Working on a farm abroad: what is it, where is the best place to go, and are you insured?

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What does working on a farm abroad involve?

  • Working on a farm means that you work temporarily as a seasonal or summer worker for an agricultural company. This can range from working as a fruit picker in France to herding cattle in Australia and from milking organic goats in Chile to working together within a permaculture community in the tropics.
  • Employment: There is always a chance of work if you knock on a farmer's door. Many farms, especially in Europe, but certainly also in Australia and New Zealand, are usually looking for assistance, especially during the busy seasons. Small-scale farms often have work for unskilled (or non-agriculturally trained) people and will also be more open to a construction with room and board.
  • Activities: There is a huge variety of seasonal jobs within agriculture and livestock farming. It can help to have experience with driving a tractor, horse riding or other work on a farm, or to have at least some feeling for working with machinery or farm animals.

Why should you work on a farm abroad?

  • To stimulate your sense of involvement: sometimes you work very intensively with the same people on a farm for a long time, you often also sleep in a room with them: you have to like that, but you also make friends for life.
  • To make the world around you more sustainable: by looking for work in organic farming, permaculture, or for example in the production of goat cheese, you can nicely combine your work and interests.
  • To be profitable in a creative way: Some small farmers will not be able to pay you a wage, but offer a place to sleep and food in exchange for work.
  • To gain new experiences: During your stay on a farm and when you go to work, you experience much more than if you were to travel around alone.
  • To increase your self-awareness: further away from your familiar environment, you discover more quickly what you can actually do and what you actually want. By going to work, you encounter yourself more often, you get to know yourself better and accept who you are and want to be. To test your environmental awareness: living and working in rural areas allows you to experience a foreign culture in a completely different and more authentic way than, for example, working in tourism.

Where is the best place to go for farm work abroad?

  • Australia: working holiday, agricultural work, fruit picking
  • Canada: working holiday, agricultural work
  • Chile: fruit picking, livestock farming
  • France: agricultural work, fruit picking, grape picking
  • Italy: agricultural work, fruit picking
  • Ecuador: tropical agriculture, coffee, cocoa and permaculture
  • New Zealand: working holiday, fruit picking, agricultural work
  • Spain: olive picking, viticulture
  • South Africa: ecolodges, ranches

What do you need if you want to work on a farm?

  • Professionalism: you often have to work hard and hard, which is why the average slacker usually doesn't last long on a farm. Flexibility weather conditions, animal behaviour and plant growth do not always go according to plan, which means that your flexibility will often be called upon.
  • Collaborative skills: being able to learn to work together with a group of seasonal workers or with the farm family will always be necessary.

To what extent are you insured for the risks of working on a farm or in livestock farming

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    Tip category: 
    Paid work & Work for board and lodging
    Related organization or sector:
    Organizations: for ecological agriculture, grape picking, farming and vineyards
    Tip: type
    Activities & Vacancies
    Tip: date of posting
    15-10-2024

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    Related content in the field of:
    WWOOF & WOOFING

    WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and was founded in 1971. WWOOF aims to promote, protect and support alternative ways of living. Through this it strives to enable exchanges in organic farming to give an idea of how we can live sustainably.

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