No Panic, Go Organic. It's on the chest of everybody who tends the soil at MA'O Farm, cradled in the spectacular bowl of Lualualei Valley, and it's pretty much on their minds all the time.

MA'O is a kind of Hawaiian acronym for mala (garden), 'ai (food) and 'opio (young folks), and it was created nearly a decade ago as a kind of agricultural Youth-Build project — kids work as farmers in cutting-edge organic farming, learning a possible trade while also earning a stipend and scholarship. With the help of government and private grants, the project has become successful enough to expand into nearly a million dollars in sales last year, providing organic produce to restaurants and markets.

One of these restaurants is Nobu Waikiki. And so it was pretty exciting for the MA'O kids to have superstar chef Nobu Matsuhisa and his posse of Waikiki chefs pay a visit to the farm last week, along with some observers from the Administration for Native Americans, glad to be away from the snowstorm in Washington.

The MA'O folks focus on a spiritual connection to the land, and a visit to the farm is kind of culty, complete with chanting and an introduce-yourself sit-down, with the phrase “;No Panic, Go Organic”; used as punctuation.

“;MA'O is about a movement to bring healthy organic farming back, something Hawaiians have been fighting for a long time,”; said MA'O educator Kamuela Enos. “;We were once a strong, healthy people.”;

Despite the native Hawaiian focus, interns and workers at the farm hail from all over the world.

Matsuhisa listened politely and then made a big smile. “;I'm so happy to be here today! I love it! It's exactly my philosophy to work together.”;

“;The term is co-producers,”; said Enos. “;We're all co-producers.”;

The tour moved on to the washing shed where students were scrubbing produce. Most produce is picked in the cool hours just before dawn, with the interns wearing headlamps in the darkness. “;Young people, good to work longer hours! Ha!”; said Matsuhisa. “;I feel the energy here.”;

It turns out that there's a fairly strict timetable between the field and the dinner table. Matsuhisa picked up a piece of cilantro and chewed it.

“;When this picked?”; he asked.

A watch and a clipboard were checked. Two hours ago. Matsuhisa nodded — apparently the cilantro tasted two hours old — and he worked his way through the crowded washing shed, noshing and chatting. The chef was delighted to discover a grease-penciled scheduling board for various restaurants, and there right in the middle was Nobu Waikiki.

MA'O has outgrown its original facilities, but the farm has been hard at work revitalizing an abandoned chicken farm next door. There are rebuilt, much larger and modern facilities awaiting only final construction inspection.

Moving into the fields, Matsuhisa stopped and sniffed a handful of soil.

“;The soil in this valley is among the best in the world for growing vegetables,”; explained MA'O CEO Gary Maunakea-Forth. “;It's called vertisol and has a high concentration of clay that holds in nutrients. We add only animal and chicken waste, and blood-meal fertilizers, as growing things organically is all about the soil, not the plants.”;

The crops are rotated so that the soil is constantly surprised. It also confuses the bugs, said Enos.

As Matsuhisa nibbled on a sprout of kale, one of the interns asked how it was best prepared. “;What can you do to cook?”; explained Matsuhisa. “;Raw, boiled, fried, baked, sauteed, broiled, salad, stew — only so many ways of preparing something. But you should try each way, all the ways, to find out which best brings out the natural flavor.”;

At the site of the new washing sheds, MA'O carpenter Tim Reith was constructing a no-nails gazebo and a retaining wall of stone — “;the bones of the land, and we have plenty of bone here”; — complete with an arch of lava-colored adobe cob. Next up is a baking oven, something that also pleased Matsuhisa. It turns out he has an identical oven at his home, in which he bakes for his employees, whom he calls “;family.”;

They all gathered in the arch opening, the portal between the new and the old, for a group picture. “;Say sushi!”; shouted Matsuhisa, and they all laughed heartily at the oldest tourist joke in the world. You only do that for family, indeed.