Laulima Farms
It's more than a bicycle-powered blender
Please no smoking because this hale is highly flammable and some of us don't want to smell it and especially don't want to pick up the butts... now this is not a lifestyle judgement [sic] and we definitely still love you even if you do smoke... mahalo nui loa.
- Hand-painted sign hanging over the fruit stand at Laulima Farms.
Laulima Farms was one of the first places I heard about when I got to Maui. "You've got to go to that fruit stand," said some traveler kids from Philadelphia. "They're the nicest people we've hung out with so far on the island."
It was about two months before I had a full weekend to make the long journey through and around Hana to the farms, which are located in Kipahulu. It is an amazing destination on a road that already includes the bamboo forest, Black Sand Beach, the pools of Ohe'o Gulch and Lindbergh's Grave.
Once we got to Kipahulu we found the fruit stand—and Laulima Farms—straight away. You can't miss it—it's built onto the back of a brightly painted Nissan pickup that has a bicycle-powered blender mounted in the bed. The whole thing is parked in front of a big hale shading a large picnic table.
The fruit stand, hale and surrounding farms are operated by Josh Stearn, 30, and Athena Dietrich, 29. They've been co-managing the operation for the last two years, though Stearn and a few other relatives opened the place in 1996 after moving from New York.
"It was all guava and cane grass," said Stearn. "We cleared the land, working about 40 hours a week, and planted papaya and banana orchards. We did the farmers market at the Maui Mall soon after."
Today, they're able to grow a great deal more. Their fruit stand sells papayas, eight different varieties of bananas, avocados, star fruit, several different kinds of lilikoi, an assortment of other citrus fruits, as well as herbs and roots like kava, ginger, and orange and blue turmeric. You can also pick vegetables from the garden.
Everything is organically grown. Prices range generally from about one to four dollars per pound. The café also serves an organic coffee, which you can buy by the half-pound for $20 or a cup for two bucks, in light, medium and dark roasts. They roast small batches each day.
"It's strong but mellow," said Huelo gardener Rona Couper, who sipped a cup with soy milk during her recent visit.
The café also serves smoothies operated by a bike-powered blender, which I just had to hop on and try. For a mere $5, I ended up blending away a sweet, rich blend of the farms' own bananas and papaya juice. But remember that the ice is harder than it looks. Just pretend you're riding uphill.
After drinking my smoothie, Stearn and Dietrich took me on a special tour of their farm. They have several garden plots planted with a variety of leafy greens, onions, root vegetables like taro and sweet potato, beans, eggplant and okra. There were plenty of bees and butterflies flying between the brightly colored flowers, dangerously pointy pineapple plants and fruit trees. Dietrich picked some pods from the ice cream bean tree for us to eat. They tasted even better than cotton candy. Nearby, ducks were roaming around a small pond.
"They're slug-eaters," Dietrich said.
She explained that they planted many hardwood trees for future carpentry projects. In fact, shelters on the land include both conventional and environmentally sustainable buildings—in some, Stearn inlaid complex stone-mosaic floors. There was also a transparent dome donated by a friend where coffee beans were left to dry on a trampoline. Other farm equipment included a small coffee roaster and a sugar cane press from Bali.
Dietrich, Stearn and I then sat in their beautiful open-air kitchen, sipping homegrown coffee.
"'Laulima' means 'many hands' or 'hands together' in Hawaiian," said Stearn, who grew up on a New Zealand farm. "The farm was started eight years ago by my relatives Rich and Virginia von Wellsheim. They wanted to produce a lot of food for Maui." Coming from a food co-op background, Rich and Virginia were interested in bringing people closer to their food source. Stearn was simply looking to buy some land after college, and offered to work in exchange for eventually buying part of the property. That's when they planted the coffee and avocado orchards. Two years later, they started vegetable gardens.
Dietrich, who said she'd grown up in both Hawaii and Alaska, explained that she's been co-managing the farm for the last two years as well, with a particular focus on the flowers and vegetable gardens.
"I started farming when I was 18," she said. "After many years of school I didn't know what to do about environmental and health issues. I looked within and the solution was getting back to necessities, learning how to grow my own food, get clean water and build my own shelter. I got swept away with growing food."
Laulima Farms employs just one other full-time farmer, Kate. She's been on the farm for three years. There are also six volunteer interns who have committed to living, working and learning on the farm for at least a year each.
Matthew is one of the interns. Originally from California's Bay Area, he's worked on the farm for a year and a half and considers it a fair work trade as well as a constant learning experience.
"We're out there weeding, sharing thoughts and information," he told me. "The stand raises awareness with the public, spreading the consciousness of what we're eating." Everyone works two or three days a week at a variety of tasks including weeding, composting, planting, seed-saving, harvesting, drying and roasting coffee and propagating new plants.
Currently between five and six acres of Laulima Farms is under cultivation. They've been certified organic for several years now, though Stearn and Dietrich don't think that's necessary.
"It's more commercial," said Stearn. "We're smaller and are more interested in local agriculture, producing food for the community."
Laulima Farms once sold to all the health food stores on Maui. They still sell 1,600 pounds of noni juice to the Hawaiian Herbal Blessings company each month, but in the past six months they've focused on their roadside fruit stand.
"It costs a lot of money in fuel and wear on the vehicle [to distribute island-wide]," said Stearn.
"The ideal would be for people to come out to the farm, meet us and see where the food is grown," said Dietrich.
"If they like it," added Stearn, "they can buy our stuff, forming a co-op with friends." Towards the end of my visit, a local farmer and customer who said his name was Ted sat at the picnic table by the fruit stand and talked about the dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs—the so-called "Frankenfoods" altered by scientists.
"Hawaii is one of the largest GMO test sites in the country, because it's the most isolated," he said. Then he told me Kipahulu is adamant about forming a GMO-free zone, with local farmers meeting together regularly to organize around such vital issues. Laulima Farms has been integral to that process, in both their political commitment and their experience with more organic farming methods.
"I like technology," said Stearn. "You've just got to know how to use it... I used to grow more monocrops—just fields of certain crops. But I'm drawn to growing a variety of things."
He said they also used to mow and weed-eat the grass regularly, which took a lot of time, energy and fuel. "I knew there had to be a better way," said Stearn.
So for the past few years they have been planting in a more permaculture style—permanent agriculture—which requires a minimum of human input. They replaced grass with a short ground cover of peanuts that never needs to be mowed and also puts or "fixes" nitrogen into the soil. They planted trees next to vegetables for a natural mulching from fallen leaves. Cultivating plants and trees closer together also uses less water and fertilizer.
"The farm is a work in progress," said Dietrich.
Laulima Farms is community-focused, but they still see the larger, global picture.
"I've been told that agriculture is the number one polluter on the planet," said Stearn. "Since one of the most important things for us is to eat, it's a scary thing to think about. And transportation is the second-largest polluter. We shouldn't be buying things from overseas."
For that reason, Laulima Farms is run almost entirely on alternative energy. They use biodiesel—a natural fuel obtained from used vegetable oil—from the Maui Dump in all their farm vehicles.
"I've only used 45 gallons of gas in the past two years," said Stearn. The rest of the farm is run on solar and wind power for the everyday needs of the people who live there. And of course there's the smoothie contraption, which Stearn said was created by a "local genius" named Alistair who tinkered with the bike for several years before finally giving it to Stearn, who made it work.
The Laulima Farms fruit stand also serves as a community education and gathering spot for visitors and local folks who sit at the picnic tables under the hale and talk story. There are books and art supplies on shelves, crafts by local artisans decorate the tables, and flyers and newspaper articles concerning agriculture and sustainability cover nearby bulletin boards. Every Saturday at 2 p.m. there are farm tours available to the public for a $10 suggested donation.
"I always wanted to create a demonstration space, to show how to live a different way and how beautiful, peaceful and sustainable life can be," said Dietrich. "We can create our own energy. If there's some kind of crisis or natural disaster, we can take care of our own needs. The difference between quality food and mainstream agriculture maybe actually could change the world."
The catch to all this? "We never make money," said Stearn. "We're just starting to break even."
But both managers acknowledge that organic farms are often slower to bring in the bucks at first, and are generally compensated later on.
"I'd rather make money in other ways," said Dietrich, who just got her massage therapy license and said she would like to start a small cut-flower business. "It takes the pressure to perform off relying on food for money," she said. "That can be really hard work."
Laulima Farms is located one mile north of Ohe'o Gulch on SR 170. It is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week.