Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133

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Geoforum
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

‘‘Will Weed for Food’’: The political economy of organic farm

volunteering in Hawai‘i
Mary Mostafanezhad a,⇑, Krisnawati Suryanata a, Saleh Azizi b, Nicole Milne a
a
Department of Geography, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Saunders Hall 446, Honolulu, HI 96822, United States
b
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Saunders Hall 107, Honolulu, HI 96822, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Organic farm volunteering programs facilitate opportunities for volunteer tourists to fulfill their desire
Received 24 March 2015 for authenticity and meaning through farm experience, while simultaneously meeting organic farmers’
Received in revised form 10 July 2015 need for affordable labor. We situate this presumably mutual partnership within the broader expansion
Accepted 26 July 2015
of market-based activism and the political economy of organic agriculture in Hawai’i. Drawing on
semi-structured interview and survey data from farm hosts and volunteers, we argue that while organic
farm volunteering offers a short term coping strategy for some organic farmers, the cultural logic and
Keywords:
rationale that propels these programs perpetuates the underlying labor problems that plague small
Organic farm volunteering
Market-based consumption
organic farms. As a result, they lack the capacity to ameliorate the structural challenges that participants
Political economy often set out to oppose. Without losing sight of its performative potential to discursively create space for
Volunteer tourism alternative economic formations, this article demonstrates the limitations of organic farm volunteering
Hawai’i when utilized as a form of civic participation to drive economic and socio-environmental change.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction hours to living in a breezy cottage, working a few hours a day,

A December 2013 issue of the Hawaiian Airlines in-flight
Magazine, Hana Hou! featured the article, ‘‘Friend of the Farmer,’’
in which images of frayed Tibetan prayer flags, meditation circles,
onsite yoga classes and farms with ‘‘names like Paradise, Dharma
and Heavenly’’ depict the World Wide Opportunities on Organic
Farms (WWOOF) farm volunteering experience in Hawai‘i
(Ganaden, 2014, p. 125). The focus on food consciousness as well
as alternative economic exchange, community development, and
alternative lifestyles are described as widespread aspects of the
practice. The characteristically 20-something, backpack toting,
patchouli wearing—volunteer tourist may seem like an anomaly
in the agricultural labor pool. Yet, many organic farmers in
Hawai‘i and beyond now regularly depend on organic farm volun-
teering programs such as WWOOF to subsidize labor costs (Terry,
2014). The WWOOF experience is arranged between the farmer
and volunteer who barter 15–30 h of labor per week in exchange
for food and shelter. Farm volunteers—colloquially known as
WWOOFers—can participate in experiences that range ‘‘from
sleeping in a spartan tent, eating ramen noodles and laboring long
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mostafan@hawaii.edu (M. Mostafanezhad), krisnawa@hawaii.
edu (K. Suryanata), azizi@hawaii.edu (S. Azizi), nmilne@hawaii.edu (N. Milne).
taking part in daily yoga sessions and eating fresh produce out of
the fields’’ (Ganaden, 2014, p. 125–6).
Programs like WWOOF offer new opportunities for farmers in
search of affordable labor and tourists in search of unique experi-
ences that tap into growing interests in organic agriculture and
in more intimate and meaningful tourism encounters. Popular
media is overwhelmingly optimistic of the growth of WWOOF as
a win–win exchange between farmers and tourists. A recent CNN
report, ‘‘WWOOF your Way Around the World!’’ describes
WWOOF as ‘‘your ticket to an incredible farming experience in
one of over 50 countries in the world’’ (Madden, 2010).
Organic farm volunteering emerges out of the broader organic
movement that attempts to encompass ‘‘alternative production
technologies, the health and pure food crusades, the 1960s coun-
terculture and modern environmentalism. . .[as well as] a more
radical interpretation of the industrialization critique’’ (Guthman,
2004a; Guthman, 2004b, p. 4). The practice has materialized in tan-
dem with the proliferation of market-based activism such as the
purchase of fair trade coffees, chocolates, and teas. It also resonates
with food movement campaigns, in which consumers are increas-
ingly encouraged to ‘‘know where their food comes from’’
(Goodman, 2004). This form of activism tends to follow the four
pillars of the ideal neoliberal paradigm summarized by McCarthy
(2006, p. 87 and 98): ‘‘(1) a faith that a self-regulating market will

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.07.025
0016-7185/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
126 M. Mostafanezhad et al. / Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133
forge optimal social forms; (2) a focus on the individual as the pri-
mary social and economic agent; (3) an overt hostility toward state
intervention, particularly interventions aimed at regulating goods
and services; and (4) a reliance on civil society to redress market
failures when they occur.’’ Yet, neoliberal paradigms rarely materi-
alize as neatly defined schemes, but rather as fluid, partial and
incomplete hybrid constellations of material and ideological
expression (Duffy and Moore, 2010; Ferguson, 2010; Guthman,
2008).
Farm volunteering programs such as WWOOF are illustrative of
the creative spaces that are opening up in-between neoliberal cap-
italism and economic alternatives. WWOOF is situated at intersec-
tion, where activism to support alternative agriculture is now
integrated into new forms of touristic-consumer experience. This
broader expansion of the ‘‘experience economy’’ (Pine and
Gilmore, 1999) provides space for consumer-cum-volunteer tour-
ists to expand their knowledge of organic agriculture, create new
relationships with like-minded others (e.g. farmers and other
WWOOFers) and ostensibly participate in socio-environmental
movements centered on organic food and lifestyle consumption.
It is in this cultural–economic climate that WWOOF and similar
farm volunteering programs have expanded over the past decade.
We utilize a political economy approach to highlight the struc-
tural contradictions of organic farm volunteering and its limita-
tions to facilitate the realization of its participants’
socio-environmental and economic goals. Political economy is a
useful analytical lens through which scholars have examined the
growing complexity of contemporary agri-food geography in a
globalized economy (e.g. McMichael, 1994; Goodman and Watts,
1997), processes behind technological change and the accumula-
tion of power by agro-industrial capital (e.g. Goodman et al.,
1987a,b; Kloppenburg, 1988 [2005], and how racial politics have
structured the labor problems in agriculture (e.g. Thomas, 1992;
Wells, 1996). More recently, geographers have critically analyzed
the neoliberalization of agro-food activism, highlighting the con-
tradictions of practices that seek to enact changes through individ-
ual purchasing or consumption decision (e.g. Bryant and Goodman,
2004; Lipschutz and Rowe, 2005; Morgan, 2010). Political economy
is also instructive in illuminating the structural challenges of
organic farming (Guthman, 2004a; Guthman, 2004b), and in ana-
lyzing agrarian changes in Hawaii (Suryanata, 2002).
Recent work in economic geography (Gibson-Graham, 2006)
cautions that the performative effect of political economy analysis
could discourage advocates of alternatives to capitalist economic
forms thus closing down the range of economic possibilities.
They call on scholars to examine hidden and alternative economic
activities, and challenge them to resist evaluating community
experiments like WWOOF as unviable due to their dependence
on non-market relations. Instead, they emphasize the need to
‘‘study their strategies of survival, support their efforts to learn
from their experience, and help them find ways of changing what
they wish to change’’ (Gibson-Graham, 2008, p. 615). In this article
we attend to this call through our examination of WWOOF as a cul-
tural–economic enterprise in which alternative tourism articulates
with alternative agriculture to generate new actors in Hawai‘i’s
agrarian landscape. We address the different ways WWOOF can
contribute to the collective well-being, while simultaneously not
losing sight of the inherent tensions that threaten WWOOF’s
continuance.
Hawaii’s tropical climate and volcanic soils have long evoked
images of paradise which have supported and are reproduced by
the tourism industry. Combined with growing trends toward food
consciousness, they produce agrarian imaginaries that inspire
would-be farmers – many of whom relocated from the U.S. main-
land – to engage in organic agriculture. Thus, many of Hawaii’s
organic farmers are first generation farmers who are primarily
motivated by the ideals of alternative agriculture. Similarly, would
be WWOOFers are drawn by the same imaginaries that belie the
political–economic reality of Hawai‘i’s persistently struggling
agrarian sector. While not all share these characteristics, they form
the core demographics of WWOOF hosts and volunteers.
Drawing on ethnographic and survey data collected among
WWOOF farm hosts and volunteers on Oahu and Hawai‘i Island
(known locally as ‘‘the Big Island’’), we contend that the logics
and rationale that propel the WWOOF movement do not address
the underlying problems that have plagued small farms, especially
in Hawai‘i. Thus, we argue that while WWOOF provides a short
term coping strategy for some organic farmers, it is not sufficient
to sustain a robust organic industry in a state where agriculture
– conventional and organic – continues to face structural disadvan-
tages. We then examine emerging trends toward farm oriented
volunteerism and consider how they are limited by obstacles sim-
ilar to related forms of market-based activism such as alternative
consumption, where responsibility for agricultural reform is left
at the hands of the individual consumer-cum-volunteer tourist.
The article proceeds in the following way: first, we examine
WWOOF as an expression of the backlash against contemporary
agro-food regimes, especially among middle and upper class food
conscious urban and suburban youth. This backlash has led to
emerging trends in popular culture that emphasize ‘‘back to the
land’’ strategies for living authentically, which materialize in new
forms of alternative tourism. Second, we examine the structural
challenges of organic farming, focusing in particular on questions
of labor and mechanisms to capture the organic premium. The
combination of volunteer tourists’ desires for authentic experi-
ences through farming and organic farmers’ needs to reduce their
labor costs creates a logical and presumably mutual partnership
in programs such as WWOOF. We then provide a case study and
analysis of WWOOF on Oahu and the Big Island to demonstrate
the contradictions of adopting a market-based movement such as
volunteer tourism to address enduring labor problems in
Hawai‘i’s agricultural sector. We conclude with a consideration of
some of the limits of our critique in light of recent work on diverse
economies that argue for a more nuanced appreciation of
non-capitalist mode of production and exchange
(Gibson-Graham, 2008; Hwang, 2013).
2. The culture and politics of organic farm volunteering
Buying fair trade chocolate to support Farmer John’s family in
Costa Rica or spending a week in Thailand volunteering at a local
orphanage to ‘‘save’’ the children are now common consumer
experiences in the Global North. Bryant and Goodman (2004) note
how consumption has become the new activism, while
Gibson-Graham (2006) argue that a new political imaginary is
remapping political terrain where boundaries between ‘‘global
and local, revolution and reform, opposition and experiment, insti-
tutional and individual transformation’’ are increasingly blurred
(Gibson-Graham, 2006, p. 1). Related trends in the Global North
materialize in what Whatmore refers to as hybrid geographies that
include the expansion of other forms of volunteer tourism, com-
munity farming in (sub)urban settings, as well as the expansion
of socio-environmental movements that work to break down the
discursive separation of nature and society (Whatmore, 2006,
Whatmore, 2002).
In this cultural as well as political–economic context, key con-
cerns around environmental conservation and social (in)justice
are frequently implicated in market-based approaches to activism
that have materialized as, for example, alternative, fair and
green consumer products (Bryant and Goodman, 2004; Carrier,
2010; Guthman, 2008). The focus on the individual consumer is
seen to obscure the structural disadvantages that perpetuate
 M. Mostafanezhad et al. / Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133
environmental injustices. For this reason, Roff argues that the
adoption of this market-based logic only empowers ‘‘the (super)-
market, not the state (and by extension voting citizens), as the ulti-
mate arbiter of socio-environmental quality, but in doing so they
accept the ideologies of competitive advantage and free market
rationality, concepts that have led to disastrous agro-ecological
problems’’ (Roff, 2007, p. 514).
Meanwhile, the search for more ‘‘authentic’’ experiences in
tourism—an intangible commodity based on the consumption of
experience—has been on the rise for more than two decades
(MacCannell, 1989; MacCannell, 2011; Cohen, 1988; Cohen,
2012). Tourists often evaluate the authenticity of their experience
by the degree of intimacy and thereby more meaningful tourism
encounters with previously unknown others (Conran, 2006). This
cultural trend now converges in volunteer programs such as
WWOOF (Baillie Smith and Laurie, 2011; Simpson, 2005;
Ganaden, 2014). Tourists can experience—most often for the first
time in their lives—‘‘authentic’’ farm life where they eat, sleep,
and work on an organic farm. Thus, the consumption of tangible
commodities such as chocolate, tea and raw honey, is comple-
mented by intangible tourism experiences that reflect the core val-
ues espoused by the consumer (Cohen and Cohen, 2012; Mowforth
and Munt, 2009).
A primarily middle–upper class practice (Fullagar et al., 2012;
Deville, 2011; Mosedale, 2009), WWOOF is illustrative of the
broader expansion of experiential and socially conscious tourism
experiences such as volunteer tourism—now the fastest growing
niche tourism market in the world (Mostafanezhad, 2014).
Volunteer tourism experiences are often characterized by a focus
on ‘‘other’’ faraway places. In a 2013 TEDxBerkeley talk on
‘‘(Un)knowing Poverty’’, Ananya Roy describes how her students
at the University of California, Berkeley often share in the neolib-
eral desire to change the world. Echoing Massey’s arguments on
‘‘spatially distant neighbors’’ (Massey, 2005; Massey, 2004), she
describes how the socially conscious millennial generation might
‘‘want to volunteer in the slums in India, but squirm at the encoun-
ter with homeless panhandlers at home.’’ In a similar way, the
WWOOFers’ farm experience is also removed from their lived exis-
tences, often of suburban or urban middle–upper class life. The
possibility of a safe retreat if farming becomes uncomfortable is
always there for the farm volunteer tourist, and hence the experi-
ence is more of a temporary sojourn than an ongoing commitment
tied to one’s livelihood or home community. While WWOOF volun-
teers are able to accumulate farming skills, the overwhelming
majority of participants return home without taking advantage of
their newly acquired knowledge (Ganaden, 2014). The WWOOF
experience is therefore more clearly focused on a search for mean-
ing and experience rather than a search for livelihood.
Scholars have observed that food and eating experiences are sig-
nificant sites where cultural and identity politics are played out
(Guthman, 2003, Watson and Caldwell, 2005). Proponents of local
food movements encourage consumers to ‘‘know your farmer’’ as
a way to increase awareness of the agro-food system, as well as
to join a community of likeminded consumers. Farmers’ markets
exemplify this tendency in the widespread focus on buying directly
from farmers. Farm volunteering programs such as WWOOF
provide further opportunities to intimately know the farmers and
their ways of producing food – enhancing the legitimacy of their
awareness (Smithers and Joseph, 2010). While WWOOF offers an
alternative approach to engaging in sustainable organic agriculture,
as argued below, it is embedded in the same logic as market-based
activism where the structural challenges are often not only
left intact, but perpetuated (Bryant and Goodman, 2004). In the fol-
lowing section we examine long-standing issues that confront
organic farming, especially in Hawai‘i.
127
3. The labor question and organic production
Today, independent farmers are frequently subjected to simple
reproduction squeezes over which they do not have control.
Industrial appropriation of production processes (Goodman et al.,
1987) has left farmers increasingly dependent on purchased inputs
and financial capital. This is further exacerbated in areas subject to
the effects of real-estate pressure on land values such as California
and Hawai‘i, where the cost of fixed capital is high (Guthman,
2004a; Guthman, 2004b; Suryanata, 2002). Meanwhile, global pro-
duction chains organized by major agro-food companies have led
to depressed prices and falling farm income.
Squeezed on both ends of production, most farms seek to
increase their profitability by lowering labor costs. Small farms
sometimes depend on unpaid labor from family members, but a
majority choose to recruit low cost labor that takes advantage of
the persistent inequality in race, gender, and citizenship in agricul-
tural production (Friedland et al., 1981; Mitchell, 1996; Thomas,
1992). The strategy depends on successful lobbying for public pro-
grams and other legislation that periodically promote and sanction
the importation of unskilled labor. Wells (1996) argues that
labor-intensive operations such as strawberry farming succeed in
lessening the cost-price squeeze because they take advantage of
the lower cost of variable capital (labor) relative to high cost of
fixed capital (land and machinery).
In Hawai‘i, successive importation of workers from China, Japan,
Portugal, Korea, and the Philippines formed the labor force during
the plantation era. The disciplining of Hawai‘i’s plantation laborers
was achieved by maintaining a hierarchical plantation structure
and ethnic segregation (Takaki, 1995; Okamura, 2008). When
Hawai‘i became a state in 1959 the plantations had to abide by fed-
eral laws. Union organization and civil rights movements made
exploitative means of labor control neither acceptable nor legal.
Yet, ‘‘the labor question’’—how to recruit and mobilize labor in
ways that would allow both the farm and the workers to reproduce
themselves—remains unanswered. Indeed, two high profile cases
on trafficking and illegal recruitment of labor in 2009/2010 threw
the spotlight onto the desperation of farmers in Hawai‘i for afford-
able labor (Downes, 2010). These cases involved more than 400
workers who were brought to the U.S. to work on multiple farms,
including more than a dozen farms in Hawai‘i.
In order to survive economically, small farmers everywhere are
compelled to employ strategies that add value to their products,
such as organic production. Organic farmers expect to receive a
price premium from consumers who are willing to pay additional
costs for the social and environmental values embedded in the
products. While this promise held true in the early stage of the
organic food industry, the price premium has not been universally
sustained. A USDA study on organic prices for 18 fruits and 19 veg-
etables using 2005 data found that the organic premium varied
greatly and was less than 30% for most items (Lin et al., 2008).
As the market for organic products grows, large organic producers
saturate the market and erode the premium value. Small indepen-
dent organic farmers must develop and nurture their market
niches through community-supported agriculture, networking
with high-end chefs, or growing specialty crops to increase farm
revenue (Guthman, 2004a; Guthman, 2004b).
A combination of high production costs and global competition
have resulted in a steady decline of Hawaii’s agricultural sector. For
more than a century, agriculture in Hawai‘i was dominated by
plantation agriculture growing a few commodities such as sugar-
cane, pineapples, and macadamia nuts. Non-plantation farms
growing diversified crops began in the 1990s, and only a segment
of them were focused on producing food for local consumption
(Suryanata, 2002). Contemporary organic farming is relatively
128 M. Mostafanezhad et al. / Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133

recent in Hawai‘i. As food consciousness grew across the state, with large farms and dominant ‘modern’ agricultural practices’’
organic farming began to take root. Although the Hawai‘i Organic (Yamamoto and Engelsted, 2014, p. 264). Thus, Hawai‘i is seen by
Farming Association (HOFA) was founded in 1993, it took another many as an ideal destination for WWOOF volunteers, where they
decade before locally grown organic products became commonly may realize their desire for meaningful experiences and learn
available in the marketplace. However, by that time the products about organic food production in an idyllic tropical setting.
of large-scale organic farms on the continental U.S. had penetrated
the organic market in Hawai‘i, hampering organic farms efforts to
4.1. Research methods
capture price premiums right from the start. After the initial
growth in the late 1990s, the organic farm sector has virtually stag-
Research for this article includes three separate phases of inves-
nated since 2002, representing less than one percent of the state’s
tigation between 2012 and 2014. The first set of data was collected
agricultural value (US Census Bureau, 2002, 2012).
in November 2012 through an online questionnaire using Qualtrics
Organic farming is generally more labor intensive, both in field
software. The questionnaire was sent to all (approximately 300)
operation and in record keeping and management. The labor ques-
registered farm hosts on the WWOOF Hawai‘i website. We
tion is therefore even more acute in organic agriculture. While
received 45 responses from the online survey. The questionnaire
some small farms could rely on extended family networks to meet
included descriptive demographic questions as well as
their labor needs, access to non-household labor is critical to those
open-ended questions such as farm hosts’ motivation to host
that wish to grow and develop commercially. Getz et al. (2008)
WWOOFers as well as the costs and benefits of hosting
reveal the hidden tension between labor and organic agriculture
WWOOFers.
and how growing organic does not always translate to fair labor
The second set of data was gathered in December 2012 and
practices. Wages in organic farms are comparable to those in con-
January 2013 on Oahu and the Big Island and includes
ventional farms, with large farms more likely to provide above
semi-structured interviews with 14 farm hosts and two additional
average wages and fringe benefits than smaller operations. While
farms that do not host volunteers. Respondents were chosen using
workers in organic farms have reduced exposure to agricultural
snowball sampling where research collaborators recommended
chemicals, their risk to other occupational hazards caused by stoop
and provided contact information for additional participants
labor may be higher. They argue that the rise of organics ought to
(Bernard, 2011, 2012). The interviews were conversational in style
provide opportunities to address the labor question in agriculture
and were conducted face-to-face with the exception of one phone
as well as assure that workers receive a ‘‘living wage’’ sufficient
interview. Interviews were arranged by telephone and all
to support their respective family with dignity and comfort (Getz
face-to-face interviews were conducted on the farm. Interviews
et al., 2008).
were conducted in a private area where the researchers and farm
A growing number of farmers have turned to tourism related
hosts were the only individuals present. All interviews were digi-
ventures as a way to supplement increasingly marginal incomes
tally recorded and later transcribed for accuracy. The transcripts
from farm production. Farmstays, farm tours, bed and breakfast,
were coded for recurrent themes. These themes were extracted
boutique products, farmers’ markets, and roadside stands are
from the transcripts to develop an interpretive analysis of the find-
now commonplace among small organic farmers (Phillip et al.,
ings. The farms surveyed in this phase of the study range from
2010; Sharpley, 2006). For example, following economic restruc-
semi-commercial (including farm-to-table) to hobby farms where
turing in New Zealand in the 1980s, tourism was identified as a
income generation is not the primary objective of farming.
viable alternative for counter-balancing diminishing agricultural
Several farms specialized in specialty crops such as tea, coffee,
production and services, population decline, and the general eco-
and kava. Farm sizes ranged from 1 acre to 200 acres with the aver-
nomic stresses experienced in many rural areas. Indeed,
age farm approximately 11 acres in size. Some farmers owned their
McIntosh and Campbell (2001, p. 111) argue that ‘‘WWOOF is
land, while others were on leaseholds from the state or private
essentially a tourism venture that has been established in New
land owners. About three quarters of the farms began hosting vol-
Zealand to compensate for deficiencies in income.’’ Thus, while
unteers within the past six years. Two-thirds of the farmers
many farm hosts cite social and cultural reasons for participation
revealed that farming was not their primary source of income.
in WWOOF, economic motivations is unequivocally central to the
On average, most farmers host three to four WWOOFers at one
experience.
time, although these numbers range between one and 20. The
average WWOOFer stayed on the farm for two months, while dura-
tion varied from two weeks to five years.
4. WWOOF in Hawai‘i
The third set of data focus on the volunteers’ perspectives and
was collected in 2013 and 2014. Thirty-four WWOOFers on the
Originally referred to as ‘‘Working Weekends on Organic
farms that participated in phase two agreed to fill questionnaires
Farms’’, WWOOF was founded in the early 1970s as an exchange
that asked WWOOFers to indicate and describe their background,
between farmers and urban dwellers who sought a unique leisure
motivations to participate, and future plans. A subset of 19 volun-
experience of rural living in the United Kingdom. Today the
teers also answered open-ended questions on their ideals and
WWOOF network exists in more than 100 countries (Choo and
reflected on their experience. All names in this article are pseudo-
Jamal, 2009; Mosedale, 2009; WWOOF USA, 2014). According to
nyms to protect the privacy of our research collaborators.
the program administrator at WWOOF Hawai‘i, in 2014 there were
approximately 300 registered farms, 200 of which actively hosted
WWOOFers, and between 2500 and 3000 people who participated 5. ‘‘We’re Grown up Hippies’’: Farm hosts’ perspectives
in the program (Ziegler, 2015, personal communication).
Considering that the U.S. Census of Agriculture in 2012 counted In a recent Hana Hou! Hawaiian Airlines Magazine article, a
only 184 certified organic farms in the state, not every host farm WWOOF farm host on Hawai‘i Island explains: ‘‘We’re grown-up
was certified organic. hippies, and this is the lifestyle we’ve always wanted. . .We
Hawai‘i’s popularity as a WWOOF destination dovetails with couldn’t live any other way’’. This sentiment is widely shared by
recent findings that WWOOF farms tend to be located ‘‘in high the WWOOF farm hosts in this research. Our data indicates that
environmental/scenic quality locations and ‘bohemian’ cultural the most likely WWOOF farm host in Hawai‘i is a first time farmer
settings, but few in conventional farm regions, especially those from the U.S. mainland with less than ten years of farming
 M. Mostafanezhad et al. / Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133
experience. They form a core of the small organic farming sector in
the state. While not all are formally certified ‘‘organic,’’ farmers in
this study describe themselves as proponents of alternative agri-
culture, and view organic farming as an expression of their social
ideals. This echoes Guthman’s observation that first-generation
organic farmers identify most strongly with the notion of organic
agriculture as a social movement (2004, p. 57).
Cultural geographers have called our attention to the impor-
tance of narrative in environmental networks. For example,
Lejano et al. (2013, p. 2) contend that stories or narratives ‘‘create
the glue that binds people together. . .providing them with a sense
of history, common ground, and future, thus enabling them to per-
sist even in the context of resistance.’’ Small organic farmers in our
survey share a perspective that emphasizes the importance of
developing a practical, field-based body of knowledge; as well as
their collective responsibility to develop and circulate knowledge
of alternative agricultural production. Hosting WWOOFers comple-
ments this narrative as it provides opportunities for farm hosts to
participate in the cultural and educational aspects of alternative
agricultural production. For example, more than half of the farm
hosts who responded to our survey expressed that mentoring
young people, sharing knowledge, and ‘‘seeing some of them go
out into the world and make a difference with what they learned
here’’ as the most satisfying intangible benefit of hosting volun-
teers. In this way the cultural logic that underlies this community
transcend the transactional labor arrangement between farm hosts
and volunteers. For example, Peter from Hawai‘i Island explained:
‘‘I have WWOOFers for two reasons; one of them is I need them to
do work. . .; the second reason is that I want allies. I want people
who have my back. . . In other words, I want people where I don’t
have to breathe down their neck and where I know they have
the interests of the farm at heart . . . [they’re] an extension of my
family. . . and I do the same thing for them.’’
Gerry, another farm host from the Big Island further comments
on how he relates to WWOOFers who, as he explains, ‘‘are follow-
ing the steps of the hippies that I knew of [from the 1960s]. The
WWOOFers that come to his farm are often real peaceful and
dreadlocked. . .They are like hippies [but] in a lot more modern
style.’’ Gerry’s sentiments were echoed by James, also from the
Big Island who explained how this kind of lifestyle is particularly
made possible in Hawai‘i: ‘‘Hawaii is a place where it’s possible
to be poor . . . to live under a guitar [and] bum a ride to go pick
papayas once every two weeks to get you enough money to do
your laundry at the laundromat. . . You can unplug from the system
for goodness sake.’’ These sentiments are widely shared among the
farm host community in Hawai‘i and are frequently used to explain
their motivations for participating in WWOOF.
5.1. Challenges and coping strategies
The farm hosts interviewed for this research participated in var-
ious business models to meet their farming and lifestyle needs.
Almost all sold fruits and vegetables at local farmers’ markets,
retail stores, and restaurants. Several farms participated in
Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA). Two of the farmers had
a bed and breakfast on the farm that WWOOFers helped operate.
Other farms raised funds from friends, family, as well as
crowd-sourcing methods for particular projects such as developing
aquaculture. All farms were constantly refining their products and
farming techniques to increase their revenues.
Research participants consider the price premium attached to
organic products as critical to compensate the high costs of farm-
ing in Hawai‘i. However, Page et al. (2007) report on a number of
‘‘typical’’ organic farm ventures and show differentiation among
organic farms on the Big Island with regard to their ability to cap-
ture the premium. While farms that consistently produce high
129
quality products do well in this market niche, most small organic
farms struggle and cannot cope with the high costs of farming.
Furthermore, a number of farmers perceived that government
involvement has only further weakened their position. As
Guthman (Guthman, 2004a; Guthman, 2004b, page 517) points
out, from the late 1970s until the early 1990s the cultural politics
of organic agriculture deterred many conventional growers in
California from converting to organic, therefore protecting organic
farmers from competition. The establishment of the national
Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 paved the way for
business-oriented (as opposed to countercultural) certification
and the number of certified organic operations has since grown
considerably. The entry of large growers into the organic market
has eroded the price premium attached to organic – a phenomenon
that occurs nationwide including in Hawai‘i.
Additionally, many of the small organic farmers found that their
ability to receive organic labeling (and the price premium) hinged
on their capacity to comply with the rules and standards as set by
the federal regulations. Indeed, the U.S. Census of Agriculture in
2012 counted just 184 certified organic farms in the state, far lower
than the number of registered WWOOF farms. Our samples reflect
this tendency, as only a small fraction of the farmers interviewed in
this study were certified organic. The high level of documentation
and recordkeeping involved in acquiring and maintaining certifica-
tion puts extra pressure on an already overburdened workforce.
One farmer on the Big Island expressed his frustration: ‘‘You get
punished for being an organic farmer. . .you have to keep a daily
record of everything you buy, where you buy it and when you
use it. Basically, you’ve got to be a bookkeeper.’’ Another farmer
similarly expressed his disappointment: ‘‘A lot of the regulations
require a small farmer to pull off the same amount of red tape as
a multi-million dollar farming company.’’
Unable to capture the price premium, some farms seek to sup-
plement their revenue through piecemeal grants, foundation sup-
port, and other types of soft money. For these kinds of assistance,
the farm often needs to be a registered non-profit and contribute
to other aspects of the community such as education. Indeed,
three of the farms that we visited were certified non-profits,
which allowed them access to crucial non-farm income streams.
For example, James explicates: ‘‘Part of what has helped us is that
we started out non-profit in 2003. . .we got money from USDA to
build a hen house three years ago at the value of $20,000. . .[we
then received a] county research development [grant] for back-
yard chickens at the value of $4600 and a couple of $1000
grants.’’ While the availability of small grants has been helpful
to some farmers, others feel disenfranchised by grant making
institutions. For example, Peter, a farm host on the Big Island
explained to us: ‘‘Anytime we try to apply for a grant or anything,
the only people who get the grants are the grant writers that go
to college to learn and the big corporations and the so called
non-profits.’’
Like the widespread turn to rural and farm tourism, WWOOF
farm hosts have similarly tapped into the tourism market. James
from the Big Island explained that the cost-price squeeze prompted
him to diversify his business plan. Price competition forced him to
give up selling his products to wholesalers. He also no longer sold
at farmers markets because the limited revenue did not justify the
time commitment. Struggling to make profit, he turned to hosting
visitors and volunteers as a way to cope: ‘‘. . .to tell the honest truth
probably 80% of what we produce gets consumed on farm. Our lar-
gest market for our farm produce is our interns and our guests who
actually come here to have the farm experience on the farm. Their
fee is paying for the food . . . [and] they are also learning to produce
and process.’’ In James’s case, the farm’s priority is not to produce,
but to facilitate the generation of income from on-farm agritourism
activities. His strategy is not unique; another farmer, also from the
130 M. Mostafanezhad et al. / Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133
Big Island explained how it makes more economic sense to use the
products of his farm operation to host visitors than to sell: ‘‘. . .we
do the real thing here, we grow pineapples and citrus and avocados
and everything. . .I got enough food here to probably feed 30 people
a day for a long time.’’ Thus, labor recruitment is a key motivation
for WWOOF farm hosts who have a genuine need for affordable
labor to keep their farms viable.
A few of the farms sell their products at farmers market.
Farmers’ markets allow farmers to sell their often unpredictable
quantity and variability of products. Farmers receive personal feed-
back and appreciative comments directly from the consumers,
which reinforces their goals and practice of organic agriculture.
Farmers’ markets also help farmers to gain exposure as chefs, retail
and wholesale buyers, food writers, and others often visit farmers’
markets to discover new farms and agricultural products.
WWOOFers can bring energy and new ideas that help farmers
unfamiliar with the scene to participate in farmers’ markets. For
example, farmer Jack from Hawai‘i Island recalled that with the
help of several WWOOFers, he was able to sell his produce at the
farmers market in Waimea: ‘‘. . .they bought a pop-up tent and it
was great, whatever cash we make over there we split.’’ Another
farmer remarked: ‘‘They have a great outlook on life and help bring
our products to the farmers market.’’
Farmers in this study invariably agreed that organic farming is
hard, labor-intensive work. For example, Gerry from the Big
Island remarked that farmers must be ‘‘on’’ all the time and attend
to a variety of issues. Unlike the U.S. mainland, farmers in Hawai‘i
do not have ‘‘off-seasons’’ as their crops grow year round. As new-
comers to Hawai‘i they have not yet established deep connections
with the local community and hence lack access to the local labor
force. Conscious of these challenges, Peter explained: ‘‘. . .the farm-
ers that are successful on this island. . . are usually [successful]
because they have this huge extended family and everyone’s work-
ing together for the good of the family. But as a small farmer, to go
out and try to hire people, it’s hard to find anybody that’s going to
work for less than $10 an hour.’’
Whereas farms on the U.S. mainland have access to a large
migrant labor force, Hawai‘i’s geographic isolation makes it more
challenging for the industry to tap into low-wage labor pools.
Consequently, farms in Hawai‘i must seek alternative strategies
to recruit labor. Migrant laborers in Hawai‘i have recently found
inroads into some farming industries, such as Hawai‘i Island’s
Kona coffee and dairy operations, and larger vegetable operations
on Oahu, but they are not as prevalent as on the U.S. mainland.
Peter, a Big Island farmer further highlighted the critical role of vol-
unteers to his farm operation: ‘‘WWOOFers are really the central
part of my existence; I wouldn’t know what to do [without them]
because we are not making enough money to hire full time or even
half time employees.’’ For farmers such as Peter, WWOOF is a strat-
egy to cope with the relatively high cost of farm labor, which in
2013 averaged more than $14 per hour (Hawaii Agricultural
Labor, 2013). In this way, WWOOF can represent a significant
financial advantage for small organic farmers and in many cases
determine their economic viability.
6. ‘‘Laboring for a Cause’’: Farm volunteers’ perspectives
Volunteers who participate in the WWOOF program come from
a range of backgrounds. The administrator of WWOOF Hawai‘i
explained how most WWOOFers are from the U.S., Canada and
Europe with a limited number from Japan and Australia. While
most WWOOFers in Hawai‘i are between 18 and 24 years of age,
the range extends to well past 60 years of age as many recent retir-
ees are increasingly jumping onto the WWOOF bandwagon
(Ziegler, 2015, personal communication).
Our research indicates that volunteers tend to view WWOOFing
as much more than an economic exchange. As one farm volunteer
remarked, it is ‘‘about providing the experience of meeting new
people, sharing beliefs, and enjoying each other’s presence.’’ Jack,
a WWOOFer on Oahu, elaborated: ‘‘. . .WWOOFing is a magical
experience. Of course, it is very temporary and there is no secure
outcome of making any profit. But that is not the point of
WWOOFing.’’ Mark, another volunteer on Oahu remarked: ‘‘It is
the collective vision of striving for a better world through farming
that makes the WWOOFing program so special, and why it makes
it so memorable for me.’’ Furthermore, the new community that
the WWOOFer enters on the farm is often conceptualized as a sur-
rogate ‘‘family’’. For example, Jody complimented the farm host on
her farm for his ability to create a familial atmosphere: ‘‘[the farm
host] created a family and treated us all as equals, we all had a lot
of responsibility on the farm and he trusted us with each task.’’
In addition to creating new social bonds on the farm, there is a
widespread interest among WWOOFers in meeting ‘‘like minded’’
people. Becky, for example, commented: ‘‘I got what I expected
and had an amazing traveling experience. . . Everybody was very
friendly and I met similarly minded people.’’ Tom, another young
WWOOFer explained that he was prepared to work hard in order
to establish a meaningful relationship: ‘‘Sometimes the work was
hard and my back or hands would be sore, and sometimes the
work was easy and I couldn’t have been more relaxed. Either
way I always thought that both parties got their money’s worth.’’
Andrea added: ‘‘I don’t mind working extra hours once in a while
because I receive many things from the farm [referring to the
way the staff treats her].’’
Conversely, not feeling part of a community of likeminded
counterparts or, as Fred, a WWOOFer on Oahu put it, ‘‘good vibes’’
from the farm hosts, was seen as a reason to leave the farm. Jenny,
for example, explained how she was seeking a more ‘‘family like’’
experience which she did not find: ‘‘Part of the reason I wanted
to live and work on a farm was to experience living in a close knit
community. . . I think I missed out on that.’’ She further explained
that at least five other volunteers had left the farm because ‘‘we
often felt that we were there only for our labor.’’ She explained
how she understood that the farmer was under economic pressure,
but nevertheless perceived this focus on farm economics to have
corrupted her WWOOF experience.
6.1. Ongoing tensions
WWOOFers are conscious of farmers’ need to make profit but
are often uncertain about how to bridge this goal with their expec-
tations. All volunteers expressed that learning to farm organically
was the reason they joined WWOOF, but some did not appreciate
being asked to do mundane tasks or activities such as helping with
daily chores—cooking dinner, washing dishes, and sweeping the
floor – that in their perception ‘‘have nothing to do with farming.’’
Robert, for example, remarked: ‘‘I would have liked to learn more
about agriculture and why we did what we did. As a WWOOFer,
I felt like we did a lot of rote tasks and repetitive labor.’’ Another
volunteer comments how the farm she worked at lacked the capac-
ity to train WWOOFers, and focused more on farm economics than
on volunteers’ experience: ‘‘. . .while the farm talks about growing
people, it uses them for free labor and holds them hostage from
being able to do anything about it. You are expected to work
full-time, leaving no time for other activities or learning
development.’’
Farm hosts are well aware of this tenuous relationship. A vast
majority of the farm hosts appreciate the volunteered labor and
acknowledge how, as one farm host put it, ‘‘without the labor of
WWOOFers, it would be very difficult to survive’’. Many also noted
the loss of privacy and added anxiety of supervising inexperienced
 M. Mostafanezhad et al. / Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133
youths who are often in need of intensive training and supervision.
Annie, a WWOOFer on Oahu remarked how she understood the
farmer’s position, and acknowledged that some WWOOF volun-
teers are not good at farming: ‘‘Green Farm is already running at
a deficit and needs to make a profit. If I were the farmer, I would
choose [workers] with more farming experience.’’ She summed
up this underlying tension by saying: ‘‘To put it simply, a farm can’t
expect newbie farmers who are just learning to till soil to work at
the same pace as an experienced farmer.’’
In other cases, the farmer-volunteer relationship was strained
because of poor communication and what the WWOOFers per-
ceived as unclear expectations of them. One WWOOFer, describes
confusion about what they needed to do: ‘‘. . . [One time] we were
expected to pick five pounds of only the best-looking baby greens
for Farm Fresh restaurant. [But] our initial round of harvesting was
not good enough, so we had to go back and do it again.’’ Another
volunteer expressed his disappointment that their daily living con-
ditions did not match what he had in mind when signing up for
WWOOF. He explained: ‘‘I expected that we would eat food that
we grew, but the garden was over harvested, and we were mainly
given processed Costco food.’’ Additionally, Leo, a WWOOFer from
Oahu explained how he left his first WWOOF farm because of the
farm host’s inability to organize the workday: ‘‘I realized that I
was not discovering the island, that I spent much of the time work-
ing or in dead hours.’’
This is not to say that WWOOFers were always uncomfortable
with the unclear expectations as several WWOOFers explained
that they were willing to do whatever was asked of them. More
importantly, volunteers understand that this work arrangement
is temporary – making the burden or disappointing condition
acceptable. For example, Chris explains how: ‘‘For me,
WWOOFing should not be a vacation. I’m there to experience the
life of a farmer, if only for a few months.’’ Frank, another volunteer
further explains: ‘‘. . .Small farms don’t have enough money to pay
for labor. This is where farm volunteers come in. . .. If you end up
stuck here and feel like you can’t get out, you’re an indentured ser-
vant not far from a slave.’’
From a farmer’s point of view, however, the rapid turnovers of
volunteer labor added to the stress of farming. Candice, a farmer
on the Big Island points out that ‘‘volunteer labor works well when
we still need to develop the farm. Once business is up and running,
they are not dependable enough.’’ Thus, the temporary nature of
volunteers’ commitment becomes an obstacle in enacting sus-
tained change in the labor regime. Additionally, farm hosts pay
personal costs such as the loss of privacy. In explaining why he
chose not to host volunteers, Tom—a successful organic farmer
on the Big Island—explains: ‘‘at the end of the day, I want to say
goodbye to my workers.’’
Our study illustrates an inherent contradiction in the WWOOF
initiative, in which volunteers’ expectation to become part of a
farm ‘‘family’’ and participate in culturally meaningful experiences
is in conflict with the farmers’ need for cheap and dependable
laborers. Additionally, if the farm host is seen as prioritizing profits
over social connection, they are blamed for shunning the values of
the WWOOF network. For example, Marty explained: ‘‘I think we
worked too many hours at Green Farms. We started every day at
6.30 a.m. . . . [by the time] we finished around 6 p.m., the day
was almost finished. It would be better if we have ‘‘real work
hours’’ like they did at Happy Farm, [so] the WWOOFers would
enjoy half of the day on the beach or visiting the island.’’ As a con-
sequence, WWOOFers find less ‘‘profit driven’’ farms as more
attractive places to volunteer. While some of these challenges are
unique to Hawaii, the tensions we identified here are emblematic
of WWOOF and other forms of volunteer tourism where differ-
ences in communication, goals and expectations can create tension
131
between volunteer tourists and their host communities and orga-
nizations (Cousins et al., 2009; Crossley, 2012; Gray and
Campbell, 2007; Guttentag, 2009; Sin, 2010).
7. Beyond political economy?
The political economy approach is limited by its inability to
account for the experiences and relative successes of what
Gibson-Graham refer to as ‘‘diverse economies’’ – the growing
number of alternative, non-capitalist ‘‘economic transactions, labor
practices and economic organizations that contribute to social
well-being worldwide’’ (Gibson-Graham, 2008, p. 615). WWOOF
represents community initiatives that are not exclusively governed
by capitalist economic perspectives. They are enmeshed in the cul-
tural politics of alternative lifestyles that seem to reflect, at least in
part, a desire to opt out of the capitalist market altogether. Yet
farmers in this study were most clearly motivated to host
WWOOFers because of their need for labor, even if this motivation
is not overtly expressed.
High input costs, limited economies of scale, and market com-
petition has steadily eroded the profit margins of small farms, pro-
viding them with insufficient returns to viably support farm
workers or pay themselves living wages. Farmers are pressured
to find alternative subsidization strategies that sometimes fall out-
side of the norms of conventional or even organic agriculture pro-
duction. Indeed, the farmers in this study invariably agreed that
their farm and livelihood would not be viable without the help of
WWOOFers. Hired labor was in most instances not financially fea-
sible and there was far too much work to do on the farm without
help. Thus, for many farmers, WWOOFers help fill this critical
gap in a significant way. As a result, WWOOF has become a coping
strategy that allows some small organic farmers to maintain their
organic farming lifestyle. Thus, during the early stage of farm
development, organic farm volunteering can be a win–win
strategy.
Yet, when farms seek to become profitable and expand their
businesses, the expectations of the volunteered laborers and farm
hosts begin to contradict each other for several critical reasons.
While agricultural labor turnover is notoriously porous, with vol-
unteered labor, this is especially the case. The two more economi-
cally successful farmers we interviewed shy away from using
volunteer labor because of the limited compatibility of WWOOF
with commercial farming. David, a farmer from Oahu attributed
his farm’s success to the committed, paid workforce that is dedi-
cated to the daily operations of the farm. He has maintained a
stable workforce with very low turnover by paying them higher
wages and good benefits. David can manage to give his workers
a living wage because he sells his products to high-end restaurants
and captures a higher price. He explained to us how: ‘‘Farming is
the easy part. . .you have to make sure that [product and service]
quality is consistently high, and you need a dependable workforce
to do that.’’ Instead of depending on short-term volunteer labor, he
advocates professional internship programs that do not attempt to
mix ‘‘work and play’’ as implied in volunteer tourism programs
such as WWOOF. Tom, another economically successful farmer
from the Big Island argues: ‘‘If you want a reliable, skilled labor
force, it’s better to work with the local population’’.
Professionalizing agriculture by creating mid-level positions and
an experienced work crew requires employees that will remain
in Hawai‘i. Volunteer laborers, ‘‘tend to be here for the interim,
but what we want to create is a stable workforce, and I don’t see
[volunteers] as conducive to a successful business strategy.’’
Thus, as David and Tom’s comments indicate, while WWOOF can
be a useful coping strategy for some small organic farmers, as
132 M. Mostafanezhad et al. / Geoforum 65 (2015) 125–133
farms develop into business enterprises, the farmer’s goal of
affordable and reliable labor begins to contradict with the volun-
teer’s goal of meaningful experience.
Our study indicates that while farm hosts and volunteers seem
to idealize the cultural bonds created in WWOOF, ultimately their
relationships are based on economic rationale and are transitory.
This is in part, because WWOOFers eventually leave the farm
(and most often, Hawai‘i), and most farm hosts aspire to become
a successful business with a stable workforce that is competitive
in the marketplace. The temporary nature of this relationship is a
critical limitation of WWOOF and its ability to facilitate
long-term economic and social change. In this way, our analysis
indicates some of the limitations of market-mediated activism to
counter the dominant economic status quo, especially when the
alternative economic relationship is both fleeting and not anchored
by place.
8. Conclusions
For the majority of organic farm volunteers in Hawai‘i, WWOOF
is a temporary sojourn into food production, which allows partici-
pants to identify with a broadly defined ‘‘organic lifestyle’’. This
lifestyle is similarly adopted by many host farmers themselves
who often self-identify as ‘‘old hippies’’ who seek to share their
own love for the ‘aina (land). Relationships between farmers and
volunteers are not strictly defined in transactional or capitalist eco-
nomic terms, but reflect their shared commitment to organic ide-
als. Yet, there is a point at which a farm becomes incompatible
with these ideals. Most WWOOF farms in Hawai‘i are small and
many consume much of what they produce. While this may be
attractive for WWOOFers who seek meaningful experiences, it is
evident that in some cases, farms have become so ‘‘authentic’’ that
they are not even in the market.
Beyond the explicit desire to build a community committed to
alternative food production, farmers in this study were most
clearly motivated to host WWOOFers because of their need for
labor, even if this motivation is not overtly expressed. Thus, while
organic farm volunteering is ostensibly a win–win exchange for
farmers in search of labor and volunteer tourists in search of
authentic and meaningful experiences, a closer examination indi-
cates that these converging goals are not always compatible.
Indeed, programs like WWOOF face many of the same challenges
of related forms of market-based activism. We argue that an
emphasis on the cultural logic that motivates the expansion of vol-
unteer programs such as WWOOF tends to overlook the structural
challenges of organic farming in Hawai‘i.
Our findings bring into question neoliberal assumptions around
individual activism espoused by volunteering programs, which are
limited in their capacity to realize consequential changes. Our
analysis shows how in spite of the ideals of its participants,
WWOOF and programs like it seem to band aid ongoing labor prob-
lems, while the structural wounds of the political economy of
organic agriculture in the U.S. continue to blister. In doing so, these
programs may instead contribute to the perpetuation of extant
problems that plague small organic farmers in Hawai‘i and beyond.
These findings also contribute to ongoing conversations regarding
the limitations of volunteer tourism programs when utilized as a
form of civic participation to drive economic and
socio-environmental change. This is in part, because they tend to
only address causes that appeal to and are valued by consumer
citizens.
Yet, we do not want to throw the baby with the bath water.
Programs like WWOOF appear to facilitate opportunities for volun-
teers to be engaged ‘‘food citizens’’ (c.f. deLind, 2002; Wilkins,
2005). The labor WWOOFers provide often play a critical role in
the establishment of small organic farms, especially among first
generation farmers. As some farm hosts acknowledge, their farms
might have not survived without WWOOF labor. While these
small, struggling farms may not add up substantively in the agri-
cultural economy of the state, their continued presence provides
a performative effect (cf. Gibson-Graham, 2008) critical in fueling
the discourse of alternative agriculture, which is key to the ways
many citizens of Hawai‘i re-imagine the agro-food system.
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