Sustainable farming in St. Croix
Enjoy Slow foods from the spade to the plate
" The cabin, built from Guyanan hardwood, is punctuated with long mahogany tables, used for five course farm fresh meals, served to about two dozen guests twice a month. Visiting local chefs whip up wonders... A donation of $50 feeds you and nourishes sustainable farming."
Maura Curley
Our food often travels more than we do. Corn might come in cans or at least already husked, and our tomatoes may be purchased in supermarket cellophane.
But nourishment is another story, one which is unfolding on more than 100 acres of rolling green hills and valleys, near Frederiksted St. Croix.
More than a decade ago Ben Jones, a native of Georgia, moved to St. Croix to transform neglected farm and pastureland into the Virgin Island Sustainable Farm Institute at Creque Dam Farm.
Family funding, a few grants, and fees from educational programs helps VISFI provide a working farm, which integrates sustainability in education, environment, and community.
Jones estimates the farm annually grows about 13 tons of tomatoes, tentons of cucumbers, and 5,000 pounds of corn. It also produces herbs and salad greens, sugar apples, pineapples, passion fruit, pomegranate, avocados, beans, banana, sugarcane, and a burgeoning bamboo crop, which is used for on site construction.
Produce is sold directly at farm stands throughout the island or by independent vendors via the institute’s Community Support Agriculture program.
According to Jones, this program jump starts farming initiatives by providing produce to raise initial farming capital.
Everything at VISFI is produced organically in a sublimely green setting.
A main cabin, built from Guyanan hardwood, is punctuated with long mahogany tables, used for five course farm fresh meals, served to about two dozen guests twice a month.
Visiting local chefs whip up wonders. Menus included pumpkin soup, fried green tomatoes, farm fresh lamb, Senepol beef, and lobster, followed by a salad with arugula tomatoes, cucumber and deserts of tropical fruit flambé cobblers and farm made coconut or pineapple cream. A donation of $50 feeds you and nourishes sustainable farming.
Solar powered cabanas, also from harvested hardwood, provide accommodations for small Institute sponsored retreats like a Farm Stay Cooking Retreat.
Other programs include farm-tasting tours, and a four-month residential training program for aspiring or experienced farmers who want to to create agricultural systems while protecting the health of downstream ecosystem.
Less visible are its research projects, apprenticeships and independent studies.
Program director Nate Olive says experimenting with Farm Stay tourism programs help augment income so the farm can afford to grow positive things with the land instead of allowing it to become unsustainably developed.
He wants VISFI to create a model for farmers and landowners in the Virgin Islands who still have land to save.
Visit the farm website here
Virginvoices.com photo of farm grown peppers by D.B. Bostdorf
Maura Curley is publisher and senior writer for virginvoices.com
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