Fresh generation of volunteers takes road to organic farms

In 27-year-old Chris Becker's cramped New York City apartment building, neighbors rarely greeted one another beyond a head nod or a grunt.

Mr. Becker, a chef, spent 2 ½ hours commuting every day and worked up to 80 hours a week in a restaurant where chicken with sage, sangiovese, schiacciata and carrots went for $90.

Now he's given it all up to harvest vegetables in the hot Texas sun – without pay.

Mr. Becker and his wife, Amanda Becker, 28, are spending the summer on an organic farm near Waco run by World Hunger Relief, a nonprofit that provides free dormlike housing and food to young volunteers in exchange for their labor.

And it's not just the Beckers. Twenty-somethings across the country are fleeing the cities and suburbs to volunteer on organic farms.

World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms-USA, one of the best-known organizations matching volunteers with organic farms, quintupled its membership between 2003 and 2007. Last year, it had 2,643 volunteers, including 59 from Texas.

Now, not only does Mr. Becker know all of his neighbors, he shares hand-harvested meals with them nearly every day. He showers with rainwater collected from his roof. He can milk a goat. And he knows that "pushing the poop down the chute" means knocking down the build-up in the latrines when they get too full.

"Part of understanding food and how to cook it is understanding where it comes from," Mr. Becker said, explaining why he left New York.

Some volunteers work for a week, others a year or more. But all in all, this new generation of farmers is frustrated with mainstream consumer culture, disturbed by the corporatization of farming and aching for a break from stressful, fast-paced lives.

Plus, the fresh-off-the-vine tomatoes are really that good.

"It's definitely a trend. It's kind of like the cool thing to do," farm manager David Cole, 27, said about the influx of young volunteers over the past few years. "Most of the people that seem to be really going after it are people that have no farm experience at all."

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Sounds like a good experience for a young person to give them some perspective on life as well as getting back to nature.