Jack Wavering next to a Harborview Farms sign, the farm where he interned this past summer.
Meet Jack Wavering, an IAA student who interned on the largest crop farm in Maryland during the summer of 2018. Wavering is in his second year studying Agricultural Business Management at the University of Maryland. Although he is from Germantown, Maryland, and has only worked on small vegetable farms in the past, he spent his summer working for Harborview Farms in Rock Hall, MD. In fact, one of his favorite parts of the internship was getting away from home and living on his own for the summer. Despite working on a very large-scale farm, Wavering played a key role in the farm operation and had an enjoyable summer.
The most important skill he learned throughout the internship was scouting. Some of the meaningful skills he learned from scouting included performing stand counts, identifying weeds, pests, and diseases, and comparing the evidence to economic thresholds to make a decision. These decisions are important for the profitability of the farm as well as protecting soil and environmental health. Another thing he enjoyed doing was learning about the operation and maintenance of equipment and then doing it.
One of Wavering’s biggest responsibilities was running the farm grain facility during the summer wheat harvest. And, his unique tasks this summer was redesigning the farm’s website to make it easier to use. IAA instructor Roy Walls visited Wavering this summer and said Wavering “looked like he was doing a good job at his internship but of course as I tell all of my students, ‘there is always more to learn’.” Nevertheless, Wavering has much more knowledge about production agriculture now compared to the beginning of the summer.
During his internship, Wavering learned things that will better equip him for his future career. According to Wavering, “Overall I really liked my internship because it let me pick up lots of useful skills and talk with people with all sorts of jobs in agriculture who influenced what I want to do after school.”
He says he has wanted to pursue a career in production ag all along, but this internship has helped him explore even more careers inside of production agriculture. He is now looking into careers in farm management or field agronomy. Whatever career he pursues, he will make good use of the skills he acquired this summer from his internship.
