Hopefully by now you’ve had the chance to thoroughly dive into our Green Issue, the April edition of Global Traveler, where we explore Earth-friendly destinations, hotels, airlines and initiatives in the world of travel. Coinciding with the issue and with Earth Day just a week away, I thought I’d share with you a suggestion for one eco-friendly tour and volunteer opportunity I first learned about during our trip to Kaua’i last November.

Late last year I shared some of the details of the three-hour tasting tour we enjoyed at Lydgate Farms in Wailua, Kaua’i in one of my blogs. Owned by a fifth-generation Hawai’i family dedicated to practicing sustainable agriculture, the farm grows a variety of tropical plants and trees yielding an amazing assortment of fruits and other edibles. One of their principle crops is cacao beans, which they process on site and from which they produce premium chocolates. They also grow and process vanilla beans and harvest honey their bees make from foxtail palms on the property.

The mission of Will Lydgate is to nurture the land using sustainable and natural practices and organic fertilizers to grow crops which enhance soil health and improve the land. (Traditional big-money crops like pineapple and sugarcane, whose production ended there in 2017, leached the soil of nutrients.) The farm continues to grow, and production has increased as word has spread of the wonderful chocolate, honey and vanilla they make here. (In 2017, Lydgate’s cacao beans were ranked among the best in the world at the Cacao of Excellence awards in Paris.) It is still a fairly small-scale operation, with a small staff covering all aspects of production, from hand-pollinating vanilla orchids to operating the tours and cracking and scooping the cacao pods by hand.

Recently the farm has started welcoming volunteers to help with the harvest, inviting them to come scoop the smooth, pale cacao beans from the pulp within the pods. Lydgate notes that in Hawai’i, where much agriculture has disappeared due to high labor costs, the “free” help has lifted some of the labor burden from his team . . . and the volunteers enjoy a convivial time of conversation with some chocolate and cacao sorbet as added attractions.

So should you find yourself in Kaua’i, look into a Lydgate Farms tour and consider doing a little eco-friendly voluntourism as well!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor