September 2017

COMMUNITY
The world is a
hungry place…
Fighting world hunger from Florida
by Bill Johnson
Vic Estoye begins tour at ECHO’s
Global Farm, Fort Myers.
By most estimates, nearly a billion
people sharing the planet with us
do not have enough to eat or are
malnourished. That’s about one in seven
of us. Thousands of people in third-world
countries starve to death every day.
Many international organizations help
to feed these hungry people in various
ways. Among them is ECHO, a non-profit
Christian-based organization that operates
from Fort Myers, Florida.
ECHO is dedicated to reducing
hunger and improving life for
small-scale farmers. It does
that primarily by providing
technical support to development
groups, teaching more efficient
and sustainable agriculture
methods to farmers, Peace Corps
volunteers, and community
by
groups.
Palmer Peters
Those people, in turn, teach others – what
they call the ECHO effect. ECHO reaches
these people from operational centers in
Asia, West Africa, East Africa, and Central
America. In ECHO’s Asian Regional Office
Seed Bank in Thailand, for instance, they
identify underdeveloped seeds and spread
their use throughout the region to help
supply nutritional food.
In addition to efficient farming
practices, ECHO teaches simple
technology methods that are
primitive to us but dramatically
improve the lives of impoverished
people.
They call this “appropriate technology,”
which they research, demonstrate, and
build to help provide people with food,
water, and shelter.
At its Fort Myers headquarters, ECHO
conducts one-hour public tours of its
20
Global Farm to demonstrate efficient
farming methods in conditions around
the world. The farm serves as a training
ground for interns who train for 14 months
before working with small-scale farmers in
developing countries.
On this day, veteran tour guide Vic Estoye
explained various farming methods and
simple technologies ECHO brings to
impoverished regions of the world. “We
help them make what they need out of
what they have,” he said. “Nothing is
universal. It must adapt to the country,
culture, and skills.” Walking among tall
bamboo stands and exotic plants, we
stopped to taste cherries from a Barbados
cherry tree. Estoye explained that when
these trees are planted along school yards
in poor areas, the cherries provide children
with a rich supply of vitamin C.
By mixing animal waste and water in a
barrel, ECHO teaches how to produce
methane gas to fuel a simple one-burner
stove for cooking, which is especially
important in areas with a growing wood
shortage because so much has been
used. Among other things, ECHO teaches
how to make cooking stoves of clay, how
to build a motor-free well water pump,
and how to filter dirty
water, making it safe
to drink.
The Global Farm
demonstrates the
value of unusual
plants. Farmers, for
instance, can plant
a special peanut
variety whose roots
fertilize the nearby
soil for growing other
farm products. At
the farm, you’ll see
SEPTEMBER 2017
demonstration of rice paddies, pools of
fish (tilapia) that feed on duckweed, and
above ground and rooftop gardening
methods that don’t need traditional
fertilizer.
The Global Farm offers two tours – one
focusing on farming, the other on simple
technology. The farm also features a
nursery that displays exotic plants, with
fruits and vegetables for sale. A gift shop
and bookstore offers books and seeds
that are helpful to Florida gardeners. The
tour fee is $12.50 for adults.
As a non-profit organization, ECHO
receives the highest marks from Charity
Navigator, which rates substantial charities
from financial data. According to the latest
report, Echo spends little more than 6
percent of money raised on fundraising,
about 10 percent on administration and
general expenses, and 84 percent directly
on programs and services – a top rating.
You can learn more about ECHO from its
website, echonet.org. P
Boys in West Africa community grow moringa
trees for edible and nutritious parts.
Photo Courtesy of Danielle Flood, ECHO