ECHO, which stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, is a non-profit, inter-denominational Christian organization dedicated to fighting world hunger through innovative ideas, information, seeds and agricultural training. The “Global Village” is a demonstration farm located in North Fort Myers, Florida, which introduces the public to ECHO’s work. I’ve toured ECHO before, but the many facets of the work that they do here and the many people dedicated to the mission of ECHO are endlessly interesting and worthy of note. The tour begins in the gift shop/ticket office, which has all kinds of reference books and literature related to agriculture. Bob, our guide on this day, had been to Haiti five times in the past for agricultural development purposes. In the adjoining auditorium, we saw a brief video describing ECHO’s mission of finding global hunger solutions. ECHO also has an intern program, whereby college grads train for one year on the farm to get hands-on experience growing tropical crops.
Entrance to the ECHO Global Bookstore/Gift Shop/Ticket Office
A huge sweet potato grown from an ECHO plant
Some of the produce grown on the farm is for sale to visitors.
ECHO seeds for sale
ECHO sends trial seed packets of over 300 varieties of promising but hard-to-find tropical crops to different parts of the world.
Becky and ECHO Tee shirts for sale
Great ECHO hat and shirt
Robert next to books on agriculture
Fruit display with the entrance to the small auditorium in the background
The auditorium where a video introducing the work of ECHO is shown
Bob is our tour guide this morning.
Intern wall
These are the photos of the current interns on the Global Farm.
ECHO has a nursery where visitors can buy plants and trees. The nursery man gives complete information on growing any plant or tree in the nursery.
Moringa seedlings
I bought two of these little trees. The tree is considered a “Miracle Tree.” Moringa leaves contain seven times the vitamin C in oranges, four times the calcium in milk, four times the vitamin A in carrots, two times the protein in milk and three times the potassium in bananas. That’s a lot of nutrition for one tree! AND the powdered seeds are used to purify dirty water. More on that later.
Moringa with butterfly
Even butterflies like it, even though there is no bloom.
Various types of bamboo for sale in the nursery
Entrance to the ECHO Global Farm
Prickly Pear blossoms
The Prickly Pear Cactus is a perennial food source for humans and animals in dry climates.
A graceful Mexican Weeping tree
Papaya is a fast growing and high yielding fruit providing both income and food.
Entrance to the Global Farm
The Global Farm is organized by areas that are devoted to agriculture in particular climates with particular topography.
Tall bamboo
The first such climate is the “Hot Humid Lowlands,“ such as in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Tall bamboo is grown in this kind of climate.
All different varieties of bamboo
A Neem Tree
The Neem tree is a multi-purpose tree. A natural insecticide can be made from the leaves and seeds; the twigs, which contain a bactericide, can be chewed and used as toothbrushes; and the seeds contain oil which can be used for soaps, skin lotions and oil for home heating and lighting.
The Duck/Tilapia Pond features ducks and fish integrated into a sustainable farming system which relies on duck manure to stimulate the growth of phytoplankton, which is then eaten by the tilapia. Tilapia thrive in warm tropical ponds with low oxygen levels. They eat algae, small plants and insect larvae; they begin reproducing when they are only two inches long, so farmers must harvest the large fish in order to allow the smaller fish room to grow.
Ducks are useful in the Tropics because they have fewer disease problems than chickens, and duck eggs taste similar to chicken eggs.
ECHO has words of wisdom for all of us: raise worms at home to recycle your kitchen waste, produce rich, healthy soil for your plants and have a ready-made excuse to go fishing with your own bait. Bob shows us a tire used as a compost bed.
The worm-bed close-up
Bob fished a worm out and put it on the corrugated metal cover.
Worm compost beds can be fed using vegetable scraps, shredded paper, grass cuttings, leaves and manure. These beds process scraps efficiently, producing high quality compost for the farmer’s garden or field.
A rice seeder in a rice bed
Rice is a common crop in the lowlands. ECHO has two plots of rice. In one, the traditional way of growing rice is shown: rice is planted and then flooded during the entire growing season. A new method of planting rice is called the System of Rice Intensification. Seedlings are transplanted at a younger age, plants are more widely spaced, and the soil is damp, but not flooded. (SRI) offers multiple benefits over traditional rice cultivation: there is less dependence on continual flooding; seed costs are reduced by 80-90%; and production is increased by 50-100%. However, it is more labor intensive than the traditional method.
In the “Tropical Highlands” section of the Global Farm, steep land is subject to severe eroding. Typical examples of this topography is in the highlands of Peru, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Nepal. Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT) is a system of planting hedges of nitrogen-fixing trees along the contour of a slope. It uses the tree roots to stabilize the slope and prevent soil erosion as well as provide fuel and animal forage to farmers. Bob demonstrates a device to guide terracing, which acts kind of like a plumb line to keep the terrace level.
Craig is an intern from Illinois who has just picked some rhubarb. The interns eat and learn to cook produce grown on the farm.
Craig is taking produce to be sold at the Visitors Center.
Vanessa is an intern from Northern California, whose Masters degree was in Sustainable Development. She has spent time in Africa and intends to go back when she has finished her internship.
Terraced land with a lush vegetable garden
Terraced land with crops
Tires can be recycled in many ways.
A well-dressed scarecrow is guarding the crops.
This is a goat-house to you and me, but at ECHO, it is a Zero Graze Unit. It is a method of goat production that allows for easy collection of manure for use as fertilizer. (Notice the containers under the floor of the shack.) It provides the 5 Ms: Milk, Manure, Meat, Muscle and Money. However, it is more labor intensive because forage and water must be brought to the goat daily.
This handsome and sleek fellow in profile
The inside of the goat house
The goat eats by sticking its head through the slats. Its food is in bins at the front of the shack. Check out the slatted floor, which allows goat droppings to fall through to the containers below the shack and then to be used as fertilizer.
A rabbit house.
Rabbits have a number of advantages to raising them. They eat many types of greens and convert this forage into meat which people eat. Their manure can be applied directly to plants, unlike other animal manure. Raising rabbits takes up less of an initial investment, and a rabbit farm takes up little space.
Robert and the black bunny are communicating
Robert and bunny eyeball to eyeball
Pink-eyed baby bunnies
“Tippy Tap” contraption
Proper hand-washing can reduce diarrhea disease by 42-47%. Designed in Zimbabwe, Tippy Taps are simple, economic hand-washing stations made from locally available materials. They are not dependent on piped water and require a tenth of the water normally used to wash hands.
Tippy Tap in use
In the “Semi-arid Tropics” areas, such as the western coast of South America, areas around the Sahara, and Central India, the dry season is severe, perhaps nine months long. Rainfall is erratic and unreliable. Various irrigation techniques are needed to fight drought.
The Chapin drip irrigation bucket is a simple gravity-fed irrigation system using a five-gallon bucket and drip tape. It can water up to two 50-foot rows with as little as 8 gallons of water per day. The sunken beds protect plants from harsh winds in dryland agriculture.
Intern Elliott is demonstrating a treadle water system.
This whole water pump system could be powered by a windmill. When the handle is turned, water is caught between the washers along the rope and is forced out through the PVC pipe.
Elliott is demonstrating the Washer Pump.
Elliott and his wife are both interns on the Global Farm.
A school house with tank is in the “Tropical Monsoon” area of the farm
These areas have 30-80” of rainfall per year, alternating wet and dry seasons. Examples of these areas are Haiti, Caribbean Islands, Nigeria, and Bangledesh. Bob assured us that this was a typical schoolhouse in Haiti. The Ferrocement tank is a construction method using mortar made from cement, sand and water, reinforced with layers of wire mesh for added strength. Ferrocement tanks are usually inexpensive to build, do not require skilled labor, are durable due to the reinforcing and can be made in various shapes and sizes to suit needs.
The benefits of the Morringa tree are written on the small blackboard. There are two bottles of water on the stand. One is dirty water and the other is the same water after it has been treated with Moringa seeds.
A barrel oven closed
The same barrel oven open
The Barrel Oven is made from two 55-gallon drums. One is used as the oven and has a door cut into one end. The second drum is cut and placed around the oven to create an air gap for insulation. The fire is built underneath at the back and the chimney at the front pulls the heat around the entire oven. It even has a heat gauge, which is hanging from the grill.
Zai holes prevent waste and minimize loss by placing manure and organic matter directly into planting stations.They provide protection from the wind for young plants.
The Biogas Digester combines water and manure to form a slurry in a metal or plastic drum. It utilizes micro-organisms to break down the manure and release methane gas, which can be used for cooking in place of wood. Notice that the tanks are hooked up to a burner with a teapot on it.
Tire gardens can be placed anywhere, even on rooftops or under shade trees. They are simple to construct and use easily accessible recyclables. They require very little, if any, soils as long as plant nutrients are provided by manure tea or soluble fertilizer. They are ideal for urban environments or areas with grazing animals.
A Turken and Robert
Turkens are better suited to warm climates, have fewer feathers than their northern counterparts and have no feathers on the neck between the shoulders and the base of the skull.
Wick gardens use a piece of carpet stretched out on a flat area as a base. They allow seedlings to be planted directly on the carpet fiber. To water it, place a five-gallon bucket full of nutrient water on the carpet (cover the bucket, poke a small hole in the lid, then turn it over so that it can slowly seep onto the cloth.)
Container gardens of all kinds--use whatever you have.
Goodbye to ECHO
I love to visit the farm, and I marvel at the resourcefulness which provides solutions to agricultural problems. The techniques are simple, useful and inexpensive so that overseas development workers and missionaries can take the techniques with them and re-create conditions for growing food under difficult conditions overseas. Thank you, ECHO, for all you do.
