Agriculture is New Zealand's major exporting industry. According to the New Zealand External Trade Statistics, in the year 2007, dairy farming alone accounted for about 21 percent of merchandise sold overseas. Like I've already said, there are approximately 10 sheep to every individual human, and you're more likely to meet a Kiwi who grew up with a pet lamb (or goat, or chicken, or horse) than with a pet dog.
So it would make no sense to come to New Zealand and not get the experience of sheering a sheep or digging up kumara (commonly known in America as sweet potatoes). Having grown up in a major urban center, my only understanding of farm life came from nursery rhymes like Old McDonald, which is like wearing the scarlet letter in this mainly rural country.
It was time to broaden my scope to include understanding the folks working behind the scales at the Wellington farmer's market. I wanted a different perspective of daily Kiwi life, rather than limiting my contact to city-slickers like myself. But with so many farms in New Zealand, where do you start?
After talking to some other international students here, I learned about the WWOOF network — World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It's a program set up in New Zealand (and throughout the world) to help travelers get in touch with local organic farmers and engage in a home-stay/indentured servitude arrangement. In exchange for free room and board, a WWOOFer will do a variety of whatever chores and jobs that farm requires. These can range from weeding gardens to milking cows to helping out with household maintenance.
I signed up for the network and a few days later received a booklet with descriptions of all the farms in New Zealand who took WWOOFers. There were hundreds of places to choose from: vineyards, orchards, dairy farms, bed and breakfasts, etc. In the booklet, the farmers described the jobs WWOOFers would be responsible for and also many of their personal interests, like baking bread, astrophysics, meditation and crystal therapy.
Looking for a place felt a bit like online dating, only crunchier. After careful selection (avoiding places that encouraged spiritual cleansing as an alternative to daily ablution), I found a farm in Carterton, a town just an hour north of Wellington. The owners are an older couple who grow apple, pear and nut trees, plant broccoli and raise sheep.
Each day began with feeding the lambs, a task I was all too eager to do, as my girly fascination with adorable baby animals has only amplified while being in New Zealand. Then I would sit down with my farm family for a breakfast of homemade yogurt and homemade crabapple jam on homemade bread. Mornings often entailed of running a few errands in the morning, like going into town to fill up gas tanks or buy some farm supplies.
Afternoons consisted of a few hours of tilling soil in the paddocks, clearing wood or thinning the apple orchard (picking off some apples to make room for others to grow). I drove a tractor and an all-terrain vehicle, feeling far more badass than I probably should have and got a bit carried away with my free access to the bread-maker.
Though farming may not really be my thing, I thoroughly enjoyed my WWOOF experience. I learned the ins and outs of organic farming and the difficulties they experience trying to work with nature, rather than against it. I've gained an appreciation for the land and the food I eat, learned how to make my own jam and got a chance to exchange cultural views with a Kiwi family.
WWOOFing was a memorable way of getting to know the backbone of New Zealand. However, I do look forward to returning to the city, where there are no roosters and I don't have to trudge through sheep poo on my way home.
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Ally Gimbel is a junior majoring in English. She can be reached at Allyson.Gimbel@tufts.edu.
