WWOOFing, Volunteering and Gaining Experience

So you want to be a farmer? But you haven't got a farm, your family don't own a farm and your mates are all bankers or tech genius' or sailors. Add in that you don't want to be a 'normal' farmer that puts vast tracts of land to GM arable crops under fertiliser and pesticides, because you've heard that Permaculture can feed the world and regenerative agriculture can save the day. Where do you start?

WWOOFing (not Dogging....as my mother thought)

Wwoof stands for World Wide Organisation for Organic Farming, and is a forum for hosts and volunteers to use to find each other. You pay a small annual fee to register your details with them in exchange for access to their database of hosts. There is a basic framework for hosts to follow when organising their volunteers, with a rough idea of how many hours you are expected to work in exchange for food and lodging. There is huge variety in the farms that are part of WWOOF; from small holdings of 3 acres to organic cattle farms of several hundred hectares. Look for opportunities with organic, biodynamic, permaculture and regenerative agriculture highlighted. There's something for everyone.

I've been WWOOFing, not dogging, for years. I started when I lived in Plymouth, there was a smallholding called Florrick Down, over the border in Cornwall that raised pigs for wedding hog-roasts and chickens for meat and eggs. I used to spend my weekends staying in a caravan and helping plant up the polytunnel with salads, feeding the piglets at goodness knows what time in the morning so they didn't escape and eat the neighbour's pansies, and leading wild goats away from Leylandei so they didn't get colic. I was fed on pork from the pigs we raised, potatoes from the field and salad from the polytunnel; it opened my eyes to a wonderful way of life, and I didn't have to give up my day job because I could do it at the weekends. I got the chance to really experience what life was like living on a farm, and it helped me decide that this was the life for me.

Volunteering

CSA's, Community Farms, HelpX, Permaculture venues, even Facebook groups; there are loads of places to find the contact details of farms that want volunteers. Some will only want help on specific volunteer open days and others are looking for people more long term, providing a return on the investment of their valuable time and knowledge in someone.

On a good farm, you're time is richly rewarded with knowledge and practical experience. On a bad farm, you are essentially a slave. You must work out with your host a routine that is a fair exchange. My time is worth about £10 an hour. I live in a caravan so all I need is somewhere to park it - I aim to pay as little as £13 a week for siting as I don't need electric (I have a solar panel). Food usually comes from the farm you work on so there is often not a huge cost involved there either, but think of it as around £30 a week. If I'm working a full five day week I'm expecting an awful lot of knowledge in exchange.

You need to be bold, there are plenty of farms out there so don't stick with one that thinks volunteers are free labour. Volunteers should be the most cherished worker on the farm; they are offering their valuable time for free. As an extra pair of hands you are potentially aiding the business to make more money than they could without your help. Expect to be looked after. But you have a responsibility too. Your work must be of a standard that warrants your self evaluation. You must ask yourself when applying for a position as a volunteer, or approaching a farm you'd like to be involved with, how can I make this farmer's life easier? What am I offering in exchange for their time, energy and hospitality? Is my work, the time that I offer them, going to be valuable? A good relationship between volunteer and host is a balanced one, where the volunteer feels valued and appreciated, and the host is getting useful help that makes their life easier. For everyone to be happy it must be mutually beneficial.

One of the key criteria that hosts look for in the volunteers they select is practical ability. This might seem like a Catch 22 because you're going to the farm to gain experience. Like with any job application you need to tailor your CV by identifying transferable skills. For example, I have been involved with horses since I was a small girl. I may never have owned one, nor the land and stables to house one but I've begged, borrowed and stolen opportunities to be involved with them. I've also got friends to involve me in a day or two of hedge-laying and tree work so I at least understand the safety precautions necessary around chainsaws, axes and falling trees. If you're serious about getting into farming, these skills are vital, and as you gain contacts you'll meet people that you can shadow for a day or two in order to learn the basics.

Alternatively there are hundreds of courses out there, and although you need to stump up a little cash for them, if you choose wisely with advice from people in the industry, the experience will be worth it and may lead to other opportunities. In the end its not what you know, but who you know to a certain extent - especially if you can prove you're a practical, fast learner. There is nothing worse in a host's eyes than a volunteer that constantly needs to be babysat because they can't be trusted. A volunteer with no previous experience can expect the boring grunt work of cleaning out pig pens, digging over veg beds and the like, but even this is important to learn - as Buddha says, first we gain enlightenment, then we chop more wood.

Paid Work

There are apprenticeships out there that are paid, they are a little like gold dust but many of them require no previous experience: just a good, strong back and a willingness to get stuck in. Apprenticeships are often advertised through the Soil Association website along with other jobs on organic farms. There are a lot of organic bodies out there (as in organisations...not organisms), that are worth keeping an eye on - all websites that, if you're serious about getting into farming, are important to keep up to date with. Name dropping is another way of getting in with the right people. If you're after a job with someone in a certain area i.e. a market garden that is using Permaculture Principles in its design and maintenance program, you'll want to have visited, volunteered with or at least read up on Martin Crawford at Dartington, Patrick Whitefield, Hannah Thorogood, Land Magazine, Aranya, and a host of others. If you're into growing all year round you'll want to mention Eliot Coleman or the couple that run La Grelinette in Canada. Read up on the differences between biodynamic and organic farming. Show passion in your subject. Show your willingness to commit yourself to this work. The most amazing thing happened when I decided to give up chef-ing and commit to progressing my dream of life as a farmer. I met people and my horizon expanded.

I started as a WWOOFer but got disillusioned by the farms that took advantage of my 'free' labour. I then moved on to volunteering outside of any formal framework and had more luck but still had to wrestle with a few weeks of 'why am I working for free?'. I was bold and took on a role running a market garden selling veg to some fantastic restaurants, and I now help run a farm in South Devon, working with sheep as a tool for landscape regeneration. For those out there that want it enough, the doors are many and opportunity beckons.