ECHO filed trip#3

My experience at the ECHO farm and nursery was very informative and eye opening. ECHO stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization. The organization is devoted to providing useful information and networking to assist farmers to become more effective at growing food products and technology. ECHO keeps a collection of rare seeds that can grow under the often difficult growing conditions. Some of the vast seeds ECHO carries and provides include vegetables, fruit and grain crops, herbs, agro forestry trees, and cucurbits. The main idea of providing these seeds are that the costs to obtain them are low, they can multiply their own seeds, and they assist poor farmers at providing more and healthy crops. The ECHO farm is working hard to dramatically increase the sustainability of international community’s by decreasing farm expenses and promote practices that don’t damage natural resources.
At the Ft. Myers farm much of what ECHO does was demonstrated for all to witness. Many technologies were demonstrated at ECHO include biogas, a sawdust cooker, and a solar food dryer. To me the biogas (which turns cow manure into gas for cooking) was one of the most interesting technologies I have seen. It can also be used in waste management facilities where it can be converted to run any type of heat engine, to generate either mechanical or electrical power. ECHO Ft. Myers also integrated many animals into the farm including; sheep, goats, turkeys, chickens, ducks, tilapia, and rabbit. Animals such as goats can provide manure, wool, milk, and food.
Networking is another important part of what ECHO does. Networking includes improving the capacity and capability of global community development workers by networking their skills and knowledge with each other. The field trip to ECHO was very exciting helped me understand how being sustainable is important to farmers and homesteaders because it is tied to environmental, and economic concerns. ECHO is working on teaching farmers how to grow and maintain crops and serve the poor more effectively and this is definitely an extraordinary and heavenly organization.