This paper examines a marriage of these trends in the form of volunteer tourism on organic farms.
In particular, this study aims at evaluating the benefits farmers receive through Worldwide Opportunities
on Organic Farms (WWOOF), an organization that matches host farms with tourist volunteers in
an effort to support the development of sustainable agriculture. This paper examines this form of tourism
from the perspective of farmers in North and South Carolina in the United States who have used
volunteers to support their work. This study provides an important perspective on volunteer tourism
from the perspective of farmers that has heretofore remained under-examined in other projects that
primarily focus on the experiences of tourists. The project grew out of initial skepticism that volunteers
could provide significant value to farms due to their inexperience with agricultural practices
or lack of effort. However, the outcome of this study suggests that WWOOF volunteers serve several
critical functions in the development of host farms, and more broadly in circumstances where volunteer
tourism can serve to mitigate local labor market failures.