Farm Manager – Food for Change Hydroponic Program

About CFAM

The Center for Food as Medicine, Inc. is a NYC-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit working in evidence-based health and nutrition research, education and community programming, led by Executive Director Charles Platkin.

Our Food for Change program runs hydroponic tower gardens inside Bronx public high schools. Each school assigns faculty leads and a student group who work the towers alongside us, so the produce is grown by the students in the building where it gets eaten. We are growing toward 25 to 30 sites.

Position Overview

The Farm Manager keeps our tower garden network alive across six Bronx sites and helps open the next ones. Sites sit on two circuits, central and west Bronx (Arthur Ave, Bathgate Ave, Mapes Ave, E 180th St) and east Bronx (E 172nd St and the Boynton Ave campus). You travel between them on your own and set your own route.

Most days you are by yourself in a school building, deciding what a plant needs and acting on it with nobody to ask. This is hands-on growing work.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain tower gardens across all active sites: plant health, nutrient levels, pH, lighting and water systems
• Diagnose and fix equipment, irrigation and crop problems on the spot
• Run planting, harvest and distribution schedules
• Log every planting, harvest and distribution in our mobile tracking app on the day it happens, including harvest weights and plant counts
• Train and supervise the student group and faculty leads at each school
• Act as CFAM's main point of contact with principals and facility staff
• Keep supplies and equipment stocked across sites
• Support grant reporting with the data you collect
• Help set up and launch new sites as the program expands

Required

• Two or more years of hands-on growing: hydroponics, urban farming, horticulture or similar. You have personally kept a system alive.
• Working knowledge of hydroponic systems (tower gardens, NFT, deep water culture or comparable)
• Comfortable around high school students

Your own smartphone with reliable service and at least 2GB of free storage kept available. You will use two apps daily, our logging tool and a timestamp video app. No device is provided. This is the most common reason this role has not worked out before.

• Able to lift 50 lbs, be on your feet in indoor grow conditions, and haul supplies between buildings
• Able to travel independently between Bronx sites
• Available weekdays during school hours. The work follows the school calendar.
• Already living in the NYC area, Bronx preferred. No relocation. A commute over an hour does not work for this role.

Preferred

• Experience in schools, nonprofits or community organisations
• Bilingual in English and Spanish
• Food safety knowledge or ServSafe certification
• Degree in agriculture, environmental science, public health or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience

Why this job

• You run a real network, not a demonstration plot. Six sites now, 25 to 30 planned.
• You decide how the growing gets done. Nobody is standing over you.
• The produce goes to the students who grew it, in the building where it grew.
• Small team, direct line to the Executive Director.

English required, bilingual english/spanish prefferred