Paul Keene, Organic Farmer, Dies at 94

[chlamor]

Paul Keene, Organic Farmer, Dies at 94


Thursday May 19, 2005 1:16 AM

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (AP) - Paul K. Keene, a former missionary who founded one of the nation's oldest organic farms and proved that growing natural foods can be good business, has died. He was 94.

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The Yale-educated son of a minister, Keene ran his Walnut Acres Farm in Penns Creek, about 55 miles north of Harrisburg, for more than half a century until the business was sold in 2000.

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There, Keene became involved in the Indian nationalist movement and met Mohandas Gandhi, who advised him to ``give away everything you have,'' as he told The Associated Press in a 1988 interview. He also met his wife - a British missionary's daughter -- and they spent several years together at organic farming schools before starting the farm. She died in 1987.

In the AP interview, Keene said ``food should be - is - the most important thing in life and one should be more concerned about what one eats than anything else.''
``All joys and all outreach can only be appreciated if you're healthy and don't have to worry about your insides and your outsides,'' he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5015695,00.html