
Locally Abundant
In summer 2011, two Maritimers, Justin Cantafio and Ryan Oickle, leave Halifax, Nova Scotia, and spend just under four months traveling across Canada and back, reaching as far as the Discovery Islands archipelago in British Columbia. Using the WWOOF network (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), they live and work on ten small-scale organic farms along the way, becoming temporary members of each operation rather than passing observers. They film their own footage, write blog entries for the WWOOF network, and collect data for the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada, testing their working hypothesis that small farms can be both a viable alternative to industrial agriculture and a foundation for healthier communities. The film is their own record of that trip, built around conversations with the farmers hosting them and the daily labor of planting, harvesting, and running a small operation. Made independently and without a professional crew, it works as a firsthand account of what the WWOOF system actually looks like on the ground, farm by farm, across the country.