Organic farmer goes where the gigs are
May 24, 2011
474-5042
May 8, 2011
After 25 years in Alaska, when Ginger Meta decided to make a major life change she said goodbye to Fairbanks in January and hello to Kaunakakai, Hawaii.
It proved a good move.
Meta, who was a familiar figure to Noel Wien Library patrons because she had worked and volunteered there for the past decade, took a hard look at her life and made some huge adjustments. While she loved Fairbanks, she wasn’t sure the future would be very bright for her here. At 54, she became determined to set out on a new path, an agricultural one. She sold her belongings and found someone to care for her cat and then flew to Hawaii.
As she loves to garden and cook from scratch, Meta thought learning how to grow food would be useful. “We are facing a serious food crisis in this nation,” Meta said. “So much is wrong with the way that we grow food today—animal cruelty in the confined, concentrated animal feed lots, erosion and pollution of the ground water by fertilizer runoff, high rates of cancer in farm workers—it’s scary.”
Meta said that by learning to farm in the traditional organic manner advocated by Robert Rodale and other pioneers she might be able to make a small difference. “The problem we are facing in this nation is huge, but I remember that ants build their big anthills one grain of sand at a time,” she said.
After consulting with the local Job Center to assess her skills and look for opportunities, Meta found a nice fit through the Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas, a national program about sustainable agriculture. This information center helped her find a place to learn the new skills she was seeking; she spent the winter at Pu’u O Hoku (translates to Hill of Stars) Ranch as an intern.
“It’s been quite an adventure, let me tell you,” Meta said. “Amazing” was the word she chose to describe her winter, with lovely breezes and fresh, rain-washed air traded in for Fairbanks’ cold and dark. She marveled at the birds, insects and the stars in the clear, dark sky. One disappointment was the familiar whine of mosquitoes. “These little guys are stealthier and faster than ours,” she wrote.
The two things that kept her sane were doing her yoga practice to help her stay limber with all the manual labor she took on and dusting herself with baby powder to stay comfortable in the heat and humidity.
Her job was helping to grow vegetables such as lettuce and kale for the ranch owner and guests. When not in the garden, Meta worked around the ranch, whacking weeds and taking on other chores. The garden was located a mile from the house, and she would travel there on a small, slow-moving utility vehicle. As the farm follows biodynamic practices, it has not used herbicides or pesticides for 20 years. Pu’u O Hoku grows papayas, bananas and awa, along with grass fed beef.
When the tsunami hit the islands in March, old friends in Fairbanks worried about Meta, but she was quick to reassure them. “Molokai fared quite well thanks to the extensive reef system that surrounds the island,” she explained. On her walk to town the day after the tsunami she found coconuts, driftwood, seaweed and debris littering the road and had to wade through four inches of sea water.
“It was really weird finding shrimp and small fish stranded on the blacktop,” Meta said. “It only served to remind me of the awful power of nature and the fragility of our lives.”
In late April Meta left Hawaii for Oroville, Wash. Her next gig is working at the 3-Bell Ranch in the Okanogan Valley canyons and river valleys. The ranch produces hay, natural beef and rabbit, and adheres to organic practices.
Meta will be a WOOFer, part of the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, a network that links volunteers with earth-friendly farms.
For now, Meta’s adventures in the world of agriculture continue. Even though she misses Fairbanks friends and the life she came to know here, she is facing the future with a bright outlook, all the while digging, weeding and watering with a smile on her face.
Since she has been through some hard times herself, Meta does not lose sight of those who can’t afford food. “I hope that I will be in a position to help them by growing some extra food—good, wholesome, nutritious, organic food,” she said.
This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Nancy Tarnai is the school and station’s public information officer. She can be reached at ntarnai@alaska.edu.