Maui Aloha 'Aina invites you to 'experience abundance'
by Rob Parsons
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This
Saturday, four Robert's Hawaii buses will shuttle 100 enthusiasts
around the "back-side" to one of Maui's unique and fertile growing
regions—Kipahulu. Vincent Mina, founder of Maui Aloha 'Aina Association
(MA'A), which is the event's main sponsor, says spots are still
available but that the event is close to being sold out at press time.
The
tour affords a rare opportunity to visit and observe four separate
organic farm operations, with expert soil analyst and Hawaii farmer Bob
Shaffer also on board. "The strong part of Kipahulu," Mina says, "is
diversity: fruits, taro, veggies, bamboo, all possible because of
Southern exposure and good rainfall and soil." A gourmet lunch will
feature local exotic fruits, taro-breadfruit-sweet potato salad, home
brewed ginger kombucha and Maui grass-fed beef for the non-vegetarians.
With
early morning bus pickup in Wailuku and Kula, the farm tour caravan
will meander over the seldom-traveled Piilani Highway through Kanaio,
Kahikihui and Kaupo, with stunning vistas from the mountain to the
ocean. The initial stopping point is Kapahu Taro Farm, where Mina
worked some 20 years ago with Uncle Harry Mitchell and Hawaiian Studies
students from UH Manoa to open historic lo'i, or terraced patches. The
farm is now tended by the Kipahulu 'Ohana, which operates cultural
interpretive programs through an agreement with Haleakala National Park.
Next,
the group will visit Laulima Farm, a certified biodynamic operation
that offers a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, flowers and tinctures.
Their popular fruit stand features an array of homegrown produce, as
well as organic coffee and even a pedal-powered blender for fruit
smoothies. Laulima offers apprenticeships for folks interested in
learning biodynamic farming methods.
Lunch happens across the
road at the Kalena Center certified kitchen. Mina emphasizes: "This is
not a box lunch—it's gourmet local food."
Early afternoon will
bring the group to Whispering Winds Bamboo Nursery, providing a glimpse
of an agricultural operation "dedicated to advancing sustainability and
ecological agriculture on the Hawaiian Islands." They grow more than 40
varieties of non-invasive clumping bamboos, including those used for
ornamental landscaping, edible shoots, furniture or instrument-making,
and for construction-grade building materials. "We are committed to
educating the public," reads their Web site, "to the possibilities of
bamboo to feed us, shelter us, to protect our soils and watersheds and
to add more jobs to our economy."
Stephan Reeve's Ornament of
Earth Sustainable Food Farm is the final location of the tour. "Stephan
has all the diverse components of what's needed to feed and sustain
himself," Mina says. "He has created a 10-acre edible landscape that is
also a work of art. Hopefully people will leave his place with an
expanded vision of what's possible."
Mina, whose own commercial
family operation provides several varieties of fresh sprouts and sprout
mixes, says the tour is really a follow-up to a sold-out visit made
back in 2002. "The investment," he says, "is what [people] do with the
experience when they leave, to support what they want."
October
is usually the month for MA'A's Body & Soil Conference, a two-day
event featuring national experts, often held at a working Upcountry
organic farm. This year, the conference will be held in January and
will follow the premise that building healthy soil nurtures healthy
nutrient-dense plants, which in turn nurture healthy bodies.
Mina
hopes both the tour and the conference will offer ecological
inspiration. "We're giving people an opportunity to experience
abundance," he says, "to let their innate experiences of nature
surface." Maui Time Weekly, Rob Parsons
More info on the Kipahulu farm tour and the Body and Soil Conference can be found here: www.mauialohaaina.org