At the end of my last post, I said I intended to finish my last few days on the farm, despite the difficult time I was having. Of course, the title of this post shows that I did not make it until the end. This post is going to be a little different than normal. Instead of sharing a chronological record of my activities, I’m going to share the factors that made me leave, some commentary on those factors, and some broader thoughts about what makes a successful wwoofing experience. In general, I’m going to try my best to phrase this post in a constructive light, rather than just bashing the farm, but my best is not perfect. I’ll try to put in some photos, but there’s less to share this time around.
The Challenges
In my first post about Fruitweelde, I mentioned a few of things that were more challenging on the farm, but didn’t elaborate to much on them. I talked about the increased amount of work, windier conditions, and abundance of mosquitoes (who have always had a penchant for me – they should know the feeling is not mutual). None of these things at the time seemed like reason enough for me to leave the farm early. The work at the previous farm was a bit slow at times, so I was ready and excited for a bigger challenge. As long as I wasn’t riding my bike, the wind didn’t bother me too much. As for the mosquitoes, all I could do was hope they would eventually grow tired of me. This would not happen, I would eventually leave the farm with my legs covered in bites (and I don’t understand how it happened since I wore pants the whole time).
Unfortunately, these were just the start of my problems on the farm. Individually, they don’t amount to much, but when added together, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In this sense of the expression, a greater whole is not a positive thing.
One of the main nuisances that started to get tiring after 1.5 weeks on the farm were the accommodations. My RV was located about a 5 minute walk away from the main buildings (bathroom, kitchen, etc). This was fine at first, but trudging through the darkness, rain, and mud just to brush my teeth got tiring after a while. The bathroom itself was just ok. My main issue was that the sinks had no hot water (thankfully the shower did). After working outside for 5.5 hours each day, my hands would be cold and wet (the gloves we were given were not waterproof). I’d want to warm my hands up, but the sink water was just as cold as the rain that showered us each day. The same problem would come up again when we washed dishes after dinner, with the added struggle of cleaning dirty pans using ice cold water. The sink for washing dishes was located outside and away from the kitchen, which also made cooking a bit harder than it needed to be (cooking pasta required several trips back and forth to fill up the pot and drain the water). Again, none of these factors individually was too much for me, they just got tiring after 1.5 weeks on the farm.
The work itself on the farm was a bit too menial for me. Yes, this probably could have been expected for farm work, but differed greatly from the more varied tasks I had on my first farm. Essentially all of the different types of work I did were discussed in my earlier post. Once we finished putting the cover on field 7 though, I was basically limited to weeding and squashing bugs. We did the activity to tie up plants to poles and later counted berries, but those were both short, one-off activities. While necessary tasks, the repetition of weeding and squashing bugs got old fast. For example, on Monday, our entire 5.5 hour workday was dedicated to squashing caterpillars. Not only was the task not great for its repetition, but also for its conditions and lack of socialization. The field with the caterpillars was not the one we had put the cover over. This meant that most of my time squashing bugs was spent underneath the Netherlands’ free shower system (which happened to have better water pressure than the other shower on the farm). Squashing bugs was also a solitary task, as the wwoofers/trainees had to spread out across the entire field. I spent all of my time listening to the Business Movers podcast; I have to say I got really into it. The stories of the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez crisis and John DeLorean’s up and down career were particularly good. Of course, I wasn’t on the farm to learn more about the careers of business leaders. That being said, what I learned on the podcasts can be directly applied to leadership on a farm (and it will be later on in this blog). The few times we tried to group up and work together were discouraged, as that would hurt our productivity. I’ll have more to say about the emphasis on productivity later.
Another thing that started to annoy me was the two cats on the farm. When we would eat our meals, they would jump up on the table or on our laps and expect food. I got tired of having fur in my food and bloody scratches all over my hands.
Reasons to Stay
The best thing about being on the farm was making new friends. Marianna, Ezra, and Zael all spent time with me at some point on the farm, and I can happily say they are all my friends. Marianna, who I talked about in my last post, left the farm at the end of my first week. She definitely brought the most positive energy, and Ezra and I felt the vibe be hurt with her leaving. Zael joined the farm the same day she left. Zael and I ended up spending a good amount of time together – I tried to help him adjust to the new environment. Zael came to the farm as a trainee (not a wwoofer), so he would work longer hours than me and will stay at the farm for 7 months (he is also paid a monthly stipend for those wondering). Zael goes to the agricultural school at the University of São Paulo (apparently quite prestigious in the country according to him), and travelled to the Netherlands to earn relevant experience and credit for his studies. I guess that whatever program Zael applied through helped choose the farm, so the research was not entirely done on his own. I say this because it was clear he was having the same negative reaction to his experiences on the farm as I was. Only on top of it all, Zael had the added difficulty of only having basic English skills. He’ll get better as he continues on the farm, but having minimal interactions with people on the farm throughout the day definitely hurt his chances of improving.
I would do my best to make Zael feel comfortable in his new environment. We cooked food together, and I walked him through navigating train stations over text. I knew it would be hard to leave the farm because I’d have to leave a new friend behind. Not only would I be leaving a friend behind, but I also felt that I’d be hurting his support structure on the farm. Ezra’s English is also slowly improving, but is not at level high enough to help Zael improve his own. Willemien did not spend any significant time talking to us outside of our 30 min coffee/tea break in the morning, so she largely wasn’t available either. I told Zael I’d still be available via text/call if he needs anything, but he really was upset when I told him I was leaving the farm.
The Decision
“I am going to take my talents to South [Holland]”
How LeBron would (probably) announce my decision
Over the last couple days on the farm, I kept debating whether I should leave immediately or stick it out one day at a time. I would have really rough moments (like standing out in the pouring rain and howling wind squashing bugs), but also some nice moments (talking while eating dinner). Unfortunately, the rough moments started to progressively outnumber the nice ones as the days went on. The rough moments were also starting to have a compounding effect. After working all day in the rain, I would never really warm up after work as the kitchen/hangout area was outdoors and exposed to the cold (it was usually about 45ºF once the sun went down). My RV wasn’t any warmer, and was also prone to shake with the winds at night. Waking up each day after a poor night’s sleep only to repeat the same work the next day finally got to me. Even though it rained quite a lot on my first farm, we were given breaks if the wind or rain got too strong, and we had a warm and dry apartment to retreat to when the work day was done.
Amid another cold and wet day on Wednesday, I finally decided I had enough. I left the field, warmed my hands up over the propane stove in the makeshift kitchen, and got down to research where I could find a hostel for the night. It was in Rotterdam (which is in South Holland).
It’s also worth noting that in one of our morning coffee/tea breaks a few days before, Willemien dropped an interesting tidbit during conversation. Apparently, many wwoofers have come to the farm before and left before their first day was even over. I guess they saw the accommodations and just decided they weren’t up for it. The week before I came, a pair of wwoofers only lasted for 3 days (their plan was to stay a week). She told another story of a pair of wwoofers who left early after only staying for a week, claiming they felt they were going to die if they stayed any longer. That is definitely an overstatement, but can probably be attributed to their exhaustion at the time or their limited English.
I took away 2 main things from hearing this new information. First, I was upset that this was the first time I was hearing any of this. When I researched farms on the wwoofing website, a large part of how I based my decision on which farm to visit came from the reviews of past wwoofers. All of the reviews were categorically positive; none of these negative experiences were posted. I’m guessing there is no malpractice at play here; it’s more likely that the wwoofers didn’t care to leave a review or didn’t stay long enough to leave one. If the latter is true, wwoof needs to fix that. I’ll make sure to leave a more candid review if given the chance (if not I’ll make sure I can); it’s important for future wwoofers to know what they are getting into. Of course, I’ll make sure to note that my experience is unique and probably more representative of a visit in the non-summer months. Most of the reviews did come from the summer months, and I can imagine having a much better experience with warmer and dryer weather.
The second emotion I felt after hearing Willemien’s comment was surprise. I was surprised that she didn’t have any sort of reaction to repeated wwoofers leaving early. If I was in her position, I would start to question why this kept happening, and see if there was something I could do to prevent it from happening again in the future.
What makes wwoofing successful
Wwoofing thrives when there is a clear mutual beneficial relationship between the volunteers and hosts. Volunteers are looking to learn more about organic farming, and they will supply a reasonable amount of labor to help them reach their goal. In return, they are supposed to be provided accommodations and food (which of course can vary greatly from farm to farm). In my mind, the hosts are not only looking for an extra hand to help them complete day-to-day farm work, but also looking to take part in an intercultural dialogue where they can learn. I felt that the second part of the last point was missing at Fruitweelde. Wwoofers were only being used as labor, with the bare minimum in compensation being provided.
While one may think hiring wwoofers to save money makes sense from a pure economic sense, I strongly believe it doesn’t (both from a more classical perspective and from the historical lessons I learned in my podcast listening). Maintaining high human capital (ex: education and health) is crucial to having a productive workforce. Milton Hershey’s construction of homes for his factory workers and Henry Ford’s $5 minimum wage (this was high at the time) are examples of steps that led both leaders to their ultimate financial success. I don’t fully endorse everything either of these men did though, let’s not forget they were both well-known anti-semites.
Yes, it is cheaper to have trainees and wwoofers run farm operations rather than paid employees (who have minimum benefit protections under Dutch law). However, paid employees will be more productive than wwoofers because of the higher benefits they receive and their more extensive experience working on a farm. Having overall better workers helps the bottom line of a farm because it means more viable crops will make it to market. Put together, I believe the money saved from using wwoofers will not cover the money lost from having more productive workers. I know this goes against traditional reasoning used by consultants (do everything possible to cut costs), but I stand by it. Effectively, I’m saying that using wwoofers only to save money doesn’t make sense. One chooses to host wwoofers for the positive externalities (ie learning about different cultures).
This economic way of thinking makes particular sense on Fruitweelde, which is a commercial farm. Red Lock Farm is a family farm, and does not sell any of its produce (at least not yet). Both the economic analysis, and my experience on two farms, support the idea that wwoofing is best suited for casual, smaller family farms, where the bottom line does not drive all decisions.
This line of reasoning bodes well for me now, as the next farm I’ll be visiting will be a family farm. That will not be until Wednesday, a full week after I left Fruitweelde. You can continue to see a sneak peek of where I have visited before the relevant blog post comes out by checking out the map at the bottom of my site. After spending one night in Rotterdam, I’m currently writing from the Hague, and have plans to travel to Utrecht tomorrow. I still need to decide where I’ll spend Monday and Tuesday night.
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