WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farming

Initial steps

Last year, when we decided we wanted to go more 'self-sufficientish', we started doing large projects on the croft and as mentioned before, we nearly burned ourselves out by doing too much all at once.

We got a bit despondent. Then, when visiting a friend of ours over at Vatisker, he had said the folks that had recently acquired the croft next to his had gotten in 'wwoofers' to help them out. "Wwoofers, what's that?" we asked. Angus Murdo went on to explain that this couple had started a smithy, erected a polytunnel and started getting in various farm animals. They had only recently moved up about 18months ago from England and were wanting to make a go of being self-sufficient. It's a lot of work to take on and one way to get extra help is becoming a host farm - and that is what Jane and Dave Eastwood at Ravenstar did.

See what Jane and Dave are doing at Ravenstar...

Becoming a WWOOF Host Farm

We got in touch with the WWOOF secretary about becoming a host farm and then got visited by a local contact (they are also a wwoof host on Lewis) to speak to us about WWOOF and tell us of their experiences and answer our questions. What the deal is - someone from anywhere in the world (kind of like foreign exchange!) comes to help you out on your farm/smallholding to get experience, learn about organic farming/gardening and in exchange - you provide bed and board. You do not have to be registered with the Soil Association - just agree with the principles of organic food production and practices. You can be a large outfit or small like us. There is even an organic brewery near Inverness listed!

After filling out the paperwork and paying the small fee, we got listed in their directory after a couple of months. And as soon as we got listed, we had an enquiry from a young woman from Denmark. We didn't expect anyone to contact us as it was quite late in the year (September) and most wwoofers will do Spring and Summer, the busy times. Vibe came to stay with us for three weeks in October - and this was so helpful as it meant that I could get a lot of winter preparation done - digging over vegetable gardens for example. And it was so nice to have someone help me exercise both the horses.

After this first summer, we've had a lot of wwoofers stay with us - from far flung places such as Canada, the Netherlands and Germany. We've managed to get so much done this year because of all the wwoofers coming in and giving us a hand. The polytunnel is growing on very well now, a chicken coop was made and the upstairs to the house was converted to accommodation space for wwoofers.

If you would like to wwoof with us, please use the Contact page to apply to work with us (if you haven't already used our contact details in the WWOOF Host Farm book, that is!).

Please note to potential wwoofers: While we are open-minded to different lifestyles and opinions, there is one thing that we ask... If you have an alcohol or drug related problem, long term medical and/or a major mental health problem that would require specialist help, we do not have the facilities or expertise here to support you and it would put an undue burden on the others here; so please be honest and responsible about it to yourself and us before contacting us. Please, if you are on long-term medication (eg anti-depressants) - do not choose the time of your visit with us to change or withdraw it as stated above - as it would not be appropriate for us to be your support. We ask that you be fit to work. At present, we can only take female wwoofers, either singly or in pairs. If you wish to come as a pair - our experience has been that it is best to limit the visit here to two weeks maximum.

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