Paul K. Keene, 94; Founder of Walnut Acres Farm Organic Products

Paul K. Keene, 94, a former missionary who founded one of the nation’s oldest organic farms, died April 23 at a nursing home in Mechanicsburg, Pa.

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

Keene and his wife, Betty, borrowed $5,000 to buy 108 acres in the mid-1940s.

They worked the land without tractors or electricity and grew crops without the man-made fertilizers and pesticides widely used by other farmers.

The fledgling company took off after a newspaper’s glowing review of Walnut Acres’ first product -- apple butter.

By the late 1980s, the firm had grown into a $5-million-a-year business that covered 500 acres and employed 95 people full time.

The operation yielded about 300 organic products that were sold worldwide, including preservative-free peanut butter, granolas and whole-grain flours.

The employee-owned company also gave generously to philanthropic causes.

The Walnut Acres Certified Organic brand was acquired in 2003 by the Hain Celestial Group, which also owns Celestial Seasonings teas, according to a Hain spokeswoman.

Keene, who held a master’s degree in mathematics, became a missionary and teacher in India in the late 1930s where he met Mohandas K. Gandhi, who advised him to “give away everything you have,” he told Associated Press in 1988.

While there, Keene met his wife -- the daughter of British missionaries -- and the two studied organic farming together.

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.”

He added: “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.”

His wife died in 1987.