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WWOOF aims at providing an enhanced learning experience for the WWOOFers on organic farms. Almost every WWOOF organization lists the aims of WWOOF on its website. These have been summarized below:
- Enable volunteers to learn organic farming techniques through a first hand on-farm experience: You can always learn organic farming through books and reading articles. But an on-farm learning experience is much enriching and satisfying. Further, there are practical issues involved in organic farming which can never be understood by reading books.
- Enable people in towns and cities to get an experience of living and working on an organic farm: Living and working on a farm is a dream for most of city dwellers. In fact they feel lucky if they get a chance to visit a garden regularly. WWOOF provides an opportunity to these city dwellers to work on organic farms.
- Show city dwellers the rural lifestyle: The social, economic and cultural conditions in rural areas are much different than those in the cities in every country. Proving an opportunity to experience this different way of life, even if it is for a short duration, is an important aim of WWOOF.
- Boost the organic movement: The organic movement involves promoting organic farming as it is a sustainable form of agriculture. Organic farms are normally more labor intensive than non-organic farms and hence voluntary help provided by WWOOFers is always welcome by organic farmers.
- Enable volunteers and hosts meet interesting people from different parts of the world: WWOOF facilitates close interaction between volunteers and the hosts. WWOOFers don’t just stay on their hosts’ farms, the way a tourist stays on commercial farm stays. WWOOFers work and live with the hosts, which enables the WWOOFers and hosts exchange their thoughts, ideas, views and experiences about a variety of topics.
In addition to the above, aims of WWOOF include developing a confidence of self sufficiency among WWOOFers.
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