Farmer Apprenticeship: Working While Learning or Learning to Work? Experiences and Views on Farmer Apprenticeship in Contemporary Danish Animal Farming

Abstract

Agricultural education of future farmers includes a period of practice in Denmark. How can this be shaped to best support the education and future life as farmers? This question motivated a pilot study of how different factors influenced farmer apprentices’ learning in their on-farm apprentice period, based on interviews of farmer students and host farmers, and to explore this in the historical and social context of Danish agriculture. Three focus group interviews with 24 farmer apprentices were conducted, as well as 14 qualitative semi-structured phone interviews with host farmers. Four major themes emerged from the interviews with host farmers and apprentices: There is a potential conflict between the two perspectives in themes one and two: The host farm primarily as a learning site, versus the apprentice being primarily a farm laborer learning through working on the host farm as a workplace. Thirdly, the on-farm and social environment was suggested to have significant importance for developing into a future farmer, which resonates with the concept of Communities of Practice (CoP). This pilot study raised important issues regarding how future farmers are motivated and educated, highlighting that agricultural colleges play a pivotal role in articulating and guiding how the apprentice learning on-farm can be meaningfully integrated into the other parts of the farmer education.

1. Introduction

The importance of skilled farmers has been recognized for centuries in Denmark [1,2]. Agricultural education involving apprenticeship on farms has been an established practice in Denmark for more than 200 years [2]. One of the most well-known and institutionalized farmer education programs was established by the ‘Society of Agricultural Households’ and has been in effect since March 1820 [1]. It aimed at improving Danish farming and meeting a crisis at that time, where many farmer families starved on what a visionary group of influential men perceived as poorly managed farms. These visionary men organized a three-year apprenticeship program at different farms. The apprentices were carefully selected young men who did not need to serve in the military. Initially, the apprentices did not receive a salary; however, this changed. In addition, the so-called “folk high schools” contributed significantly to self-conscious and culturally strong young men and women, many of whom entered lives and careers as farmers, and thereby were part of rural communities.

Today, Denmark has 16 agricultural colleges that educate future farmers through a special education that lasts between one and four years. On-farm practice periods are considered an important part of the education [3,4,5]. The farmer students form contracts with different farmers and take full-time jobs for apprentice salaries, which are negotiated between the farmers’ employer organizations (GLS-A) and the trade union for so-called “green professions” (3F), which includes farming, gardening, and forestry [6,7]. It is higher than governmental support to students at higher education institutions (e.g., universities). The host farmer must be approved by Jordbrugets Uddannelser (which translates to Agricultural Education in English and is an organization of farming-related education) [6]. The host farmer is not required to have any formal training or pedagogical qualifications. As of January 2021, the host farmer can leave the responsibility for daily contact with the apprentice to a non-educated employee who has taken a two-day training course [6].

Only a few studies have touched on the balance and coordination between theoretical training and practice learning, as well as the cultural shaping of future Danish farmers. Today’s farming and rural landscapes have changed dramatically over recent decades; how do future farmers learn to handle all the changes and challenges that are described for farming in Denmark and elsewhere? In Denmark, less than one percent of the population is involved in primary agricultural production, which means that relatively few young people have role models or farming experience through family relations, e.g., an understanding of what it means to be a farmer with responsibility for living animals. It has been described how formal agricultural education helped future Irish farmers enter the occupational category “farmer” when inheritance was not an option [8]. Few young Danes can inherit a farm, and since the farm sizes have grown by several hundred percent over recent decades, only a few can buy one, even after completing their education. In addition, it is widely recognized that farming and rural areas are seen as unattractive, “boring,” and with limited opportunities for social life, e.g., in Australia [9]. Furthermore, farming is still largely recognized as a masculine occupation, supported both by traditional inheritance patterns and by ideas such as that women are less skilled in technological and digital activities. Different authors connect working conditions on industrialized farms to risky and arduous repetitive work [10] that is heavily influenced by machines [11] or stressful because it was increasingly lonely and unpredictable, e.g., in relation to policies, bureaucracy, economics, or environmental uncertainty [12], or because of psychosocial factors, repetitive work [13], who also mentioned increased bureaucracy. In this light, it is important to know what roles the host farmers potentially play in the learning, and how the farmer apprentices and their host farmers perceive the periods of learning in practice as parts of the farmer education, as well as how the apprenticeship period links with the wider agricultural education.

The research question of the article is: How can agricultural education be shaped to best support the education and future life as farmers, with a special focus on the integration of on-farm practice learning? The article aims to reflect on this learning as part of the education, based on a description and analysis of how young farmer apprentices and host farmers experienced and perceived the conditions, opportunities, and challenges of practice learning on current Danish animal farms.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. The Selection of Interviewees

This study was conducted from October 2016 to February 2017 as a part of a larger study focusing on animal welfare. This study comprised focus group interviews of students at agricultural colleges and phone interviews of host farmers for apprentices.

Focus group interviews were conducted with apprentices from three Danish agricultural colleges, which offered educations in a wide range of animal farming (dairy cows, pigs, and mink) and spanned large geographical distances. These three agricultural colleges were selected because they were well-established over many years, and they had specialized education on dairy cattle, pigs, and mink, respectively. Volunteer students were recruited to participate in the focus groups with the help of teachers at each of the colleges. The recruitment process was managed by the agricultural colleges and based on the guidelines that participating students had to be at least in their second year of school and have had one year of apprenticeship experience, and both women and men should be represented. The age ranged from 18 to 25 years.

Additionally, individual interviews were conducted with 14 farmers who had experience as host farmers. The host farmers were selected from a national list available to agricultural colleges, and were selected to cover a diverse group of farms with dairy cattle, sows and/or pigs, or mink. The first author contacted 30 farmers who worked with one or more of these three animal species and were from different geographical locations. Fourteen were accepted to be interviewed over the phone.

2.2. Conduct of the Interviews

Focus group interviews with farmer students allowed a dynamic exchange of experiences and an atmosphere where the young students could build off each other. According to Halkier [14], focus groups are useful for generating data about social groups’ interactions and norms. There were three focus groups, which consisted of six to ten farmer students each. Twenty-four farmer students participated in total. The second author carried out these interviews and followed an interview guide. She asked the students to explain their experiences as apprentices on the farms and to give and discuss examples of farm practices, focusing on practices related to animals and animal welfare. They were asked to describe positive or negative influences from the host farms and what could have improved their educational experiences on the farms. Finally, they were asked to reflect on learnings and connections between the college and the practice site. All three focus group interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Phone interviews were used because of limited available travel funds and time to conduct the study. Qualitative individual interviews with 14 host farmers were conducted (11 by the first author and three by the second author). An interview guide included questions about experiences with apprentices, what characterized good apprentices, the principles of and farmers’ roles when having apprentices on the farm, and the farmer’s relationship to the agricultural college from which their apprentice came. During the interviews, written notes were typed on a computer and organized immediately after the interviews, given headlines and summarized, and quotes were marked as such. This was sent to the interviewee via email for confirmation over the phone or by email. All were approved either in writing or orally, and in two cases, supplementary notes were made to further explain one or more specific points.

Informed consent explaining the study was obtained from the students (written) and farmers (orally or by email when the interview notes were sent back). No further ethical approval was required at the time of the interviews (2016–2017).

2.3. Data Analysis

The two types of interviews were analyzed separately using an inductive approach. The approved individual farmer interview notes were organized into meaning condensates and manually grouped (in Word^®) using an inductive approach to axial coding across interviews, which allowed for the identification of themes [15,16]. The transcribed focus group interviews were organized in themes (in Word^®). The final identification of overall themes was made across the two sets of interviews through an iterative process of exchanging all notes and the two sets of analyses, comparing and identifying themes across the interview sets between the two authors.

3. Results

The inductive interview analysis of both sets of interviews revealed four main themes, which could be summarized to comprise the main results across diverse situations and types of farms. Two of these themes pointed to a potential conflict related to the apprenticeship, namely whether the purpose of the apprenticeship period primarily was ‘learning’, where the farmer was supposed to actively support the learning of the farmer apprentice, or ‘working’, where the primary role of the farmer apprentice was to be part of the labor force on the farm, and took care of own learning. Whether it was a part of the apprenticeship that the farmer apprentice also became a part of the surrounding communities was a third theme revealed in the collected analysis. These three themes are illustrated in Figure 1 and described below.

The fourth theme was related to the connections between the host farmers and the agricultural colleges and concerned the experiences and roles of the agricultural colleges in supporting the apprentice and host farmer, e.g., through contact and articulating expectations.

Below, aspects of the four themes will be unfolded and illustrated through direct quotes from the interviews.

3.1. The Farm as a Learning Site

A major theme emerged from experiences about learning and acquiring professional and technical skills as farmers. This theme covered a wide range of sub-themes on structured and “learning-by-doing” elements of how and from whom to learn to become farmers. The practice learning was seen as related and complementary to the curriculum at the college, but exposed students to perspectives and skills that often were considered impossible to teach in the classrooms and farming facilities of the agricultural colleges. In some cases, the interviews pointed to a mismatch of expectations, for example, if an apprentice described a lack of guidance, or a host farmer described apprentices as being “more immature than they had expected” and therefore not capable of learning or doing what was expected of them. Some apprentices described how farm owners completely lacked communicative or pedagogical skills and described them as “self-taught” when it came to the management of employees.

The host farmers and the apprentices both gave examples of situations that seemed to be designed for learning. These were activities like regular employee meetings with the exchange of information, planning, and discussions on how to act or react to specific observations. Some of these activities were intentionally organized as “learning situations” for the young apprentices:

“We had that type of morning meetings almost every morning, where there was one employee – the herd manager – who told us what we should do that day and described what animals should and should not look like using photos […] and especially if some staff members didn’t speak Danish, then it was a good idea to show pictures of how it should not be…” (Apprentice 11).

Both host farmers and apprentices gave examples of how apprentices were involved in the regular advisory meetings of the veterinarians, which exposed them to quite specific and intense learning situations on matters related to the animals. At some farms, practices, goals, values, or instructions were explicitly described and posted, e.g., on a wall or in other written material. The daily work could involve structured and systematic learning situations where the apprentice was together with an experienced farmer or farm worker with the purpose of learning. Some apprentices described how they had experienced controversies between and learned inconsistent approaches from the experienced farmers:

“At the farm where I worked, the herd manager gave colostrum to the calves using a tube, but the boss never did. They were a bit divided into two camps. So what do you do as an apprentice? You do what is easiest (laughing) […] but […] well, they were equally stubborn and neither of them would change” (Apprentice 12).

Many apprentices had similar experiences, which they found frustrating or put them in situations where they had to make a choice themselves, as described above. Sometimes it was good to learn that experienced farmers had more than one solution to the same problem, as it gave them a broader view. Very few host farmers mentioned these inconsistent approaches. However, the host farmers mentioned that they saw it as a positive quality of the apprenticeship for the apprentice to encounter different opinions, reasons, and experiences linked to the same farm because this gave the apprentice a broader perspective.

Everyday work life, talking while performing an activity or looking at animals, or just being part of daily routines were seen as learning opportunities. Some types of tasks simply require hands-on experience to truly teach them, e.g., castrating piglets.

The importance of rhythm and routines, either on a daily or yearly (seasonal) basis, was mentioned as an important factor when learning about “being a farmer.” Being exposed to a variety of situations was considered valuable by both groups and described as a main advantage of in-practice learning. More host farmers had “rotational schemes” so that the apprentice acquired experience working on all parts of the farm. The importance of “learning to get the overview” was emphasized, especially for second-year apprentices. This required practice work in everyday situations, e.g., where unexpected things also happened. Host farmer 9 explained how he let the apprentice take the whole weekend duty on the dairy farm, which also required that he, as a host farmer, had to keep himself from interfering:

“[…] they should be able to take care of it all for a whole weekend. That requires an overview […]. It can be a big task for a beginner. It can take them four hours to milk the first time, and then it goes down to two. Then they learn how to use their hands […]. They will find out how to do things themselves, and it works better than if I tell them how to do it” (Host farmer 9).

The host farmers compared this type of learning in practice with learning to drive a car after obtaining a driver’s license. Some host farmers also found it important to confront the apprentices with real farm conditions and tasks, which sometimes required the apprentices to unlearn what they had learned in the (comparably tiny) herds at the agricultural colleges. Some host farmers progressively gave the apprentices more responsibilities as they developed mutual trust and confidence.

To some first-year apprentices, farming was a completely new field and required a lot of explanation and patience. Some host farmers preferred more experienced and mature apprentices, arguing that they felt more comfortable giving experienced apprentices more responsibilities over time. Both groups mentioned mutual trust as a prerequisite for giving or taking responsibility. For example:

“It is also about seeing the work in practice and being told about it in a way you understand. Then you are given some responsibility, and you grow with the tasks you are given […] I think people get much more interested in the work if they are given some responsibility” (Apprentice 11).

Apprentices were also expected to develop an overview of the farm, which included the ability to distinguish “normal” from “not normal” regarding an animal or in a housing system. Some apprentices experienced structured “learning walks” or discussions with experienced staff members or the host farmer. In the daily work, the apprentice experienced and followed the routines and had to react to what was observed by notifying or involving an experienced colleague.

In contrast, some apprentices talked about host farmers who seemed to expect them to be at the same level as the other employees and did not recognize them as learners. Some apprentices perceived that the farm manager or owner became upset if they asked questions. In some cases, the apprentices had done tasks without understanding the underlying reasons or logic behind them. Some perceived it as the host farmer’s “teaching strategy”:

“It is also about how they, the ‘bosses’, are brought up, because that is how I was brought up by my father, and it is how he learned: ‘You have to know what I think.’ You should not be given too much information–you have to figure things out yourself. That is a bit old-fashioned, some of these perceptions, a bit conservative” (Apprentice 10).

At the other end of the spectrum, more host farmers emphasized the importance of apprentices asking questions when they did not understand the reasons for doing a task, and some considered questions to be a sign of maturity, interest, and taking responsibility for their learning:

“I actually require that they ask, no matter what it is about. I believe that there is nothing I do not want to respond to” (Host farmer 8).

A good host farmer should be present, alert, open to the apprentices’ questions and perspectives, and give good examples of how to do things. Some apprentices talked about “inaccessible farmers,” or farmers who reacted in ways that discouraged dialogue or showed disinterest:

“A problematic boss is a boss that seems indifferent to helping you. If you have a problem, you ask him a question because you feel insecure. When you ask him, if he knows what to do but answers, ‘We will take that later, in five minutes’ and then he never returns to you, and you still have not heard from him when you go home at the end of the day, that is a bad boss. A boss that is so busy running to all his meetings, and they are important to him” (Apprentice 22).

Apprentice 6 described a good boss as one who is open to discussions of all sorts:

“We had a very good morning coffee meeting where we talked about daily work–what we had to do the rest of the working day. But we also talked about a lot of other things, like politics. A good boss does not stress” (Apprentice 6).

Apprentices and host farmers often talked about “learning” as a one-way process and apprentices as “the learners” when referring to the concept of apprenticeship. Some turned it around and mentioned possibilities where apprentices could be involved in making decisions, contribute with new and updated knowledge from the agricultural colleges, or share how they were seeing things from their perspective with “fresh eyes”. In a focus group, the apprentices agreed that a boss was a “good boss” when the apprentices felt that they could voice their opinions, too:

“Nothing was characterized as ‘only right’ or ‘only wrong’. Of course, we could do the work the way he used to do it, but if we thought there was a faster or better way to do it, then he was very open to that” (Apprentice 8).

The common learning perspectives potentially brought a degree of mutuality into the learning and knowledge exchange. It was motivating to see or feel that the host farmer was pleased with their effort, and the apprentices mentioned examples, e.g., when a host farmer set up a common celebration, e.g., a barbecue or giving a gift:

“I worked on a farm where the results were really bad for a long time, and then we decided to put some extra time into the job, we can call it ‘time of interest.’ We wanted to find the root of the problem and we helped each other do that. Then we made dinner together and went back to the stables after dinner. And that solved the problem. It also led our boss to give everyone a new iPhone a month later” (Apprentice 5).

3.2. The Farm as a Workplace

Farmers had very different expectations of how to include apprentices in the workforce on the farm. Most host farmers talked about how expensive it was to have apprentices compared to what they could do, and some of them were very young and not used to working without close supervision. They explained that, in Denmark, farm apprentices received a higher salary than other students (e.g., university students), and the host farmers also had to pay this salary while the apprentices were at college. Some apprentices described how they sensed a stronger focus on the work that “had to be done,” than on their positions as apprentices, e.g., as expressed by Apprentice 9:

“At the farm where I work now, I feel he generally expects that I am a farmer already, that I can do everything. Therefore, I did feel it was a bit ‘uphill’ when I started there because he expected me to know everything. There is also financial benefit for the farmer to have me here” (Apprentice 9).

This mismatch of expectations also became apparent in two interviews with host farmers who had no current apprentices. They doubted that they would host any again, pointing to disproportionally high costs connected to having apprentices with no previous farm work experience and strict rules about how many hours they were allowed to work per week as two major drawbacks. Running a farm was challenging; the number of work hours per week or day fluctuated throughout the year and could exceed the normal work hours of full-time paid jobs in many other sectors. That was part of being a farmer, and a lifestyle that many farmers had to live with. Very rigid contracts did not reflect the real working situation of a farmer, and they made it impossible to work the apprentice into the daily planning. Often, the economic return of hosting an apprentice was not that high. In that light, farmers generally expected that the apprentices were still able to do some tasks, even if they were not that experienced. Some farmers said that they “needed the hands,” as expressed by host farmer 4:

“None of them have a background working with cows. That could maybe be ok, but not on a farm like this where it is only me and we have to get the work done […]” (Host farmer 4).

Many host farmers explained how they tried to balance work with acknowledging the apprentice status of the young person, e.g., as described above by organizing a rotational scheme or making a mixture of “structured learning situations” and letting the apprentices experience and learn through daily practical work. Some host farmers referred to learning as a broader concept, e.g., “experiencing how things are done in everyday life,” and in this way getting the work done. They generally emphasized that routine work was part of a farmer’s normal life and gave stability and a good sense of being able to master some things at an early stage of the apprenticeship:

“[…] Everybody has some fun tasks and some not-so-fun tasks. They can take the initiative. They are with us, there are experienced people around them, and we are there constantly. There’s enough to learn from […]” (Host farmer 8).

3.3. Becoming Part of Social Networks and Local Communities

Both host farmers and apprentices talked about situations where host farmers’ efforts to strengthen coherence and collaboration between staff members were motivating and important for the apprentices, e.g., by making some tasks a joint effort across the whole group of employees (including the apprentices), and with mutual appreciation, learning, and acting as a team:

“We were told that our results had gone downhill, so now they would make it a competition to see who can save most pigs […] That got our attention, and then they said: ‘Every time you save a pig, you get a bonus of 200 Danish kroner, just like that.’ Once it became a competition, mortality was reduced. […] We were really engaged and encouraging each other by giving high-fives and saying, ’really good work’, and we got a lot of appreciation […] ” (Apprentice 23).

Some host farmers preferred apprentices from the same agricultural colleges where they had been educated. Furthermore, local or nearby agricultural colleges encouraged the host farmers to participate in, e.g., information meetings or events at the college so that the host farmers could understand where the apprentices came from. Some apprentices were members of farmer youth groups, either locally at the farm where they apprenticed or more generally related to their sector of interest:

“We have a good network, or whatever you want to call it, in fur animal farming called ‘fur animal youth’ where we get together once every quarter of the year at some events and can ‘be nerds’ about mink-related issues. Then we get to talk about what we are doing at our apprenticeships and learn how the others are doing it” (Apprentice 11).

Such networks also stimulated their learning and professional development, and the network, communication, and friendship with peers also contributed to preparing them to become farmers and part of farming communities.

Some host farmers who had apprentices mentioned “educating young Danish farmers” as a strong motivation to act as a host and reflected on their own valuable time as apprentices. They valued the inclusion of new members into the sector and showed them not only technical skills but also what it meant to be a farmer and interact, e.g., at meetings, conferences, and in colleague groups, and being part of the local community, e.g., as told by host farmer 14:

“Our apprentices prioritize participating in open-house arrangements, such as meeting in the local farmer club. They like these things very much. We encourage them to participate in farmer courses, too […] but they have to attend the courses on their own time” (Host farmer 14).

Host farmer 6 emphasized that it was important to select apprentices for their farm from the local area. When apprentices came from the local area, they already had a local network, which made the apprentices calmer and more rooted. The host farmer family did not like to have apprentices living as part of their family. They preferred apprentices who felt at home in the area and therefore would not become lonely. Others mentioned that apprentices who were from the area had more “peace” in their lives, e.g., they did not have to travel every weekend to see their boy- or girlfriend, and they had local networks of friends. Another farmer, who also preferred to accept apprentices from the local area, emphasized the responsibility of being part of the same community:

“[…] the apprentices commit more when they are part of the local society. Many of them have parents from here, and they recognize us when we turn up in the local village, so we cannot be unfair because the rest of our community will hear about it. This is different with the foreign farm workers–they can just be ‘thrown out’ if it does not fit, and nobody would notice. It is completely different with local young people. It means something to the local community. We help bind things together. All three of the owners of this farm are connected to the same agricultural college as the apprentices–we have something in common […]” (Host farmer 3).

Some of the interviewed farmers had chosen to have apprentices with special challenges, e.g., a complex background, a difficult school life or childhood, or youth problems. They described it as a “social duty” and discussed the joy of seeing a young person getting on his or her feet and being able to manage situations on their own. Often in these instances, the apprentices became a closer member of the family, and the supervision went beyond farm work.

3.4. The “Missing Link” Between On-Farm Learning and the Agricultural College

One striking outcome of the interviews was that farmer students and host farmers had widely different perceptions of the level of communication and alignment between the agricultural colleges and the farms. Many experienced the contact to be frustratingly low and insufficient. Many interviewees stated that farm-based practice was a necessary and well-established part of the farmer education. However, none of the apprentices or host farmers had brought learnings from their times as apprentices into the classroom, or the other way around. Generally, the apprentices were not required to, e.g., develop specific reports or assignments related to their apprenticeships other than what was described as a “plain report,” and the farmer filled in standard forms to evaluate the apprentice’s performance during the apprenticeship.

The colleges had different practices regarding direct contact between the college and the farm where their students were apprentices. One college had a tradition of visiting each apprentice twice, and the other two colleges made one visit. However, according to the host farmers and apprentices, they had not had any visits and explained that maybe it was because of the long distance between the farm and the college:

“I had one visit from a teacher during my first period as an apprentice, just after I started at the farm. However, my boss is not at all pleased with the college’s communication with him. He has not heard a word from the college since I started at his farm. He was even missing some papers, and he contacted the college to get them, but he has still not heard from them […]” (Apprentice 7).

Even in critical situations, there could be no contact, such as when Apprentice 22 was hospitalized twice during her apprenticeship and had sought support from the school but never received a response.

A number of the host farmers found this missing link discouraging and became less motivated to take more apprentices because of the lack of contact from the colleges. Some expressed frustration that they did not have clear guidelines for what was expected of them. They just assumed that they should try to create the learning environment they would have wanted during their own education. Some farmers expressed “relief” because they did not have the time or capacity to engage in teaching, and they expected the apprentices to concentrate on their work while on the farm, and not do homework.

4. Discussion

4.1. Farmer Apprenticeship in a Current Danish Farming Context

Our results are based on relatively limited data, but clearly reflect the dichotomy between the roles of learners and masters or mentors versus the roles of workers and bosses. In some cases, “learning” in any form was overridden by routine work, daily busy life, and the urge to get things done. Apprentices were thus reduced to members of the farms’ workforces and left to learn on their own. This was further complicated by the apparently non-existent common, official guidelines on learning processes or emphasis on how conversation can be a lever for learning, as explained in relation to veterinary apprenticeships [17].

The term “farmer apprentice” is ambiguous and does not refer to a particular position, nor to requirements for specific types of learning. In Danish, the young farmer-to-be is referred to most often as an “elev”, which can be translated to “student” or “pupil” in English, both of which relate to classroom teaching. The term “praktikant” (“trainee”) is also used in Danish, often for foreign employees who need to undergo a short education before being employed in Denmark. The term “apprentice” in English and “lærling” in Danish seems to fit best to what the farmer-to-be is expected to do: learn through practice and mentorship, with the Danish “lærling” referring primarily to a craft education.

Apprenticeship is often understood as passing traditional skills and knowledge on to the next generation of workers and letting them develop those skills in practice. It describes how articulated and tacit knowledge is handed over by pairing a younger learner with an experienced master, e.g., as formulated by Bouniol [18]: “going from book to hand, and from hand to book” (p. 108). Marchand [19] unfolds the process of acquiring skills silently by observing and doing, highlighting the importance of non-verbal communication, being acknowledged, gradually advancing, and being shaped professionally and personally. In this way, apprenticeship refers to learning in social, economic, and political contexts that involve traditions and knowledge [20]. The Danish philosopher Wackerhausen [21] highlights the risk of considering apprenticeship exclusively as a fixed period, where the young learner tests in practice what is scholastically learned in a classroom.

In this pilot study, hosts as well as apprentices were aware that farm work included a lot of routine work, many different tasks, and complexity in daily life. The apprentice who is “learning for the future” should also include this as part of knowing what it means to become a farmer, as explained in the examples of taking weekend duties on their own or being confronted with routines and decisions. In this way, “learning through working and working while learning” becomes meaningful. However, based on the results of the current study, it seemed that the options to combine a more active learning process with working on the farm were poorly articulated or not explicitly articulated or made clear for apprentices or host farmers, and not incorporated actively in the curriculum of the agricultural colleges.

4.2. Becoming a Farmer and a Member of a Community of Practice (CoP)

Apprenticeship has a strong focus on developing skills and competencies, which are necessary to become a farmer. The results illustrate vividly how learning through a farming apprenticeship involves collaboration, communication, negotiation, management, being able to master different situations, taking care of everyday routines, making decisions, and working with biological systems and living sentient beings. This also involved the social life on a farm and, to varying degrees, involvement in the local community. The perspectives emphasized by some of the interviewed farmers—of taking responsibility for the employees and involving them in on-farm and off-farm local and professional networks— must be considered paramount to the formation of a person and a professional, and verge on a community of practice. Lave [22] analyzed ethnographies of apprenticeship arrangements and the complexity of the concept of apprenticeship, and showed how the concept related to skill learning and craft making [19], guild formation, and, thereby, communities of practice [20,22]. Memberships of communities of practice (CoP) included multi-faceted manifestations of power, inclusion, and exclusion. Becoming a farmer is becoming a part of a profession, and in this way, inclusion into groups and networks of fellow farmers, on the same farm as well as local and wider community levels.

Some farmers compared the status of farm apprentices to that of foreign workers. In Denmark, some foreign farm employees have long-term employment and live with their families in the local community. However, in these interviews, farmers were referring to cases where foreign farm workers were more vulnerable and “hidden,” potentially leading to a disregard for how they were treated in their everyday lives. This raises completely different and concerning issues that are widely discussed in the literature, e.g., with milkers in industrialized US-based dairy operations, where workers were exposed to many risks and unfavorable life conditions [23], were considered “more reliable” because their families were far away and therefore able to work more hours, or were “deportable” and more vulnerable due to their undocumented status [24]. Farmer apprentices seemed to have a distinct different position as future members of a common community of practice, although being involved to a greater or lesser extent and in different ways with the local and professional community as part of their apprenticeship.

4.3. The Roles of Agricultural Colleges to Support the Apprentice to Become a Future Farmer in a Changeable World Through On-Farm Practice Learning

Forasacco & Chartier-Guedet [25] describe apprenticeship as lifelong learning, where learning is related to the ancient Greek term metanoia (“transformation”)—in this case of behavior or state of mind and a systemic perspective as part of an organization (company or sector)—and also emphasize mutual or collective learning. They suggested six keys to developing lasting capacities, including creating self-awareness and trust, and strengthening attention span. These keys will enable the learner to adapt in an ever-changing environment, such as agriculture in Denmark, which has undergone enormous changes over the past century. This also highlights the need for establishing an on-farm learning environment that encourages mutuality and co-learning. The use of digital tools or new technologies could be included and is often a strength of young people. It could also be relevant in cases of new and complex types of farming, such as regenerative or agroecological farming, where apprentices may contribute new skills and knowledge to host farmers. This could align with shifting paradigms in power relations that scholars have identified, such as “learners” and “masters” moving from hierarchical to more horizontal, mutual, and relational, “all are learners” arrangements, which happened parallel to shifts in family structures where father-son power relations became more horizontal [26].

Wackerhausen [21] also points out the general need to continue developing new skills in a rapidly changing world: “Given the fact that apprenticeship, at least in its traditional form, is inherently conservative […], and the fact that we are living in a very dynamic and changeable world demanding ongoing adaptation and adjustment, how do we counteract the inherent conservation of apprenticeship while still enjoying the fruits of apprenticeship? Apprenticeship alone will not do in a modern and changeable society, but neither will theory and scholastic teaching” (p. 13). He emphasizes that this must happen not only at the individual level but also at the institutional level. This point seems extremely relevant in a current European farming context and may quite precisely suggest that the agricultural colleges have to ensure that the apprenticeship period is not reduced to “trying out in practice what is taught in classes”, but actually learning through practice, bodily learning, and development of one’s competencies.

Collectively, these interviews highlighted structural barriers that impeded the farmers and students from gaining the full set of benefits from the apprenticeships. Many of the statements from both apprentices and host farmers indicated that expectations and clear guidelines on what can be mutually expected in an apprenticeship, and how learning through working, as well as working while learning, can best be shaped in different farm situations. Some farmers mentioned structural issues, such as paying disproportionately more to employ an apprentice compared to a foreign worker, who might be more mature and not require mentoring. In some cases, these structural issues made farmers reluctant to host apprentices or less likely to give the attention necessary to establish a fruitful learning environment. Such challenges require solutions at an institutional level.

4.4. Limitations of the Study

The study was exclusively related to animal farming and conducted under time and financial constraints that created clear limitations to the examples and the methods (phone interviews, a few focus group interviews, and interviewee confirmed but non-voice recorded interviews). Furthermore, the way in which both groups of interviewees volunteered to participate may have excluded some important aspects of the experiences related to the apprenticeship period.

We realize that it would have been beneficial to have paid more attention to the different stages or age groups of apprentices and the effects on learning when selecting the interviewees. It became clear that distinct challenges and opportunities exist for apprentices who are very young and in their first year of education versus apprentices who are close to finishing their education.

Despite these limitations, we found that our interviews raised many necessary and relevant questions on how to educate young farmers in today’s industrialized Danish farming landscape. These aspects seem relatively unexplored, which further motivated us to submit this publication. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible. Future research directions may also be highlighted.

5. Conclusions

This study identified potentially conflicting expectations regarding whether the host farm was primarily a learning site or a workplace where the apprentice is a farm laborer who is learning through work, including routine work. Inclusion in social environments, on-farm and off-farm, was essential for a farmer’s development and becoming part of a community of practice. We conclude that the agricultural colleges play a pivotal role in facilitating apprenticeships to derive the most benefit from learning in practice. It is important that agricultural colleges facilitate dialogues about mutual expectations between host farmers and apprentices, and that they keep close contact with the apprentice and host farmer during the on-farm practice period. Viewing on-farm apprenticeships as a vocational education and practice learning, and as an integrated part of the entire farmer education, is paramount. This involves the apprentice in the process of developing new solutions and practices as a future farmer in a changing world. Research focused on social and institutional barriers and levers to support a well-integrated practical, technical, and theoretical education and social formation of future farmers in a profession and world that is rapidly changing.