For-profit farms that use volunteers are taking risks. The story is from California but much of the same legal basis exists in other states. Beware, farmers. Your interns or apprentices could cost you your farm...

Castro Valley, California

A small-time vintner's use of volunteer workers has put him out of business after the state squeezed him like a late-summer grape for $115,000 in fines -- and sent a chill through the wine industry.

The volunteers, some of them learning to make wine while helping out, were illegally unpaid laborers, and Westover Winery should have been paying them and paying worker taxes, the state Department of Industrial Relations said.
"I didn't know it was illegal to use volunteers at a winery; it's a common practice," said winery owner Bill Smyth. Click HERE to read more...