Fighting World Hunger

What varieties of crops and vegetation might you imagine growing in Florida? Palm trees and swamps, grapefruit, coconuts or oranges? We visited the ECHO Global Farm and Research Center last Wednesday and learned first hand, by sight and taste, the amazing varieties of life sustaining plants grown both in Florida and others areas of the globe; valuable plants providing food, medicine, and shelter. Because of the environmental conditions of North Fort Myers, ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) is able to replicate five different world climates- Tropical Monsoon, Semi-Arid Tropics, Tropical Highlands, Tropical Rain Forest, and Hot Humid Lowlands. They also maintain a fantastic Urban Gardening scenario.

ECHO is not just an experimental farm for local growers benefit but was formed to educate their interns of various climate conditions and experiment with ways of farming them; concentrating on achieving the most efficient and sustainable grows and increasing the yields of crops. Judy, a retired postal worker turned ECHO volunteer, related the Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." This is a prime example of the mission of ECHO, but should not be misunderstood. They respect the wealth of agricultural knowledge already spread amongst the poor farmers.

Hillside Farming Plot

What they bring is the ability to work with farmers to help them find ways of being more effective at growing food in harsh conditions. Judy told us of their four components: 1. Problem solving. Discovering coping mechanisms. 2. Providing sample size seed packets to international development workers, community leaders and missionaries. 3. Education and training. 4. Networking with other nonprofits and aide foundations.
ECHO's impressive seed bank hosts over 300 varieties of rare food plants, multi-purpose trees, fruit trees and other tropical plants.
Not only does Echo work with simulating environments but also manipulating, recycling, and inventing infrastructures to aide with farming and hygiene. The following is an awesome clip of Judy explaining how they've learned to use Moringa seeds (from the "miracle tree", not to be confused with the "miracle fruit", also grown at ECHO) for water purification.

We also observed a manual well pump and watering system, a drip irrigation system, a duck/algae/tilapia bio-cycle pond, a "tipy tap" hand washing station, and a rather ingenious invention called a biogas digester. While we have seen variations of the irrigation systems in the past, the duck pond and biogas digester systems were particularly intriguing.

Ducks eat the foliage, algae grows from
their waste, the Tilapia eat the algae,
and the people eat the Tilapia (or
the ducks!).

The "tippy tap"! A simple
hand washing station can
greatly reduce child mortality
rates and the spread of
disease.

Hand cranked well and gravity
driven watering system. 

A working example of a simple hut
(made frombamboo harvested on
site) housing the biogas digester.

Not only did we learn a wealth of information about farming practices but also had the opportunity to taste some of their crops! We especially enjoyed the Cranberry Hibiscus, a surprisingly sweet leafy, erm, green? (It's purple in colour.) Also sampled was the Barbados Cherry, a sweet little abundant fruit. Although we should have perhaps tried our first sample after the tour, we also cleaned our teeth with fresh Neem sprigs, readying our pallet for what was to come. Below are some pictures of the plants we sampled and some other varieties we were introduced to along the way. All three of us will be working on farms for our service learning component, so we were pleased to have visited ECHO for a taste of what we might see. Perhaps we'll begin gardens of our own one day!?