The V.I. Sustainable Farm Institute billed Saturday as a farm tour day, but it could have been called many things: an organic gourmet’s delight; a friends of the Earth gathering, a gardening workshop or a class on getting to know nature in St. Croix’s rainforest.
Over 50 residents enjoyed those aspects in the green hills as they walked on the farm’s path or sat in the quiet rustic atmosphere of its community center.
“This place is very interesting. I never knew the beauty that was out here. The hills are amazing,” said longtime St. Croix resident Paul Gillette, who made his first visit to the farm Saturday.
Even as residents were enjoying the discussions, the tours, the hikes and the free organic snacks and juices; the institute managed to get in its message out about its fall programs.
The programs range from youth field trips, to adult workshops, and even accredited graduate degree courses. Upcoming workshops include those on slow cooking, tempeh making, seasonal vitality weekends, introduction to permaculture, fruit trees; home garden pest management, bamboo propagation, primitive survival skills, and perennial greens.
Sylvie Augustine, a 1996 graduate of St. Croix Country Day who came to the farm after spending 10 years off-island, is one of the teachers of the Seasonal Vitality Weekend Workshops. These are limited to women who will stay at the farm for the weekend.
The workshops will have no more than eight women to allow for a lot of one-on-one, according to Augustine. “This will be a great way for women to have a vacation without leaving the island of St. Croix,” she said. Her background is in acupuncture, dance and nutrition.
The Sustainable Farm Institute has come along way since founder Ben Jones established it seven years ago, when there were no buildings. Now, besides the large roomy community center with a kitchen and surrounding porch, there are seven cabanas, a seed house, a bath house, and living quarters for staff. The four-hundred-square-foot tree house Jones first lived in when he arrived is still used. He now has a house on the property.
The institute, with its 200 acres of property, mixes technology with local traditions to achieve its environmentally friendly goals. Some of the plants grown, like eyebright, are traditional medicinal plants and the cabanas use solar panels for power.
The institute sells it excess produce at farmer’s market like the one in Beestown Hill, but it also markets them through a website www.vi.locallygrown.net.
“There have been some challenges. This environment forces us to find creative solutions,” Jones said as he manned a table full of information on the porch.
Although growth has been slow, he said, in recent years it has been attracting more and more local public school students as well as students from all over the world.
Some of the classes this fall are affiliated with Gaia University, and Jones says that relationship will grow.
And back to those Saturday snacks. There was a corn crustini that utilized from the farm Thai chili peppers, lantana, and rosemary. A tasty pesto was made with toasted pecans and Parmesan cheese and olives, utilizing basil and lime from the farm. The sautéed pumpkin was from farm pumpkin.
The Sustainable Farm Institute is the only certified organic farm in the world to also be Green Globe certified as a sustainable destination. This year it was selected as a top 10 global finalist as a Geotourism Innovator in a worldwide National Geographic Society contest. The website for the farm is www.visfi.org.
