Hello! Welcome back to another blog post.
Today, I’ll be talking about Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). WWOOF is an activity found worldwide that teaches tourists about agriculture, organic food and how to live in a sustainable manner. Tourists that sign up for WWOOF are given a chance to farm organic crops, live with organic farmers and get to know more like-minded people. Through WWOOF, hosts are given extra help while visitors experience a true sustainable lifestyle.
Organic farming is a sustainable practice as it does not use pesticides. As a result, soil is kept healthy and chemicals do not pollute water bodies. In addition, organic agriculture releases less greenhouse gas emissions compared to normal agriculture. Through educating these tourists, the practice of being sustainable is being spread and may be carried on by more people. At the same time, these hosts have more help and can have more productive harvests. This seems like a win-win situation for both parties and it even aids in saving the environment.
However, the truth is that things are not as perfect as it seems. For most sustainable tourism activities, if one party was to be exploited or harmed it would be the hosts. This was mentioned in two of my previous blog posts. In this case, the ones exploited were the tourists. Many visitors claimed to have been mistreated by the hosts and used as free labour. Visitors stated that they were given poor living conditions infested with pests that led to them falling sick. Instead of being educated on sustainable organic farming, they were forced to do chores such as pluck weeds and were scolded frequently. Visitors were forced to do chores for long hours up to eight hours a day, six days weekly.
Reading about this made me upset, these tourists went to those farms with the intention of learning and helping the farmers but left feeling worn out with no knowledge learnt. Not to mention that these participants paid up to $72 USD a year but were instead exploited for their kindness and good intentions.
I believe that the WWOOF organisation was created out of good intentions but perhaps due to their overwhelming growth and expansion to 60 countries, they are unable to manage and watch over the treatment of visitors from all farmers. As a result, some farmers take advantage of the trust from the organisation and mistreat the visitors. I hope that WWOOF will be able to restore their goals back into action as if their goals are achieved, I believe that it will benefit our environment greatly.
Thank you for reading up to here! See you in part two where I will be discussing more about if WWOOF is running a truly sustainable business.
Hi Chloe!
Does the USD $72 fee serve as a membership fee of sorts? Or does it serve as payment to the hosts? Cause honestly it’s a little shocking to see the guests being exploited in such a manner, and it would be unjust if the hosts still pocket the full amount.
Cheers
Yu Xun
Hi Yu Xun!
Yes! It’s a membership fee for that specific country and I believe that the hosts only pocket a portion of the fees. I agree, I hope that WWOOF will create a penalty system where hosts are paid more/less based on the reviews given by volunteers. As a result, these hosts are incentivised to treat these volunteers better!