WWOOF!

Hutch McClendon’s booth at the Red Stick Farmers Market features two things: fresh produce from his Gurley, La., farm, Oakland Organics, and a handful of young people known as WWOOFers who help him grow it. Natives of France, Israel, England, Canada, the U.S. and other corners of the world, they’re part of a global network of sustainable agriculture enthusiasts who spend months at a time living and working on farms around the world.

“Here, try a wax bean,” says Atlanta native Daniel Spiro to a passing customer. Spiro, 23, has worked on Oakland Organics since September, after graduating from Columbia University with a degree in English. “I really wanted to be outside working in the organic food movement,” he says.

McClendon, a former software executive who launched Oakland Organics last fall, says the WWOOFers have been a fundamental part of the farm’s speedy trajectory. He became a vehement supporter of organic foods after his wife Prentiss was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer three years ago. While she underwent extensive treatment in isolation at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, McClendon started farming, a gift to his wife and a commitment to a new dream. But bringing the farm to scale proved a mammoth task.

Back home with Hutch and their four young children last May, Prentiss researched volunteer programs that paired young idealists with farms. “I had worked on farms in my twenties in California and the Pacific Northwest, and just had amazing experiences,” says Prentiss, 41. Oakland joined World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), a network launched in England in 1971, and has had a stream of volunteers ever since. They serve for a few months and move on, bringing personal talents and leaving with farm skills. About 15 WWOOFers are working now at Oakland.

“The WWOOFers have enabled us get things up and running much faster than if we hadn’t had them,” says McClendon. “Just having them around has been an incredible experience.”

WWOOFers don’t earn money for their work, but they do receive free room and board. At Oakland, that could mean bedding down in a bunkhouse atop an 1871 plantation kitchen or camping under an expanse of live oaks and stars, the choice of about half the group, even in nasty weather. That’s the case for WWOOFers Katharine Stowe and Reed Spector, who worked on farms in Texas before stumbling upon Oakland Organics at the Red Stick Farmers Market while biking through Baton Rouge.

Stowe helps determine what gets harvested and how much of it goes to local chefs and regional markets or is assigned to the farm’s new Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Spector is helping Prentiss McClendon establish an edible forest, where chanterelles and other mushrooms, fiddlehead ferns and berries will live in balance among the property’s live oaks and other trees.

Stowe, 23, says the WWOOFers follow a daily chore list that could have them weeding, harvesting, planting, cooking or cleaning. “There’s always something to do,” she says. “People arrive, and they jump in and contribute. I don’t know how you could leave something like this and not care about things.”