretical and technical knowledge. In the case of technical knowledge, I learned about organic weeding techniques that I didn’t knew, this was exciting because these ones could be applied in the small farm back home.

The interaction that I had with the animals at the farm was also interesting, because in my study we don’t see anything related. After I completed this internship, I can say that I feel happy for being part of Ekoto during this period, and I feel excited for the company’s future.