Living on the wwoof

AUDREY Petiot, a young Frenchwoman, came to Ireland to volunteer for four weeks on Annie King’s 5.5 acre organic farm outside Bantry in west Cork but she stayed five months.

With rich and productive soil, King’s farm is a great place to be for a wwoofer — the nickname for volunteers who avail of World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It’s an exchange of bed and board for farm labour.

“I heard about wwoofing from a friend and first tried it in Italy,” says Petiot. “Then I thought Ireland would be great.” Petiot grew up in Dijon but was a summer visitor to her grandparents’ farm in the country. “I sent them parsnip seeds from Ireland. We don’t really grow much parsnips so it will be new for them,” she says.