The Three Hour tour: ECHO Global Farms

Posted by Katie Elzer-Peters
March 21st, 2009
Filed in Regional Gardening Tasks
Tags: harvest, vegetables

Yesterday, when I was supposed to be finishing some, uh, *work* for Chris, I decided to jaunt off on a three hour tour, instead. When in Rome. . .I am actually in Ft. Myers, Florida.  Not exactly Rome, but it is to horticulturists like Rome is to starry-eyed art students.  Florida has been pillaged by commercial agriculture and reckless development.  I am ambivalent about Florida.  I love it here, but on the other hand, I feel bad for wreckage.  However, you could say that about almost any portion of the United States at this point.  In the middle of the carnage, there is a Gem.  That is the ECHO Global Farm.

Chickens and Cabbage and BOOKS, Oh MY!

I immediately fell in love with ECHO because they have an awesome bookstore.  And, don’t you know I love books!  I had my Mom along, and she generously agreed to purchase my haul, which included:

• Secrets of Great Soil
• The Weather-Resilient Garden
• The Gardener’s Bug Book
• The Gardener’s Guide to Plant Diseases
• and the Usborne Children’s Picture Atlas (for my Nephew)

I could have bought about fifty seven more books, but I have to get them home.  I digress. . .Oh, yes, they also sell seeds from plants grown right there at the farm.  I bought some more beet seeds, okra (now we get to read about my experience heat-scarifying and germinating okra seeds), bottle gourds and tomatillos.

About ECHO

ECHO has three core focuses of work:  Education and Training, Networking and Problem Solving.  They focus on developing innovative techniques to improve agricultural practices for small farmers in third-world countries.  The initiative was founded in the early 1970s as the Education Concerns for Haiti Organization, after founder Richard Duggar visited Haiti with a mission group.  Dr. Martin Price stepped up as director in 1981 and formed the ECHO of today.  They closed the direct work in Haiti, and re-focued efforts on developing and disseminating agricultural methods around the world.

They publish the Echo Development News, a highly technical newlsetter geared toward skilled individuals in the field.  They maintain an extensive seed bank, and will send ten packets of open-pollinated varieties of seeds, specifically chosen for a farmer’s climate area, as long as the farmer lets those ten packets go to seed and shares them with his or her community.  They have a large research library and an army of volunteers to man it, fielding questions from all over the world.  Our guide said a recent favorite was “How do I keep Baboons out of my Garden?”  The answer:  planting a hemp plant that grows to a height of 10 feet, producing giant seed pods that shake and rattle in the wind, scaring off the hairy intruders.

At the core of ECHO’s identity is that it is a faith based organization.  Their website states:

Our mission . . .  is “to network with community leaders in developing countries to seek hunger solutions for families growing food under difficult conditions.”Our vision . . . is to bring glory to God and a blessing to mankind by using science and technology to help the poor.

I am not exactly a devoutly practicing anything.  However, I very much appreciate ECHO’s work, in particular because they are very practical in their activities.  It is all well and good to have faith, but it is much better to use that faith to learn and develop problem solving methods.  Our guide shared this thought many times.  “God has provided all of the answers to our problems.  It is up to us to observe and notice them.”  I can get behind that-that is an active expression of faith-not sitting back and waiting for something to be handed to them, but actively discovering.  Additionally, though they are strongly guided and motivated by their faith, they did not preach, try to convert us, or affect a holier than thou attitude.  They seemed to be true servants.  I was impressed.

Highlights of the Tour

There are so many things that I can’t wait to share with you from my visit.  For all of you that are disciplined enough to begrowing your $25Vegetable gardens this summer, I have learned a BUNCH of ways to use things in ways you would never even IMAGINE!  Stay tuned! I am going to try to be restrained and share just a few tidbits today.

• Baby goats.  I’m not an animal person, but how can you resist baby goats?  ECHO uses the goat manure to produce a slurry that produces enough methane gas to power a little stove for cooking one hour a day.
• Gardens in tires.  YES you read that correctly.  Tire gardens.  Oh, wait until I do a whole post about the tire gardens.  They were fascinating!
• Samples of prickly pear cactus.  I have always wanted to try prickly pear cactus, but I am afraid that I wouldn’t get all of the teeny thorns out, and I would end up with an incident out of one of the books I recently read, The Cactus Eaters.  They tasted like green peppers.
• Learning about all of the ways to use NEEM oil besides as an insecticide.  Let’s put it this way: after the tour, everyone ran to the gift shop/bookstore to buy NEEM toothpaste.
• My Mom being used as an example of a farmer in Guatemala.  If you know my Mom, you get why that was really funny.

I think my three hour detour to ECHO was well worth it in terms of my organic gardening knowledge development.  Hopefully, Chris agrees!