RIDGEDALE FARM AB

6 Week internship
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Regenerative agriculture school

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6 Week regenerative agriculture internship

Fri 19th JUNE - Mon 3rd Aug 2026 

Limited spaces AVAILABLE


Realised That Ag School won't teach you real farming?  That's why we're here...

Unique in the field of regenerative agriculture, our 6-week intensive program offers a practical and theoretical blend of learning that has been a springboard for many of the most exciting new generation of farmers getting started smart.  Simply put, there is no other farm we know of where you can be exposed to all the things going on here under the mentorship of a globally regarded leader in the field with such a deep and varied experience in farm design and planning. Past participants have come from all corners of the globe and many business start-ups and life-long friendships have developed out of this program.

designing, managing and monitoring

Besides a once in a lifetime learning experience, our Internships serve as a 'reality check' for people setting out on their own farming enterprises.  We created this training as there are simply no opportunities like it in the world.  Ag schools don't teach these innovative human-scale models and there is nowhere people can be exposed to so much in one farm.  Alongside class-based learning and field responsibilities,  you will have a lot of time to develop your own land and business plans in a supportive and reflective learning environment. Alongside your peers you will be put in a position of responsibility with a different enterprise on rotation, leaving you with hands-on experience in managing larger livestock grazing, pastured poultry (eggs and meat production) and market gardening. 

In 2024 we purchased a famous old restaurant/events space/farm close by in the village. We will spend time establishing the farm and working in service at this location too. You also have the opportunity to attend 6 world-class concerts as well as dine there twice a week. We are also hosting a Regenerative Agriculture Festival that you will attend.

Our world-renowned 9 day Regenerative Agricultural Design Course opens our time together, ensuring we are on the same page, and you will also get to meet like-minded people from around the world who attend only this training.

Learning objectives

Our objectives are that participants leave confident in diverse aspects of Design, Planning and Enterprise Management applicable to any aspect of Regenerative farming, regardless of your climate zone and circumstance. Aside from learning a lot about yourself and working and living in groups, diligent and committed Interns should leave the farm with these learning outcomes;

•    Develop your Holistic Context and know how to test decisions in your life holistically
•    Use the Keyline Scale of Permanence to organise your design work
•    Able to apply Keyline cultivation patterning to varied terrains
•    A deep understanding of maps, how to create them and how to use them in design
•    Skills with relevant software for design
•    Able to produce a detailed Bill of Quantities
•    Knowledge of the vital elements and prioritisation in Farm Scale design
•    Setting up a Holistic Planned Grazing Chart
•    Moving grazing animals/pastured poultry efficiently 

•    Knowing how to conduct basic field surveys to create tangible data for planning and monitoring pasture
•    Confident in the daily farm tasks at Ridgedale and how to manage them effectively
•    Understanding varied elements of Animal Husbandry
•    Clear about how to plan farm enterprises and work with spreadsheets
•    Able to identify biome characteristics and assemble appropriate species
•    Knowing various approaches and strategies for implementing perennial cropping systems
•    Understanding how to establish Pastured Egg/Pastured Broiler/Pastured Turkey enterprises
•    Experience all aspects of poultry slaughter, processing and packing
•.   Slaughter and processing of Pigs/Sheep or Cows (varies annually)
​
•    Understanding various ways to market your produce/ deal with sales
•    Produce abundant Market Garden crops with minimal effort
​•    How to grow and manage a diverse variety of crops

•    How to set up and run a microgreen enterprise
•    High-tunnel intensive production
•    Harvest/ processing/ storage techniques
•    Planning a Market Garden crop plan
•    Creating a Market Garden year planner
•    Knowing how to use a wide range of innovative tools
•    Learning various hand skills
•    How to build soil in a variety of ways suitable for different scales and climates, including various soil preparations
•    Soil Microscopy
•    How to make Compost in different ways/scales
​•    Make soil preps such as Compost tea, Biofertiliser, CalPhos, Biochar, Fish Hydrolysate

•    A solid design base for your own property (if you came with relevant data and put spare time into creating this plan and asking for reflection and feedback)
•    With a 500gb (please bring an external HD with you!) hard drive packed with a lifetime of resources for all aspects of regenerative design through all climate zones
•    With incredible memories and new lifelong friends, as well as a developing professional network
•    Inspired, engaged and empowered to take your plans to the next level

Besides the planned schedule of learning outcomes, other projects and possibilities depend on what is going on at the farms. This may include high-tensile fence building, building broiler pens, agroforestry establishment/maintenance, learning natural (clay) plastering, learning about natural swimming pool building, sand gardening, event management, etc.



Many of our students are now running awesome businesses around the world...


Internship Structure and responsibilities

Every Intern will be trained in the tasks required to run each enterprise at the farm.  Rotating in smaller teams, you take on the primary responsibility for all aspects of running Pastured Layers, Pastured Broilers, Pasture-raised Cattle and Sheep, Forest-raised Pigs and the Market Gardens.  These responsibilities will involve regular daily tasks, giving you insight into what each enterprise requires.  Constant observation, monitoring and record keeping whilst constantly interacting with Richard will leave you clear on the details that make things work.  Groupings will also rotate so people work in different combinations throughout their stay.

By rotating through all the primary enterprises you are left with a real knowing of what you enjoy, what you might do differently, what your personal capacity is and how you can use this to forge your own business plan in your unique time, place and circumstance.  A key part of this experiential training is gleaning from our extensive time and motion studies; challenging yourself to understand your potential.  This is a strong aspect of the culture we create here at the farm, as ultimately this is the 'testing ground' before you put your own capital and time at risk.

Interns will cook and manage the kitchen for all meals except nights we dine at the restaurant. We supply farmed vegetables, eggs and meat and fully organic whole foods.  The 9-day course that is open to the public is catered, and you will not be cooking during this period. This allows you to learn about preparing, preserving and utilising all aspects of the farm produce as well as a chance to share your gifts, strengths and talents.

You will be responsible for conducting your basic management roles 7 days a week, and will need to be organised and diligent consistently to make the most of this opportunity. Outside of the 9 day training, Richard will often be with his children after 2pm. This leaves time for daily farm work/projects, self-study and group activities amongst yourselves.

Day and week schedules

9-Day Training schedule;
  • 7:00-8:00 Morning responsibilities (animal moves/ transplanting/ harvesting)
  • 9:00-10:30 Session 1
  • 11:00-12:30 Session 2
  • 2:00-3:30 Session 3
  • 4:00-5:30 Session 4
  • Optional Evening sessions
 
  • Interns will have different tasks associated with their area of responsibility to fit into this schedule during the course days.  Meals are catered during this time.
  • After dinner we light the sauna every day and split evenings between rest, campfire, swim at lake, film nights or different lectures/ presentations as we feel best.

General daily schedule Mon-fri;
  • 7:00-8:00 Morning responsibilities (animal moves/ transplanting/ harvesting)
  • 9:00-12:30 Class/Field activities with Richard/Staff at either farm
  • 12:30-2:00 Shared Lunch
  • After lunch there is open space for personal project work/ field tasks/ enterprise tasks.  Richard will prioritise his children after lunch and may or may not be present in an unstructured manner.  He will be constantly engaged in oversight and checking in with all Interns regularly.
  • Friday/ Saturday dinner we eat at the restaurant.
 
General daily schedule Sat-Sun;
  • Weekends are generally down time, but basic farm-chores still continue. Sillegården is open Friday and Saturday evenings 5-11pm and Sunday 11am-4pm.  We eat dinner together there Friday and Saturday, where you can also attend our live concerts. On Saturdays some of the group will rotate though various tasks from KP to starter-prep for the restaurant under the guidance of our Head Chef and clearing up with our team afterwards.
  • Brief meetings usually happen on Sunday evening as necessary.

Food policy at the farm

  • Interns will rotate in cooking and managing the kitchen for all meals except nights we dine at the restaurant and the 9 day training.
  • We eat a balanced diet of meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables and whole foods.  We supply farm raised and grown produce and 100% organic whole foods that we buy in for the Intern kitchen, as well as for our catered courses.   
  • We have a one meal policy, and offer nutritious farmhouse food.  We regularly use meat stock, dairy, eggs and meat in meals as well as eating sourdough breads we bake.  Unfortunately we cannot cater for particular diets.  Bear in mind we are a meat producing farm that also slaughters animals here on the farm.  If you are not comfortable eating the rounded diet described it is best not to spend 6 weeks here!

Sleeping and other housekeeping

  • We have a shared loft accommodation and glamping, which will be allocated when you arrive.  You are also welcome to bring a tent if you wish to have a little more privacy.  We supply a simple mattress, duvet and bed linen.
  • We have sauna and simple bucket showers available daily.
  • Interns will be cooking for each other on rotation, except on the public course and Friday and Saturday nights when we eat at the restaurant.
  • We have Wifi available in the common space.
  • We have simple compost toilets and an outdoor sink with hot and cold water.

Arrival and Departure

Picture
Plan to arrive at the farm Friday 19th June 2026
Plan to depart on Monday 3rd Aug 2026


We can pick up/ drop off people at Västra Ämtervik train station.  Please note, we cannot accommodate you or help with transport outside these times.

Driving We are located quite centrally to all the major regional transport hubs. We are 3 hrs from Oslo, 4 hrs from Stockholm and 3.5 hrs from Gothenburg.  For Google maps use this address; 

Åsen 20, Västra Ämtervik, 68695, Sweden 

Train and Bus We recommend using the website http://www.sj.se/ which gives you all the options and comparative prices when travelling in Sweden, in both Swedish and English. We can only pick you up in Västra Ämtervik which is 6km from the farm. PLEASE NOTE; you need to include the Swedish letters for the website to recognise the station.

Flying Travel is simple from the three major transport hubs above. Use the train/ bus link to determine what feels best for you.

CLARIFYING OBJECTIVES, EXPECTATIONS AND CONTEXT

The farm comes first. During our short and intensive production season we sacrifice a lot to create unparalleled learning opportunities.  Because we give it all we've got and take high risks, we expect some things from you too. We expect you to show up with bright eyes and a bushy tail and extract the juice from this experience by throwing yourself at everything 110%!  We have clarified some of this here so you can prepare yourself for an optimal experience.

We are primarily excited to support people into farming professionally. We have been deeply engaged with high quality education for over 20 years, however at our home site this goes hand in hand with the running of the farm.  We are offering an immersion into what it takes to design and manage awesome systems in a capacity we have never seen offered elsewhere on the planet. The deeper you immerse yourself the more insight you will gain.  We created this opportunity to serve people committing their lives to regenerative agriculture, and are not particularly interested to support armchair theorists.  If you are looking to be spoon-fed please look elsewhere, as this experience won't work for you or us.  If you're excited to learn by doing; getting your hands dirty, waking up early and getting involved, you'll likely thrive here and gain invaluable insight and a wheelbarrow of confidence to go off and start or refine your own enterprise.

People always have very different expectations for our trainings.  Please spend some good time carefully considering the available information and reflecting on what you are coming for.  Whilst we are committed to the best level of regenerative education available in this part of the world, we are also very busy people.  Aside from family life we design a bunch of other properties each year, as well as run our business outside of the farm gates.  We are most inclined to give our time to folks who are engaged, timely and responsive.  It’s about reciprocating.  If you’re late up or not paying attention in classes then you may be disappointed when we don’t have time to respond to questions regarding things we have already covered, or that you missed something.  We’d obviously rather give our limited time to those we can see are pro- active and engaged, for they are the folks our experience has proven go on to do great things with what they learn with us.

We’re focused on commercial human-scale farming and most of our consultancy work is focused on farms and larger scale projects around the world.  Whilst we can and have designed for urban and small-scale projects this is not the primary focus in our work or trainings.  If you want to plant a food forests, make herb-spirals, dream of earthships or growing veg in your back garden, this is not the right training for you.  If you have a property to develop be sure to bring good topographic maps, photos and contact us for a questionnaire to fill out before you arrive.  The more preparation you come with the more you can get out of the resources on tap here.

The “how can I be of benefit?” approach is the motivation this place runs on, and an attitude we ask everyone to uphold.  When people are connected through the motivation to benefit all through their actions and words then everything works smoothly and easefully, even in the most challenging circumstances.  Our project is truly living testimony to this.  There’s nothing we cannot achieve together when working effectively together. 

We have a clear Farm Policy that you commit to by participating in our trainings.  Please make sure you have viewed this and reflect upon it.  People violating our basic conduct expectations will be asked to leave immediately and forfeit any payments.  We present ourselves professionally at all times here.  We show up on time, consistently and are attentive to what is going on around us.  We are engaged, responsive and supportive to each other at all times.  You are part of our world whilst you live here.  You represent us to the local community, the stories you share, the products you buy at the store.   You represent us in what you share with visitors as well as online.  Your impact can live on well past your time here. 

You are entrusted with responsibilities during your time with us.  From managing livestock, to maintaining hygiene and spaces, processing chickens, packing eggs, slaughtering animals, dealing with produce and communicating with others at the farm.  It is your duty to make sure every tool goes back clean to its correct place.  It is your responsibility to fix things that you damage, note them on the control sheets, inform us when anything happens with animals that we may need to know.   If you aren’t able to carry out a duty and need to pass on the responsibility you need to know the other is fully informed how to perform that task properly.  If someone else is neglecting their responsibilities then you are next in line, how did you support them to correct anything out of place?  How do you respond? 

When we give instructions and delegate responsibilities we are putting trust in you to fully manage whatever you are doing at the farm, treating it like it were your own.  We are working with complex systems; people, finances and ecology.  You will make mistakes from time to time, you will learn a lot.  We are here to support you to fully step into your learning process.   When you immerse yourself in the farm, it’s intricacies and processes, you will learn a lot.  How deeply you immerse yourself is directly proportionate to how much you gain from your experience.  Sometimes it will not always be the learning you want that day.  Sometimes you’ll be tired or disinterested, and we’ll still need to be out working in the rain.  How do you motivate yourself to be up first to begin the morning chores, to clean the tools someone else forgot, brush the floor of the workshop that someone left in a mess?  We work with the underlying question “how can I be of benefit here?”  which means if you see something you can do something about then do it.  We run around doing a lot of jobs to help serve the whole that nobody notices, nobody thanks us for.  We hope you see the value in adopting the same approach.

We have designed and planned what we are doing very well, a big part of the reason we can roll so effectively.  This is not an open experiment in “having a go”.  We demonstrate economic viability and we are investing our lives and a bunch of financial capital into this.  When we instruct you in a task or management procedure we expect you to follow these instructions meticulously and perfect the systems as we working with.  We want you to learn the optimal way to carry out the tasks we demonstrate to you.  If you don’t fully understand why you are asked to do something then ask for clarification.  We have thought about what and how we are doing things a lot and you can assume it is based on our experience.  When our routine procedures are not followed closely things get broken, worn, damaged and lost.  It is expensive to have so many people coming to the farm and we have worked out clear systems that work well for us.

Central to the effective running of the farm is that tools, spaces and belongings are kept in perfect order.  Not only must you take good care of your own stuff, you’ll find you have to follow up others who always forget to put things away where they belong.  The Workshop is labeled and signed, everything has a place and everything should be in it’s place unless being used at that moment.  Anything dirty must be cleaned for the next person.  Anything damaged needs fixing immediately or noting on control sheets if broken and Richard or staff informed.  It always works best in a place like this to do things you see need doing, and do it when you spot it.  You can't always expect recognition, thanks or praise for it.  If folks can’t look after their own responsibilities they likely won’t notice when you step out beyond your own.  It’s what makes it all work though, it’s how we can all benefit the whole, it’s what we spend a lot of our time having to do.

Whilst we work together on various projects and daily tasks we naturally always try to identify people’s unique gifts, strengths and talents.  We give more trust and responsibility where we see it is appropriate.  We do not always have much time to check in with everyone day to day, so a proactive solutions focus is essential.  It's much more useful to have folks here who comes to let us know how they fixed a problem rather than coming to tell us there’s a problem.  “If not you, then who?” we like to say.  Give up the right to be a victim.  It’s not interesting who left the mess, who broke the tool; it’s interesting how we keep responding.

It is our overall responsibility to make sure everything rolls smoothly, and we are doing quite well with that.  Ultimately the buck stops with us.  It’s us that have to pay for new power tools because someone forgot them out in the rain.  It’s us that have to stay up till 10 pm fixing fencing connections that got damaged by improper use.  It’s us that miss meals when supplies are needed from town, and it’s us that have to clean up and pack down all the things others forgot.  It costs a lot to put on the epic educational programs we manage to run, but ultimately we see our future relies on each one of us getting powered up to use our unique strength, gifts and talents for the benefit of all​.  Rock on...

Course fees

To join the course please fill in your details in the form linked below, where you will also find payment details. Please only fill in the form when you are making a payment;​
Fill in form
  • 69,000 SEK as a full payment or

  • 10,000 SEK Non-refundable deposit
  • 65,000 SEK Balance (due by Fri 8th May 2026 latest)

We prefer to manage our bookings with Bank Transfers or Chickens. ​  Spots can only be secured by cleared payment, and we have to work on a first come- first served basis. Spaces are limited, and we expect this training to fill.  By booking this training you are confirming you have read and agree to our RETURNS POLICY as well as all general information supplied.
 Copyright 2014-2026   Ridgedale Farm AB   Org no. 559095-3344        Farming, Innovating & Educating for the benefit of all                
  • Home
    • Join My Newsletter
    • Contact Us
    • Positions Vacant >
      • Apprentice Market Gardener 2026
      • Apprentice Farm Manager 2026
    • Getting to the Farm
  • About
    • About Us
    • Design at ridgedale
    • Keyline Design
    • Managing Holistically
    • Agroforestry
    • Reading List
    • Past Co Teachers
  • Regenerative Agriculture Festival
  • Training on farm
    • 9 day Regen Ag Design June 2026
    • 6 Week Internship Jun-Aug 2026
    • Feedback from students
    • Refunds Policy
  • Online Courses
    • Free Mini Course
    • Online Masterclass
  • Read our books
    • Regenerative Agriculture
    • Ridgedale Farm Builds
    • Farm Fish Hunt Pick Bake
    • $15 Natural Swimming Pool Guide (PDF)
  • Hire Richard for trainings
  • Our Account Terms