Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

Toronto Star
www.thestar.com
Sep. 18, 2004. 01:00 AM

Wwoofers are treated to an organic experience

ROBERTA AVERY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1095242708030

Wwoofing - it sounds like a barking dog.

The Canadian guidebook defines the latest travel fad as touring the world
in search of organic farms to pull weeds for alms.

So, if you have ever yearned to pick macadamia nuts in Hawaii or prune
Christmas trees in Denmark, Wwoofing could be for you. Established in
England in 1971 by Sue Coppard, a London-based secretary who wanted to get
out of the city, Wwoof * World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms * now
provides volunteers aged 18 to 70 a chance to stay on farms across Canada
and in more than 20 countries world-wide.

Wwoofers pay their own travelling expenses, but receive free room and
board in return for toiling alongside organic farmers and gardeners and
their families in a variety of settings, often in scenic, but rural areas.

The focus is on organic farming but there are also opportunities to tend
sheep in New Zealand and repair stone walls in the mountains of Wales.

While Wwoofers are expected to be willing to learn, no prior farming
experience is required.

Jean-Francois Gloaguen, a 22-year-old engineering student from Nantes in
the northwest of France, barely knew one end of a garden rake from the
other when he arrived at Keppel Croft Gardens at Big Bay on the Bruce
Peninsula this spring. But under the guidance of his Canadian hosts Bill
and Dawn Loney, he saw the plants he tended turn into beautiful blooms.

"I've learned so much and met so many people, it's been a wonderful
experience,'' said Gloaguen in August at the end of his three-month stay
with the Loneys.

Gloaguen, who lived as one of the family, helped out in the gardens for an
average of about 20 hours a week. With Keppel Croft's location across the
road from the crystal clear waters of Georgian Bay, he was able to spend
his free time swimming and kayaking.

Loneys' friends also treated him like family and invited him to their
homes for weekend getaways in Toronto and Manitoulin Island.

"I even got to stay with a First Nations family and that was incredible,''
he said

When his father, Francois, arrived for a visit, he too was made welcome at
Keppel Croft and when the airline lost Francois' baggage, the Loneys took
him to a second hand store to buy some clothes.

In the last four years, the Loneys have had about 50 Wwoofers stay at
their 32-hectare garden including weekenders from Toronto and some from
Europe and Asia who stayed for several weeks and even months.

"We expect them to work alongside us, but I never ask them to do anything
I don't do myself,'' said Bill Loney, who was a teacher in the Arctic
before "retiring'' to run Keppel Croft.

While most Wwoofers are under 30, there is a growing trend for members of
the baby boomer generation to join in, said Dawn Loney.

Their daughter Margaret, 25, couldn't agree more.

"You get to stay in some amazing places, eat incredible local food and
meet so many people, it really is the best way to travel,'' she enthused.

Three summers ago, she spent three weeks Wwoofing on a farm built on the
site of a 16th-century Italian convent in Tuscany. She had her own
bedroom, but shared a bathroom with the family and helped them tend their
horses and sheep.

The next three weeks she spent on an organic herb farm in central Sicily.
With no running water and electricity, the one-room farmhouse she shared
with the 65-year-old farmer and his other guest, another Wwoofer, was very
basic.

"It was a wonderful experience, and I still keep in touch with the host,''
she said.

John Vanden Heuval of Nelson, B.C., who heads up Wwoof Canada, estimates
that there are 500 hosts in Canada mostly in B.C. and Ontario.

"But there are opportunities to Wwoof from coast to coast across Canada,''
he said.

Originally the Wwoof acronym stood for Willing Workers on Organic farms,
said Heuval

"But the word `workers' raised issues about work permits and visas, so it
was changed to reflect the true experience,'' he said.

About a third of the Wwoofers presently helping out at farms in Canada are
Canadians, the rest come from all over the world and Heuval has also
noticed a growing interest from people near retirement age.

Heuval collects a $35 fee from would be Wwoofers and in return provides
them with a directory of organic farms and gardens across Canada that take
Wwoofers. Similar directories are available for Wwoofing in other
countries.

While it's a great way to travel and to get to know the people and culture
of a country, Heuval cautions that it is a working holiday with an
expectation that the Wwoofer will help for four to five hours a day.

"A Wwoofer has to appreciate that farming is all go," he said.

For more information, click on http://www.wwoof.ca