Work on an Organic Farm

It is becoming increasingly important for culinary arts and hospitality students, instructors and administrators to be in tune with the consumers growing appetite for foods that are grown closer to where they consume them (locavore) without the heavy use of pesticides, herbicides, and genetic modification. Anyone reading Pollan's work know's this to be true.

There is a way to learn more about organic farming by actually doing it through the World Wide Opportunity on Organic Farms (WWOOF), which was started in the UK in 1971 by Sue Coppard, a London secretary, under the name of Working Weekends on Organic Farms to provide Londoners a chance to participate in the organic farming movement and become more connected to the land. The idea was for individuals to spend a weekend working on a farm in exchange for room and board and it has since flourished internationally.

Today, one can pay a small fee of $20 to join a national organization associated with WWOOF and then recieve a directory of host farms in that country. In WWOOF USA there are more than 600 host farms for members to work given the primary requirement of willingly working cooperatively with organic farmers for 4-6 hours per day. Those who have participated in the programs have found it to be richly rewarding and educational.

This opportunity could prove to be an invaluable learning experience for culinary arts and hospitality students to do over the summer break to enrich their personal lives and understanding of our profession. It would be easy to administer because all anyone would have to do is point the students in the direction of the website and have them be responsible for joining and then identifying an organic farm to work cooperatively with the farmer. To learn everything you need to about this great organization and procedures to join, visit: http://www.wwoofusa.org/apply.html.