ECHO

On Monday, September 20, our class took a trip to ECHO. I’d passed signs for Echo before but I was never clear on what it was. ECHO stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization. We began with a short introduction from our tour guide Vic and proceeded to watch a movie on the history of ECHO. A quote from the movie that really stood out to me was, “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” This is the basic purpose of ECHO. “ECHO's primary functions are providing agricultural information to overseas workers, distributing seeds for promising food plants, and offering training opportunities at the Florida farm.” Instead of just shipping off bulk amount of foods to other countries, ECHO educates the people in need on just how to make their own food. ECHO helps over 180 different countries. They send out educators to teach people how to farm for themselves so that they will always have a source of food for their families. 

Another thing the video pointed out was that ECHO doesn’t send out bulk amount of seeds either. They send free, trial packets to the countries in need. After the introduction and video, we began our tour of the facility. ECHO is set up so that they can practice farming in different types of environments, whether it be the rainforest or dry land. I was able to see many different plants and produce that I’d never seen up close before. We saw sugar cane, avocados, plantains, and even miracle fruit. I’ve never had much experience around farming so seeing all the plants was pretty interesting. Something that really caught my eye was a shelter for goats. Two small goats lived in what looked like a little wooden house. It was raised off the ground, which I thought was very unusual, since most animals live on the ground in the dirt. After I read the sign next to the pin, I realized they had meant for their pin to be a two or three feet off the ground. This made is much easier to collect the manure that the goats were producing daily. 

I’d never realized how much working farming took. I was naïve to think that all it took was some seeds and water but it amazes me that there are programs like ECHO around. Although shipping out food to other countries would help with the hunger, ECHO actually offers a solution to the problem that these people can use for the rest of their lives.