World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms Research Articles

Push and pull motivations of international voluntary workers on organic farms (the WWOOFers)

ABSTRACT Why do some tourists leave the beaten track and spend time and energy working in remote farms for food and accommodation through the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) network? WWOOF now celebrates its 50th anniversary. This study draws on a Norwegian survey of 1184 WWOOF respondents from 92 countries. It is the first large-scale quantitative study to establish a motivation profile for volunteer tourists, who are members of the WWOOF. The analyses revealed seven primary motivations: Immigration, Escapism, Genuine Norwegian Interest, Sustainable Lifestyle, Cheap Travel, Constraints, and Secondary Image. Pull motivations were stronger than push motivations. The former represents an urge to take on a journey while the latter represents the attraction to a certain goal. Two motivation factors combined push and pull motivations. Six of the factors were interpreted as self-interest and one as altruistic motivation. The results both support some and challenge other studies on this subject.

The non-profit sharing economy from a social exchange theory perspective: a case from World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms in Taiwan

The non-profit form of the Sharing Economy (SE) is arguably better positioned to manifest the alternative nature of SE that supports sustainable production and consumption than its for-profit counterpart. However, interactions in non-profit SE are imbued with uncertainties that can discourage participants’ continuing engagement. Social exchange theory was adopted to explore the dynamism of non-profit SE exchange in the context of WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) as a niche area. The study was conducted primarily through semi-structured interviews with eighteen WWOOF farm hosts in Taiwan. The findings revealed that most hosts opened their farms to share their organic farming knowledge with WWOOF guests as a measure to attain social/environmental, cultural, and economic values that motivated their participation in WWOOF. Depending on the value(s) salient in driving WWOOF hosts’ participation, the exchange rules of reciprocity, rationality, and altruism were variously applied to manage uncertainties and limited resource capacities, and address issues arising from demands for emotional labor and social dilemmas. Positive exchange outcomes were experienced when exchange rules lead to reduced uncertainties, and enhanced equality, fairness, and joint responsibility. Implications of how the findings can be applied to promote sustainable production and consumption through non-profit SE are discussed.

VOLUNTARY TOURISM IN RURAL SPACES IN CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL

The displacement for voluntary work on rural properties is a form of voluntourism in rural areas. Thus, this article aimed to elucidate the main characteristics of voluntourism in rural properties which work with organic agriculture. For that, qualitative research was conducted with organic products farmers who work with voluntourism in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil and quantitative research with volunteers. The results showed that respect to the conduct rules is essential in the rural properties that work with voluntourism. In terms of divulgation, WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) is not the only way to act and promote voluntourism in rural areas and respondents identified that there are some flaws in the service offered by this organization. From the surveyed volunteers it was found that the activity attracts mainly young people with university experience. It was concluded that if voluntourism receives more attention from researchers, farmers and public power it has the potential to become an alternative source of income in rural areas and a differentiated tourism product, especially for its intensity in the exchange of knowledge between tourists and rural producers.

A critical consideration of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology for tourism studies

Increasingly, tourism researchers have turned their attention to the use of creative methodologies to gain deeper understandings of tourist phenomena. There is a need to challenge and creatively disrupt conventional methodological approaches as they are criticised for their inability to be participant driven, capture the co-construction of research context or to address the impact of wider social dynamics to knowledge creation in tourism studies. Based on our research focused on host–guests experiences participating in the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) programme in New Zealand we provide a critical consideration of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® for tourism studies. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is a communication tool aimed at developing creative thinking through building metaphors around identities and experiences using LEGO® bricks. To demonstrate how the method can be used in tourism studies, we draw on examples from three LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshops to illustrate the benefits and challenges of this methodological approach. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® offered a metaphorical way for participants to construct creative artefacts and explain their ideal WWOOFing experience, representing sometimes complex, entrenched and emotional issues, and relationships that may have been difficult to express via traditional methods. The method enables participant driven, co-production of knowledge in a playful, free-flowing way to foster creative thinking, meanings and possible solutions. The method helps participants creatively communicate complex and sensitive issues, especially around their relationships – to objects, landscapes, people and identities – aspects that may otherwise be silenced by traditional research methods. As a novel method LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® provides opportunities for researchers who want to gain a deeper understanding of the social dimensions of tourism, to co-create spaces for knowledge exchange and develop an in-depth understanding of socially constructed relationships and realities.

Discourses of Volunteer Farm Tourism in Nepal: A Methodological Approach to World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms

In this research note, I propose an appropriate methodology to study discourses around the volunteer farm exchange programme World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) in Nepal. WWOOF is an international movement that connects organic farmers and international travellers who wish to exchange their labour for food and accommodation. Previously WWOOF was described as volunteer tourism, alternative tourism or as an alternative to tourism. As a non-profi t exchange programme WWOOF abodes the commercialisation of tourism and attracts long-term international travellers who do not describe themselves as tourists and see WWOOF as a way to explore the destinations off the beaten track. As such, WWOOF members share different philosophy or discourse of travel from commercial farm tourism. Thus, it is essential to understand what drives farm hosts and volunteers to participate in this unique exchange programme in Nepal.

Tourism and ‘dirt’: A case study of WWOOF farms in New Zealand

Abstract Tourism research on host-guest relations in non-profit exchange programmes remains scant. Using a case study of WWOOF farms in New Zealand, this paper examines the experiences of farmers and volunteers (‘WWOOFers’) in the Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) programme. Using qualitative methods that privileged participants' voices, the research aimed to uncover the nature of the host-guest relationship in non-for-profit tourism. The key theme of ‘dirt’ is explored in this paper to illustrate both the physical nature of the voluntary farm work and the perceived exploitation of volunteers that are reported to characterise this experience. Overall, the findings challenge the idealistic aims of this type of volunteer tourism exchange programme that is usually reported in tourism literature. Specifically, the findings indicate the tensions of economic and ethical accountability within the WWOOF network and its community. The paper contributes to tourism studies research by providing a further understanding of the experiences shaping the relations and tensions between hosts and guests in this non-profit exchange programme.

Dashper, K. (Ed.) (2014) Rural Tourism: An International Perspective. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-4438-6677-4, 423 pp.

Dashper, K. (Ed.) (2014) Rural Tourism: An International Perspective. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-4438-6677-4, 423 pp.Rural Tourism: An international perspective is a very promising title. After going through the chapters it is pleasantly surprising to actually see that the book covers regions and areas in countries and islands like Sweden, New Zealand, France, South Australia, Estonia, India, Hawaii, Wales, Botswana, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Peru, Denmark, Peninsula Malaysia, South Africa, Buenos Aires, Fair Isle, Norway and Cyprus. Moreover, instead of repeating old theories it actually focuses on contemporary, under-researched areas for tourism such as the growth, impact, issues and scope of this phenomenon and how globalization changed the way it is perceived in 2014.This collection of case studies comprises of introduction and 21 chapters divided in 5 key themes defining the through tourism; tourism experiences; tourism in developing countries; collaboration and conflict in tourism; and tourism and regional development.The first part of the book covers the definitions of rural separated by the application of different measures. It focuses on defining not tourism as a concept but the various ways in which tourism impacts on the understanding of the and ruralities. Chapter 1 by Peter Moller, Maria Thulemark and Christina Engstrom for example questions the divisions between 'rural' and 'urban' and the role tourism plays in maintaining or breaking down these divisions. The chapter involves very good contemporary discussions over the tourism. The focus of Chapter 2 is again on land/area use and the authors - Michael Mackay, Harvey C. Perkins and C. Nicholas Taylor, give an example of the emergence of a global multifunctional countryside in which tourism plays a crucial role. Helene Ducros (Chapter 3) explores the changes in the ideas of what is and how the product can be repackaged so to attract tourists to the countryside. It is a very good example of an excellent practice gone global. The last chapter of this section as stated by the authors Rosie Roberts, Jodie George and Jess Pacella includes an exploration of the representation and construction of place-based identities through festival practices.Part two of the book focuses mainly on the perspectives of locals and tourists when they experience tourism. In this section there are 2 outstanding chapters - Chapter 5 on staging sensescapes for experiences in Estonian farm tourism enterprises by Ester Bardone and Maarja Kaaristo and Chapter 7 by Saleh Azizi and Mary Mostafanezhad on the phenomenology of worldwide opportunities on organic farms (WWOOF). Both case studies are very applicable in terms of practice and can be given in a reading list for students.The same applies for all four chapters (9 to 12) in section three 'Rural tourism in developing countries' the contributors Monkgogi Lenao, Fazeeha Azmi, Emmanuel Sulle, Holti Banka, Janemary Ntalwila and Jane Carnaffan discuss different tourism initiatives in the developing countries Botswana, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Peru and the extent to which the development of tourism actually benefits local communities. …

Organic farm volunteer tourism as social movement participation: a Polanyian political economy analysis of World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) in Hawai‘i

In recent years, Karl Polanyi's concept of the “double movement” has been resurrected to describe growing international resistance to neoliberal global capitalism. The double movement originally referred to counter-movements for social protection against the 19th and early 20th century laissez-faire market. Today, it describes the growth of new social movements which often resist neoliberal economic practices and ideologies. Drawing on Polanyi's concept of the double movement and on recent work on neoliberalism and new social movements, this article examines farm hosts' motivations for participation in World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). It argues that farm hosts tend to articulate their motivations as an attempt to proclaim solidarity with organic, spiritual, and educational new social movement agendas. It describes how a loosely articulated organic identity converges around three corollary protective counter-movements: organic food production and consumption, spirituality, and alternative education, exploring the creative ways people are resisting neoliberal capitalism at the intersection of alternative tourism and organic agriculture. Yet, despite hosts' intentions, the article illustrates how new social movement participation through WWOOF is in constant tension with the neoliberal agrarian and tourism marketplace in which it operates, as well as the perhaps unforeseen limits of its radical horizon.

From Middle Ground to Common Ground: Self-Management and Spaces of Encounter in Organic Farming Networks

This article deploys the anarchist notion of self-management to critically investigate the global organic farming network World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) as an initiative that offers insights into the possibilities and challenges of encounter. WWOOF facilitates the giving of food, accommodation, and hands-on learning experiences for volunteers, in exchange for their labor on organic farms. It operates as a moneyless sharing economy, designed as a site of mutual learning and cultural exchange. Literatures on encounter divide between brief tourist encounters of difference and everyday encounters in diverse, usually urban, communities. In linking these two bodies of work, I argue that the principle of self-management, as conceived by anarchist thinkers, can help develop a unified, critical framework for making sense of encounter event spaces. This adds important nuance to theorizations of encounter by recognizing the entwinement of the intimate and the structural, foregrounding the capacity of people to autonomously create shared spaces of interdependence. The case study indicates that structural contradictions and inequalities in voluntary relationships within statist-capitalist systems can seriously undermine otherwise promising interpersonal encounters. By articulating self-management as a tool for both analyzing and producing spaces of encounter, this article offers new possibilities for a more holistic and unified analytical framework.

Volunteer Experiences on Organic Farms: A Phenomenological Exploration

This article presents an exploration of the understudied phenomenon of volunteering on organic farms, a movement associated with World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). Using a hermeneutic phenomenological lens influenced by philosophies of Hans George Gadamer, this article illuminates experiences of volunteers on organic farms in Argentina, experiences we denote as “organic volunteering.” Our use of phenomenology provides an opportunity to develop deeper understandings of these lived experiences and what they mean to volunteers. Data collection and analysis of active interviews and participant observation with volunteers revealed a central understanding of opening to living in interconnectedness, which is underpinned by six horizons of understanding: 1) reconnecting, 2) exchanging knowledge, 3) experiencing harmony, 4) bonding with others, 5) consciousness raising, and 6) transforming. Our work suggests that while these experiences are likely similar to volunteer or even alternative tourism broadly defined, organic volunteering encompasses aspects that may extend beyond what has been put forward by volunteer tourism researchers, and is perhaps its own niche of alternative tourism.

Work for food and accommodation: Negotiating socio-economic relationships in non-commercial work-exchange encounters

Abstract The concept of ‘work for food and accommodation’ is part of a significant social trend in contemporary societies, of the slow food, sustainability and back-to-the-land movement. It is an alternative form of travelling and hospitality as much as it is part of an alternative economy that deliberately avoids encounters governed by the logics of the market, where people seek alternative ways of engaging with, and relating to, others. Taking the international World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) movement as my empirical context, I investigate the nature of hospitality in the work-exchange relationship by analysing how participants negotiate their social and economic relationships through food and reciprocity. Based on ethnographic research, this article discusses power and boundaries, social control, inclusion and exclusion, and exchange and reciprocity between hosts and helpers, demonstrating how the host–guest dichotomy dissolves when the boundaries between production and consumption become blurred. I argue that food and beverage, hospitality and mutual help play a significant role in establishing, negotiating and nurturing these exchange relationships between barter and gift exchange. There is a dearth of research on work-exchange that this article addresses. Drawing on insights from ethnographic and other social science research alongside theoretical discussions of hospitality ‘as a way of relating’, the article aims to contribute new ways of understanding and theorizing the work-exchange encounter.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) in the United States: locations and motivations of volunteer tourism host farms

This paper examines the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) in the United States as a type of agri-tourism and volunteer tourism. WWOOF is an international movement in which host farms provide room and board in exchange for labor by tourist-volunteers. The study examines the supplier side of this phenomenon, investigating the locational characteristics and motivations of WWOOF host farms in the USA. A statistical analysis of WWOOF host locations is complemented by a survey and interviews of WWOOF host farms in upstate New York. The study finds that, of the 1232 WWOOF hosts with available zip codes, WWOOF host distributions are highly skewed spatially, with none in 2533 of continental USA's 3108 counties, but concentrations along the west coast and across Appalachia, plus outlying clusters. It suggests that lifestyle considerations are important factors, with WWOOF host locations in high environmental/scenic quality locations and “bohemian” cultural settings, but few in conventional farm regions, especially those with large farms and dominant “modern” agricultural practices. Potential conflicts between the motivations of WWOOF hosts and guests are revealed. For many hosts, cheap/flexible labor is an undeniable attraction, while WWOOFers may have potentially unrealistic expectations about their stays.

Cultivating Back‐to‐the‐Landers: Networks of Knowledge in Rural Northern Italy

AbstractBack‐to‐the‐land migration offers a unique and insightful opportunity to explore how individuals from non‐agricultural backgrounds adopt, adapt and perceive the demands of farming. There is considerable variation in the forms of study and methods of preparation that back‐to‐the‐landers undertake before trying to create a livelihood from the land, not to mention highly disparate results from their efforts. This article considers the value that new farmers in Italy attach to different forms of knowledge, in particular the discrepancies between formal scientific and local knowledges. The utility of different forms is discussed in relation to the individual experiences of farmers, as well as formal networks that exist to impart technical knowledge of agriculture. Two case‐study organisations, Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and Associazione per Esperienze (APE) are analysed with regard to their abilities to assemble and transmit specific forms of knowledge to new and aspiring farmers, thus strengthening the viability of back‐to‐the‐land as a lifestyle choice and farming as a vocation.

농촌지역 활성화를 위한 볼룬투어리즘 발전방안 - 우프코리아 참여활동의 근거 이론적 해석 -

This study intended to suggest Voluntourism as a solution for alternative rural tourism for regional activation. Voluntourism is a form of alternative tourism on values of variety of tourism demand from pleasure to virtue. This study analyzed actual state of WWOOF(World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) activities being operated in Korean rural village, one of representative of Voluntourism. Study aimed to explore the possibility of WWOOF activity as one of model of alternative rural tourism. We apply grounded theory method one of qualitative study methods for analysis of WWOOF Activities because WWOOF is still small activity in Korea. In result, we figure out the actual condition of WWOOF Korea activities as a vouluntourism through paradigm model of host and guest who had experience in WWOOF Korea. WWOOF activity is in its early stage so there many tasks. We suggested ideas for improving WWOOF activities to be one of new rural tourism business.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) (http://www.wwoof.org/)

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) (http://www.wwoof.org/)