The application for this internship will be available very soon.  Please reach out to the program coordinator Carrie Simon (cns44) if you have questions.

The Lund Fellows Program for Regenerative Agriculture provides Cornell undergraduate students across disciplines with the opportunity to broaden their perspectives and understanding of natural ecosystems and to learn about ecological and social approaches to agricultural systems. 

The Lund Fellows Program provides students opportunities to gain applied experience working on an agroecological farm and contribute to the farm in meaningful and helpful ways, while learning about the process and considerations involved in managing such an enterprise.

We work to spread awareness about the value and mission of agroecological biodynamic, organic, regenerative, and sustainable approaches to farming, strengthen relationships between the university and local farms and provide assistance to small farms that could not otherwise fund summer internships. 

Host farms participating in the Lund Fellows Program were prioritized based on the following values:  

• Explicitly uses agroecological, biodynamic and/or organic farming methods
• Diversified farm (not just certified organic with industrial farming approach)
• Small-scale farm (less than 200 hectares)
• Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers when possible

Internship description

In your role as an orchard, farm and cidery assistant, you will be expected to:

• Work directly with the orchard manager to assist and execute duties in tree planting, pruning, and maintenance. Assist and execute cultivation and mulching of trees and annual flower and vegetable production for the tasting room.
• To be or to become familiar with the operation of orchard equipment such as tractors, fork lift, mowers, weedwhackers, saws, etc.
• Organize harvest operations both in our home orchard and in remote orchards and wild trees.
• Assist in delivery of cider
• Working with the cidermaker and production manager you will assist in pressing and other production work
• Must bring a positive attitude and to be eager to work as a self-motivated team member.

Additional tasks:

• Maintaining the grounds as needed, including mowing, snow removal and some repair work
• Helping to maintain the lighting around the grounds including changing bulbs and securing lighting to posts.
• Assisting with signage and any light construction that the tasting room may require

Basic Qualifications and Preferred Experience

A successful applicant should have trade skills or at least 1 year’s experience working on a farm, and an interest in learning about organic orchard management. Duties will be split between orchard, farm and cidery work.

Internship schedule 

Hours will be a 40 hour work week Monday-Friday. It is possible a weekend day may be required occasionally during peak harvest. South Hill Cider is located at 550 Sandbank Rd Ithaca, NY 14850. Reliable transportation is required for this position. 

About the farm

South Hill Cider and orchard is located just 4 miles south of the downtown Ithaca. We are a small farm winery producing cider and wine and growing food for our kitchen on our farm, as well as annual flowers for U-Pick. We have a tasting room with weekly live music and guided tastings.