ilovefuzz.com

Anyone here have any experience with this? It looks like it'd be a lot of fun! Also, it might be a nice way to get your foot in the door for emigrating somewhere?

inb4kbi

^you got me.

I jusy did it for the first time aboyt a week ago, for 10-11 days. Not a ton of experience with different farms/work, but I enjoyed my experience and think it could generally be a positive endeavor. I think it definitely could be helpful to emigrate, you can try different lifestyles before you buy into a place.

If you have any questions I can do my best to give my input.

Is this like...yiffing?

snipelfritz wrote:Is this like...yiffing?

I believe it stands for Willing to Work on Our Organic Farm.

I haven't done any, but I've met tons of WWOOFers. It can be a mixed bag.
Some of them recounted going to what they had thought would be a farm
and it was some couple's house where they wanted somebody to weed their
garden for them in exchange for room and board. No learning opportunity
there outside of learning about interpersonal dynamics and psychology as
it manifests itself in a North American suburb.

At a local farm there have been WWOOFers from Japan, France, Spain,
Switzerland. Mostly a mutually beneficial thing, but the woman who
runs the farm will take advantage if you let her, and one young French
woman didn't say "no" to being asked to pick green beans for four days
straight. She developed some sort of repetitive-stress injury to her
shoulders. So... that might not be the kind of learning experience
a person wants to actively seeks out. But it does teach you a lot about
interpersonal dynamics and psychology. Oh. And about green beans.

hippie bullshit for suburban spawn who feel like they're missing out on 'authentic' living and can afford to go somewhere and do token gardenwork without pay.

The people that love it love it, though. You might be one of those people.

D.o.S. wrote:hippie bullshit for suburban spawn who feel like they're missing out on 'authentic' living and can afford to go somewhere and do token gardenwork without pay.

The people that love it love it, though. You might be one of those people.

This hasn't been my take on it. It's been sold as "hippie bullshit" but is more close to
getting people to work for you for free. There are other names under which this arrangement
has formerly operated, but "hippie bullshit" was not one of them.

I guess the major difference is the contractual length of service. In former times
indentured servants had a time period they were forced to work. And slavery had
no end date. This is far more modern, in that it is a situation that people seek out
and willingly subject themselves to.

I'm talking exclusively of the people who seek out WWOOFing opportunities, not the people who run the farms.

Soemthing something bob dylan reference something something maggie's farm something something harmonica and guitar and Levon Helm RIP

Yeah. I can see that. But since the whole project is supposedly about "holistic thinking", shouldn't
both sides of the equation (and the full cycle of where the food goes and who pays what for it)
be a part of the conversation?

Almost all the organic farms and otherwise "concept-driven" agricultural productions in my
area are dependent upon driving three hours away to a major market of city-folk. One of the
first "crops" of the spring that this local organic farm drives three hours to sell in the city is
dandelion greens. I shit you not.

And people pay nearly $10 a sack for something that they could literally walk out into their
backyard (or even to a crack in the sidewalk) and pick themselves. This is one of those
instances where a "give a man a fish/teach a man to fish" story comes in handy. The
concept of knowing what edible plants grow around you and when they come up is highly
useful. But these entire operations are only feasible if city folk who don't know anything
pay exorbitant prices for items picked by free labor. Even after these local organic farms get
the big bucks for a bag of greens they still don't actually pay any of their workers a living wage.
And the paid employees at several local farms near me pay minimum wage to some employees
only if half of that wage is subsidized by a provincial government program.

So yeah. The stuff about the nouveau and pseudo hippies is tiresome, but also evidence of a gullibility
to a crass economic hucksterism that ends up taking advantage of idealism. So it's a bit more sinister
than just smelling of patchouli and wearing a pair of Guatemalan pants and making questionable
piercing and tattoo decisions.

wfs1234 wrote:Anyone here have any experience with this? It looks like it'd be a lot of fun! Also, it might be a nice way to get your foot in the door for emigrating somewhere?

Sorry to derail your query with my nattering. Good luck with your endeavors.
I do think that WWOOFing can be a great way to travel and stay places in a
relatively affordable way. Of course you would be paying for that with your labor.

But that can work out if you suss out the best and most surefire opportunities.
And ideally you'd learn some skills related to agriculture that you could take with you
regardless of how far you want to pursue gardening or growing things.

@Seance. The problem isn't the pricing on the market, though, it's the unfair transfer of funds to the labor -- but WWOOFing is all voluntary, so the fact that the consumers and the labor force are both knowingly engaging in this activity (and/or are both stupid) is beyond the farmer's control by default, and self-preservation would indicate that they'd have little reason to inform either.

Farmers ripping off laborers isn't exactly a new thing. The fact that they get to rip off city-slickers isn't really a bad thing. Farmers typically sell their crops at wholesale prices and buy everything to make their crops at retail prices. Which means they're fucked from both directions. So, if they can bump their profit margins by letting inexperienced backpackers help out and selling their crops to idiots then let them.

From what I've read coming to an agreement on how long you'll work, what you'll do, etc. then sticking to it is probably the most important thing with wwoofing. I was born on a farm and worked on farms for 10+ years, so, I'm not really expecting to learn anything about farming. Mostly I'm just curious about the potential for emigrating. It seems like it could be a good way to have a place to live for a while while searching for more permanent living quarters and employment? I'm at a weird crossroads in my life where I could do something like that. This might be the only time in my life that I have that opportunity.

p.s. After living in Eugene OR for two years I can't stand hippies. They're everywhere here and they're awful.

Yeah if you're just looking for a way to change up your spot without really having to find gainful employment it seems to be a pretty good deal.

SIDE BAR: tell me all the awesome and shitty things about Eugene, plz

kbithecrowing wrote:SIDE BAR: tell me all the awesome and shitty things about Eugene, plz

Awesome:
-It's super easy to get anywhere on bike
-There's a river that runs through the center of town with bike paths on both sides. It's super pretty.
-It's really pretty here. There're lots of trees and great little hiking paths everywhere. I live ten bike minutes from downtown and I can walk for twenty minutes and be surounded by dense trees.
-microbreweries everywhere. Delicious, cheap, craft beers everywhere.
-voodoo donuts
-if you're vegetarian, vegan, or need to be gluten free this town has everything you need
-there's a really great movie theater here that shows artsy movies all the time.
-it feels like a small town if you're into that.
-there is a noise scene here.

Shitty:
-all the goddammed homeless people
-all the goddammed hippies. They're so militantly in being hippies that it feels kind of fascist. It seeps into every part of Eugene culture.
-It's a really laid back town, so, you better not be in a hurry to get anywhere. Ever.
-the service industry here is the worst. A friend of mine was in a hurry at a coffee shop because he had to catch the bus in twenty minutes. So, he told them that and asked how long it would take to get a coffee and a bagel. They told him he better catch the next bus. I could go on, but basically I've never had a good experience with service here when I've gone out.
-people here really don't want to work at all. I saw a public service announcement that was basically, "jobs are cool bro. you should get a job."
-because this town's so vegan friendly it's actually really hard to find a place that serves good meat. It's ridiculous. There's a pizza place here that only serves vegan friendly pizzas. You can get pepperoni there, but only as an add on.
-They don't believe in air conditioning here because they claim they don't need it.
-They don't have central heating for the same reason.
-it seems like there really isn't anything but acoustic acts around here. I know there's more around, but I haven't seen much of it.
-it's definitely a college town, which is good or bad depending on whether or not you like college kids.
-it's hard to find hiking trails that aren't constantly packed with people. I've only been on one hike here where I'd say I was alone.


Some of these shitty reasons aren't so bad, they're just beginning to grate on me. Mostly the hippy thing. Goddamn those hippies.