4 ms·
Ok, this may be a dumb answer but bear with me, I’ll reiterate an idea that I often proposed to a colleague who has a heirloom land and house in Wisconsin: turn
by Jun8 4y ago
Ok, this may be a dumb answer but bear with me, I’ll reiterate an idea that I often proposed to a colleague who has a heirloom land and house in Wisconsin: turn it into a adult farming fantasy retreat!
Two indisputable facts: (1) Most city dwellers like myself dream about a simpler life, working in a farm with their hands, raising up at 5am, harvesting crops, etc. (2) As most people commented farming is back braking work so (1) is just a fantasy for 99.9% of people who think about this.
Why not let people live the farming life, e.g. for 5 days, living on a farm and doing the actual work as well as paying for the experience. I would easily pay $200 a night to live on a coffee plantation during harvesting time to collect and process beans or help operate a combine or milk the cows, etc (am so ignorant about farm life it’s hard to give legitimate examples :-)
I don’t know if this idea already exists in practice. The colleague I propose it with excitement always gave me a bemused but incredulous look!
- zach_garwood 4y agoI think this is a fun idea, but it overlooks the fact that most farming tasks take skill. I think the owner would most likely end up with a trashed farm at the end of the season.
- Jun8 4y agoAbsolutely true. I was thinking more along the lines of having people do manual labor that requires minimal training.
- polotics 4y agoIt doesn't work in practice, because a day of bad work by some non-trained city dweller will most likely do a lot more than 200$ of loss of income, if not straight damage. And then there are the accidents: "was your staff qualified to operate the machine that ate their hand?" ... Best of luck finding insurance for this projecz...
- RosanaAnaDana 4y agoThis is reactionary logic without perspective. Plenty of people currently pay fir lifestyle vacations that have a bit of danger.
- shkkmo 4y agoThe work doesn't have to be unsupervised and doesn't have to be work where mistakes carry large negative risks. Think of it more as an extended tour / homestay with some participatory elements. We know it is possible to do because WWOOFing has been a thing for a long time. The question is more if there is enough of a market to cover the increased costs and maybe loss of productivity.
- rfb 4y agoIt does exist in other forms with WWOOFing, farm stays, etc.. The problem is that while farm work looks simple, there are important skills that need to be developed before a volunteer or guest can be useful on the farm. For example, my first WWOOFing gig asked for at least six weeks so that I could become somewhat useful and offset the costs of food and shelter.