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

This opportunity is for a student to learn the workings of an organic dairy farm.  You will learn and assist with milking routines, grazing management and operate tractors and other machinery depending on experience and interest.

Basic qualifications and preferred experience

• able to perform physical labor
• lift 50lbs (hay, bag of seed)
• willingness to learn about and operate farm machinery
• ok getting dirty (mud and manure)

Internship schedule

The intern will work 4-5 days a week.  Hours will vary depending on the tasks for the day/week, which might include one of the milking sessions at 5am or 3:30pm as well as fieldwork and other farm duties. The specific hours will be determined by the intern and farm hosts

About the farm

Kirk and Kathie are the third generation in their family to own and work Twin Oaks Dairy in Truxton NY.  Over the years the dairy has made a few transitions.  In 1990s the dairy transitioned to management-intensive grazing and in 1998 made the official transition to a certified organic farm. The dairy farm has 140 milking cows and a total herd of 240.  The dairy sits on 700 acres which include corn, grass, and pastures.  In 2016 a new free stall and milking facility was built and the milk is distributed through the Upstate Niagra Cooperative Inc.