Quiet nature, Midsommar and Fika – is what comes to mind when I think about my time in Sweden. Through the Erasmus+ Internship program, I was able to spend 2 months up north during my bachelor’s at the FU Berlin.
Studying Biology and having read lots of books on regenerative agriculture, I was certain about what I want to do for my Erasmus Internship. I also knew I wanted to see the Scandinavian nature, which is why I decided to spend my days abroad in Sweden.

I first started off at a different farm in Skåne, where I met other interns, got to know my first hands-on experience on the field and tried lots of freshly harvested vegetables. Due to problems with the owner of the farm and our landlady, we decided to spend the rest of our internship on another farm in Sweden, on the west coast near Malmö.

Alnarp’s Agroecology Farm is run by master graduates from all over the world – Germany, Columbia, Netherlands and the US. It was started in 2021 and has been established to provide a space for developing farming skills within the local community.
The other interns and I started there with general knowledge on how to prep beds, plant and harvest crops from the previous farm. Besides the graduates and us interns, there were tons of people coming in to volunteer, so you would see new faces every day. It was a nice way of getting to know the study programs, jobs, interests and characters of other people, and I learned a lot just by having conversation.
The farm sells weekly vegetable bags to a very diverse customer base – lots of families, international students staying in Sweden, professors as well as restaurants.
On harvest days we harvested the vegetables and flowers for the veggie bags and washed as well as prepared them (e.g. bunching them), so that customers could pick them up either at the farm, in Lund or in Malmö. We also organized various events like farmer’s markets or summer festivals (and an autumn festival is also planned for this year), where people got to try freshly baked pizzas from self-built pizza ovens, topped with snap peas and decorated with edible flowers from the beds.

To name some of the crops that are planted on the farm: Various salads, snap peas, garlic, onion, fennel, tomatoes, bell peppers, chilis, squash, zucchini, strawberries, gooseberries, cucumbers, herbs like basil, parsley, mint, edible flowers and many more.
Apart from the harvest, we also got to fertilize, plant, water, prune, weed and – of course – taste all of the plants. We built a polytunnel for the tomatoes and bell peppers, built a trellis structure for the beans and cucumbers and built irrigation systems for all the beds.

The team at the farm was so appreciating and we spent a lot of time together, went to the beach on hot days (which was a 5min walk from the farm) and had a lot of pizza nights ourselves!

On my days off I spent most of my time with the other interns, since we lived together and worked together, we grew very close. I visited Malmö, Stockholm and different national parks with them, we spent Midsommar together and are still in contact. Swedish Fika – a mostly sweet snack during the afternoon – is what we enjoyed almost every day. Either with the traditional cardamom bun, chocolate cake or strawberries from the farm.

I am grateful for all the knowledge I gained, even with the hardships during my stay on the first farm, I still learned a lot about farming, and I can’t wait to start growing my own vegetables soon! I am also very content with the new friendships I have made, and I will be visiting Alnarp’s farm again hopefully very soon!

Tipps für andere Praktikant:innen

Vorbereitung

Make sure you apply a few months before the actual starting date of your stay abroad – applying and organizing with the university take time. I applied in December, my stay in Sweden started in May.

Beantragung Visum

Did not apply for me, since my internship was within Europe.

Praktikumssuche

I used the https://erasmusintern.org/ Website to find the first farm I went to, but if you already have a preference of which country you want to go to or which tasks you want to have, you can use the normal Google Search. Different Options would be looking for Universities, Companies, Organisations or Farms (like I did). Even if they don’t advertise internships, try asking via email or phone, especially if it’s a small business!

Wohnungssuche

I was set up with accommodation through the farm owner, but there are different portals mentioned on the FU Website you can look for.

Versicherung

Since I am working part-time and already have a lot of insurance, I decided to check which are valid abroad and if not, I looked online for a fitting insurance for my stay. (I used Check24 for searching for the insurance name, and checked whether they had an option for my 3 month stay). Do this in advance as well, the letter with my confirmation took about 2-3 weeks.

Formalitäten vor Ort

Telefon-/Internetanschluss

I had no Wifi for most of the time, so try to find a mobile flat-rate that you can add onto for cheap if your data is used up already.

Bank/Kontoeröffnung

Was not necessary for me.

Alltag/Freizeit

Ausgehmöglichkeiten

There are a lot of clubs and bars in Malmö and Lund, one at Malmö Folkets Park is really nice, since it has 3 different rooms with different music in them. The botanical garden in Lund is beautiful in the summer, the town in general is very sweet and calm.

The best ice cream in Stockholm is at Kula Stockholm in the Old Town! 🙂

Sonstiges

In Sweden, most people pay with Swish, an app you can only pay with if you have a Swedish Bank ID, but paying with my debit card worked fine for like 99% of