My friend, Beth Gibans, who has died aged 58 of cancer, was an organic farmer who liked to share her experiences with others in the hope that they would follow in her footsteps.
Born in San Francisco, Beth was the youngest of the four children of Nina (nee Freedlander) and Jim Gibans, who had spent a year in Britain on an architectural Fulbright fellowship, working to help restore Liverpool after the second world war, before resettling in Nina’s birthplace, Cleveland, in Ohio, after their marriage.
Beth went to Hawken school in Cleveland, and then the University of Michigan, where she spent a year in Costa Rica studying indigenous agriculture. After college she worked for public interest research groups and became involved in sustainable agriculture while serving as an intern for the Land Institute in Kansas.
This led to an apprenticeship in ecological horticulture at the University of California, Santa Cruz, after which she set up her own business, Sauvie Island Organics, near Portland, with another Santa Cruz apprentice.
When she married Leon Werdinger, a photographer, in 2003, she moved to Joseph, Oregon, in the Wallowa mountains in the north-east of the state, and started her own farm, Backyard Gardens, which provided customers with a full season of whatever produce was available.
A community educator at heart, to help her on the farm she hired recent college graduates as apprentices, providing them with hands-on practical experience and the skills to set up their own ventures. During the winter months, she took her knowledge on the road to share her experience at meetings and lectures.
An avid online reader of the Guardian, Beth’s commitment was to teamwork, community building and environmental stewardship – an approach that was recognised by an Agriculture Leadership award from the Wallawa County Chamber of Commerce.
She is survived by Leon, her siblings, Amy, David and Jonathan, three nephews, Kelsey, Cody and Andrew, and a niece, Melissa.
