WORLD WIDE OPPORTUNITIES ON ORGANIC FARMS ITALIA
work on an organic farm
FARMS ACROSS ITALY
It’s good for a city girl to get her hands dirty.
—Pamela Newton, WWOOF volunteer in Italy
45 Whether you want to pick olives, keep bees, grow vegetables, or harvest medicinal herbs, there’s an organic farm in Italy that needs your help. For a mere 25 euros ($30), you can join World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) Italia and receive the list of more than 250 Italian farms that will provide you with a bed and three square meals in return for five or six hours of work a day.
The beauty of a vacation with WWOOF Italia is that the farms on the list, spread across Italy from Aosta to Puglia, are far from the well-known tourist paths. Not only do you learn about organic and biodynamic farming in some of the most serene settings in Italy, but you get the rare chance to meet real down-to-earth Italian families. Away from the big tourist traps, you’ll find farms where olive trees are still pruned by hand, where milk arrives warm in pails, and where goats and a new litter of puppies share the same 300-year-old stone barn.
And as for those three squares a day? It’s Italy, after all, where food is practically a religion. You’ll come in from the fields to find steaming bowls of rigatoni with pesto sauce and fresh grated parmesan or smoky chestnut flour cakes, served with fresh sheep’s milk ricotta and honey. In Italy, it should go without saying, there is true respect for the art of growing, cooking, and eating food. Eating locally isn’t a catchphrase here—it’s a way of life.
WWOOF, a worldwide organization with branches in most of the world’s countries, was started in 1971 by Sue Coppard, a London secretary who recognized the need for a city girl like herself to experience the countryside. She organized a trial weekend at a farm in Sussex for four people she met through a classified ad. Her experiment was such a success that WWOOF quickly spread from England across the globe. Although WWOOF international provides loosely followed guidelines, each country hosts its own list of farms and runs its operation separately.
WWOOF Italia was started in 1999 by Bridget Matthews, a British expat who got tired of city life. She bought a farm in Tuscany in the late 1980s and, with a couple partners, organized the WWOOF organization ten years later. It has grown from 89 farms and 182 WWOOFers, as volunteers call themselves, to 283 farms and nearly 2,000 WWOOFers per year.
As Matthews points out, it’s a win-win for everyone involved. Volunteers learn about organic farming and green living and get a rich cultural experience while doing so, and their hosts get much-needed help. Keep in mind that you will work hard on a WWOOF trip, and you will be expected to pitch in with both household and farm chores, from the exotic to the mundane—whatever your hosts need help with.
The variety of farms on WWOOF Italia’s list range from a tiny farm near Castagneto Carducci where volunteers keep bees and make tinctures from wild echinacea to a 1,235-acre vineyard owned by a famous Italian artist. There’s everything from mountain refuges an hour’s walk from the main road with no phones or electricity to goat and sheep farms on the island of Sardinia. There’s even a castle on the list.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
WWOOF is a suspiciously canine-sounding acronym for an organization whose name has gone through several incarnations in its first decade of existence. The WW in WWOOF originally stood for Working Weekends. Then the first two words were changed to Willing Workers. Finally, those two words starting with the letter w ended up being World Wide, after immigration authorities in some countries suspiciously eyed WWOOF, apparently viewing it as a clandestine migrant worker organization.
WWOOF can be used in every part of speech.
- As a verb: “I plan to WWOOF next summer in Italy.”
- As an adjective: “Welcome to our Sicilian WWOOF farm.”
- As a noun: “I am a WWOOFer and I’m making plum preserves.”
- As a gerund: “My WWOOFing last summer was both delicious and educational.”
You might find yourself rounding up sheep on horseback in Molise in southwest Italy, tending deer in Tuscany, cultivating bamboo in the Umbrian hills, helping butcher a pig to make salami and sausage near Rome, or tying up grape vines or picking olives near Florence.
GET PERMISSION
Italian immigration law requires that every person entering the country apply for a permesso di soggiorno (permit to stay) within eight days of arriving in the country. If your visit will last longer than eight days, you have to present yourself at the local police station with your passport and request permission to stay in Italy.
Most tourists skip this formality, but if you’re coming to WWOOF it is wise to take care of it immediately after you arrive in Italy to avoid any problems with your status during your stay.
The best times to volunteer are in the spring (March to June), for the preparation of the vegetable garden, pruning, and spreading manure, and in the autumn (September to early December), for the grape and olive harvests. But any time of year is fine, as there is always work to be done on an organic farm.
Once you submit the WWOOF membership fee, the only charge for a WWOOF vacation, you’ll get the list of farms and contact information. You’re in charge of making contact with a farm and setting up all the details. Most host farms welcome volunteers for two weeks or longer. Some farms will welcome families with older children, but you must confirm this with your hosts.
Work hours will vary greatly, depending on time of year and the project you’re working on. If you don’t speak at least rudimentary Italian, you should choose a farm where your hosts speak English.
Accommodations will also vary from farm to farm, though most have a room for WWOOFers. On some farms, you will stay in tents (you may need to bring your own sleeping bag and tent).
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
WWOOF Italia, c/o Bridget Matthews, Coordinator, 109 via Casavecchia, 57022 Castagneto Carducci, LI, Italy, 32 90 806 234, www.wwoof.it.