Organizational Description

The mission of the Alameda County Deputy Sheriffs’ Activities League (DSAL) is to unite the Sheriff’s Office personnel, citizens and youth of Alameda County in the pursuit and implementation of initiatives that will reduce crime, better the lives of area residents and enhance the community through action and collaboration with its partners. DSAL, a standalone 501(c)3 nonprofit, works within the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Youth & Family Services Bureau, alongside sworn Sheriff’s Office personnel and behavioral health clinicians to accomplish this mission.

Dig Deep Farms is a DSAL social enterprise with a dual mission of providing access to healthy food and creating job experience and employment opportunities to populations that have historically been denied access to both.

Job Summary

Urban farming involves strenuous physical work in all weather conditions. Examples of daily activities include bed preparation, transplanting, seed sowing, watering, weeding, tilling, thinning, composting, harvesting, produce handling, storage, some minor construction and marketing.

The DDF Urban Farmer will be responsible in all diverse farm operational activities under the instruction of farm management, as well as become familiar with regenerative agriculture and permaculture practices, facilitate and assist with meeting goals and performance metrics for DDF’s Urban Farmer, focus on farm upkeep and maintenance, ensure entry of data pertaining to day-to-day operations, provide action-oriented assistance of direct day-to-day operations of DDF’s urban agricultural mission, model and foster an enthusiastic and hands-on work environment, assist the crew, interns and volunteers in excellent time management and meeting goals and tasks within each day and week, anticipate activities that need to be accomplished and work ahead of the interns and volunteers to prepare for tasks, harvest, wash, and pack produce for Food as Rx programs and clients with efficiency and accuracy, and ensure timely clean up of farm sites.

The DDF Urban Farmer will work in a crew of 2 to 10 urban farmers and interns under the direct supervision of the Farm Manager. The DDF Urban Farmer crew will rotate farming tasks across sites. It is expected that farmers will complete all assigned tasks as directed and come up with additional tasks that facilitate the accomplishment of the general goal of developing an intensive urban farming operation. DDF will facilitate and coordinate informal and important training in healthy farming practices, food systems and food justice. The goal of the DDF Urban Farming program is to produce healthy food for community members throughout Alameda County and to generate enough revenue to sustain the program, to bring new jobs and new opportunities to the community.

DSAL General Competencies

These are the qualities that all DSAL employees are expected to exhibit.

• Efficiency: able to produce significant output with minimal wasted effort.
• Organization: Plans and organizes in an efficient, productive manner, focuses on key priorities. Does not let important details fall through the cracks or derail a project.
• Proactivity: Acts without being told what to do, brings new ideas to the organization. Moves quickly and takes the initiative on matters of importance.
• Tenacity: Ask questions until the way forward is clear. Demonstrates a willingness to go the distance to get something done. Follow-through on commitments.
• Intellectual curiosity: Learns quickly, and demonstrates a desire to absorb new information and put it into practice.
• Flexibility: Adapts quickly to changing priorities and conditions. Copes well with complexity and ambiguity.
• Innovation: Creates new approaches to intractable problems. Isn’t tied to old ways of doing business or solving problems.
• Respect: Maintains courteous and professional relationship with staff, faculty, and the public; is responsive and fair toward all co-workers. Follow through on all requests.
• Communication: Keeps coworkers and other parties informed of relevant meetings and work progress. Communicates expectations clearly, gives timely feedback; delegates responsibility where appropriate based on coworkers’ and subordinates’ ability and potential.

Key Responsibilities

Urban Farmer

To do daily

• Farm tasks
• Farm Logs/Documentation

To do weekly

• Provide technical guidance to new farmers, interns, farm trainees, and/or volunteers

To do monthly

• Discuss and provide progress of activity implementation and development with farm management

Qualifications for this position include:

• Ability to use critical thinking and technology to problem solve independently, ask questions where needed, and don't get daunted by roadblocks, but continue to follow up and ask questions until each task is done.
• Ability to use a calendar effectively - to set up regular tasks on a calendar, and do them without having to be reminded
• Excellent follow through, never lets anything fall through the cracks
• Attention to detail
• Ability to work with new technologies
• Ability to research technology and other operations solutions
• Ability to problem solve and course correct when operations are not as efficient as they could be
• Ability to arrive on site on time
• Ability to communicate clearly and respectfully with community member, coworkers, interns and volunteers
• Knowledge and interest in organic, regenerative farming
• Desire to take the initiative to fix problems and fill needs as they arise
• Ability to lift, carry and move up to 50 lbs

Organizational Role and Supervisor

The DDF Urban Farmer will report to the Dig Deep Farm Managers/Directors

Job Types: Full-time, Part-time

Pay: From $20.00 per hour