Ariana Salvo
Ariana Salvo was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her family moved to California when she was one year old, and to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus when she was six. Her interest in islands began in childhood when she learned that her father's family were from the island of Sicily, and her mother's family had owned sugar plantations in Barbados.
Ariana developed a deep love for the natural world at a young age, spending much of her childhood immersed in exploring the Cypriot hills, mountains, shores and plains, and drawing, painting, photographing, and writing about the island's culture and landscape. Small-scale agriculture marked every contour of her life: from watching the almond blossoms transform the patchwork of hillside orchards into clouds of pale pink sweetness in springtime; to helping her friends harvest lemons, oranges, mandarins, bananas, olives and grapes; to watching the level of water in the island's reservoirs quickly drop as the ongoing drought worsened, and the younger generations move into urban areas, leaving the tending of farmland to their grandparents. Ariana's family connection to farming was her grandfather who always kept a vegetable garden next to his home in Connecticut which Ariana loved to help him tend when she visited family in the United States.
When Ariana graduated high school, she spent time travelling throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and parts of the Middle East. What she saw increased her concern about the lack of culturally and environmentally sensitive development planning, and the rapid loss of the traditional small-scale family farms that had characterized the Mediterranean for centuries. Ariana decided to dedicate her life to finding ways that islands can be actively engaged in the global economy without sacrificing the unique cultural and landscape characteristics that islanders and visitors alike value most about islands.
In 2001, Ariana completed her Bachelors degree at Prescott College, in Arizona, with a double major in international environmental law and creative writing and moved back to Europe to work. But her interest in pursuing further research on islands grew. In 2004 she began her Master's degree in Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada. Ariana immediately started finding ways to take her research outside of the classroom and into the rural farming and fishing communities of Prince Edward Island. In her first semester, she did a research project on the Southwest River, spending extensive hours exploring the north shore of the Island, interviewing farmers and fishers living in the area, and recording rich stories about the intimate and powerful relationship between Prince Edward Islanders and their island.
In 2006, wanting to find ways that her learning could benefit the island on which she was raised, Ariana applied for, and was awarded a United Nations grant to spend six months in Cyprus interviewing farmers in both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities about the influence of European Union agriculture policy on the development of organic farming in Cyprus. Her report, published in Greek, Turkish and English, was distributed to government officials, farming and educational organizations, and local non-governmental organizations.
Upon returning to Prince Edward Island, Ariana turned the focus of her research to trying to understand why farmers choose to continue farming despite the challenges they are facing today, and what makes a farmer choose farming methods that preserve healthy communities, clean waterways, rich soils and diversity of wildlife over less sustainable options. Ariana was curious about the role values played in the choices island farmers were making. Her research again took her out into the fields to interview farmers about values and practices that could preserve what they valued most about their home.
In 2008, Ariana graduated with her Master's degree in Island Studies, and began working with Raymond Loo, one of the farmers that she had interviewed for her Master's thesis. She spent her first six months farming, wanting to experience for herself some of the joys of farming that farmers had described to her. Over the last year she has spent some time doing fieldwork, but has also taken on the position of Production Coordinator for Anne's PEI Farm. Her work has included interviewing and photographing all of the farmers who are growing for Anne's PEI Farm so that you can enjoy their stories here; helping to organize a workshop on Japanese Organic Standards for our soybean growers; writing reports and correspondence; coordinating meetings between farmers; helping to organize a visit to the Island by our current buyers in Japan; photographing the blackcurrant, canola and soybean harvests; and continuing to help coordinate the collaboration between our island farmers, processors, and buyers in Japan. Ariana is also working with a web designer on an ongoing basis to keep our website updated with new photographs and stories. She hopes that you enjoy our website, and that you come visit Prince Edward Island in person some day soon!