It's probably fair to say most of Maui's visitors don't have handpicking organic lettuce at the top of their to-do list. That is not, however, keeping a growing number of travelers from delighting in Oo Farm's gourmet lunch tours, where gathering your own salad greens on the slopes of a dormant volcano is enthusiastically encouraged.
"We have a communal basket we carry around," said Richard Clark, the farm's manager. "And I usually say to folks, 'This is not my basket, it's your basket. So if it gets left on the ground, pick it up.'
"Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of people who like to pick their own stuff," he added with a laugh. "On an average tour, there'll be two or three people who get really excited about it."
Mondays through Thursdays, starting at about 10:30 a.m., you'll generally find Clark guiding groups of 20 people or so through the 8.5-acre farm, answering questions about biodiversity and the range of organic techniques used on site to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for a pair of popular Maui restaurants.
"A lot of people are interested in all-natural farming and sustainability because it's a hot topic, so there's definitely a genuine interest in the educational part," he said. "We end up with a lot of people, both local people and mainlanders, that have land themselves and just want to do something good with it. They're interested in what we're doing and how we're doing it, so they can try it themselves."
The farm, whose name means to grow or ripen in Hawaiian, was purchased in 2000 by the owners of the Pacifico and Io restaurants in Lahaina and has been providing guided tours for more than 10 years. Guests not only get the chance to enjoy upcountry Maui's jaw-dropping ocean vistas, along with the farm's serenity and a host of information about biodynamics and sustainability, but they are also treated to a gourmet meal featuring food grown on site and locally caught fish.
"It's a glorious spot," said Kathy Clarke, owner of the Maui-based destination management company Kathy Clarke Hawaii. "You can see both sides of the island down the slopes of the mountain, [and] clients get a very authentic, special experience up there. Between the location, the views, the chef, the farm itself and the produce, it's just lovely."
Clarke has been assisting meetings and incentives groups with Maui itineraries for 32 years and said Oo Farm has been an excellent option for a continually growing number of visitors interested in ecotourism.
"I don't think we have the kind of visitors that want just sand, ocean and palm trees," she said. "They are truly looking for something different. They want to experience the culture, the island, the land, and all of that is very much represented up there at the farm."
The tour also offers travelers a chance to better understand one of Hawaii's biggest everyday challenges.
According to Clark, about 85% of all the food consumed on the Islands is produced outside of the state, and while the produce grown at Oo is used almost exclusively by the Pacifico and Io restaurants, he said the farm provides an example of how Hawaii could use organic farming to become entirely self-sustainable.
"The proprietors often refer to it as a pioneering project, which is a nice way of saying none of us had farmed before, and we didn't know what we were doing," Clark said. "We started with one vegetable garden, and as an Io restaurant employee I was volunteering with a couple of other guys at first, and it just sort of grew from there."
Today the farm produces up to 60 different fruits and vegetables depending on the season, from leafy greens like lettuce, spinach and arugula to fruits such as strawberries, loquats, apples, grapes and tangerines and a range of herbs such as lemongrass, kaffir lime and mint. The farm is also home to 1,100 coffee trees.
"Most recently we discovered purslane, an edible weed that's super-high in omega-3 fatty acids but moist, crunchy and succulent," Clark said. "Whether the chefs use it or not, we've got all this weird stuff that we try and experiment with."
Oo Farm's gourmet lunch tours are $50 per person. Folks will need a car to get to the upcountry Kula location and should consider bringing a bottle of wine to go with lunch.
Visit www.oofarm.com.