ECHOcommunity Updates
ECHO International Agriculture Conference - Speaker Highlight: Philip Deal 2023-09-12
Philip Deal, Ph.D.
International Director of Programs, Water4
November 7-9 | Fort Myers, Florida Register Today!
Philip has worked in the rural water sector for 10 years, supporting projects across sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, Philip began partnering with Water4 through the University of Oklahoma to assess their service delivery model in Ghana. Over the next several years, he was able to track their progress and evaluate the success of what has become a key enterprise partner – the first to attain district-wide coverage. His passion is to see rural water service mature in professionalism and sustainability, and see consistent health benefits for the people served. Philip holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.
Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS) Handbook and Webinar 2023-09-05
The Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards recently released the third edition of the handbook. You can view the handbook, download a PDF copy, or purchase a copy from their website below. This edition includes case studies of applications of guidelines as well as step-by-step guidance on how to use the LEGS tools to develop an emergency response plan. The first three chapters focus on general principles and decision-making:
- Chapter 1 introduces LEGS and provides an overview of emergencies, livestock and livelihoods.
- Chapter 2 presents the eight LEGS Principles that underpin all LEGS-based interventions
- Chapter 3 provides step-by-step guidance and tools for emergency response planning
The remaining chapters focus on the six LEGS technical intervention areas: feed, water, veterinary support, shelter, livestock offtake, and the provision of livestock.
Watch the Global Launch Webinar for LEGS Handbook: 3rd Edition
Agroecosystems for Smallholder Resilience 2023-08-29
Tropical Agriculture Development Course
Fort Myers, Florida | September 11-15
This course is a deeper dive into sustainable agriculture options for smallholder farmers in the tropics. We will be taking a big-picture view as we look at agroecosystems as a whole. We will then dive deeper into systems function and design as we discuss the following four types of tropical agroecosystems:
- Conservation Agriculture
- Sloping Agricultural Land Technology
- Agroforestry
- System of Rice Intensification
Course participants will get hands-on experience managing these systems on the ECHO Global Demonstration and Research Farm.
Research Update: No-Till Planting of Velvet Bean 2023-08-22
Can you plant a cover crop into grass?
Velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) grows well during Florida’s hot and humid summers. It is a vining cover crop, known for its ability to produce an abundance of biomass that quickly covers the ground and smothers weeds. With that in mind, we selected velvet bean as a legume to plant as a fallow crop in our research plots. We hypothesized that velvet bean could be sown directly into a field of grass and that it would, in time, cover the ground and overtop the grass.
To establish the planting we began by mowing the plots at a height of 8 to 10 cm. The next day the seeds were jab-planted at a spacing of about 50 (between-row) X 20 (in-row) cm. Velvet bean provided adequate cover to suppress weed growth. In addition to weed suppression, an abundance of biomass has implications for soil improvement, if the biomass is left in the field.
Read more about the results of using velvet bean to smother grass
ECHO Asia Agriculture & Community Development Conference 2023 2023-08-15
October 16-20 | Chiang Mai, Thailand
How can we help small-scale farming initiatives thrive in Asia? We can provide low-cost, innovative options that allow people to grow both their crops and their knowledge, expand their operations, and thrive!
Early Bird Special ends on August 31st!
Join us for 4-days of networking and opportunities to share ideas, technologies appropriate for small-scale farmers, and lots of practical demonstrations at the ECHO Asia Seed Bank & Small Farm Resource Center. In addition to morning plenary speakers, we will conduct afternoon workshops at the ECHO Small Farm Resource Center, an evening poster session, a seed exchange, and a 1-day site visit to an area best practice site!
Register Today for ECHO's 30th Annual International Agriculture Conference! 2023-08-08
Celebrating 30 years of learning together
November 7-9 | Fort Myers, Florida Register Today!
Welcome to the 30th annual ECHO International Agriculture Conference! The plenary speakers, breakout sessions and workshops provide opportunities for learning with others devoted to eradicating hunger and improving lives through agriculture, clean water, and community development. Speakers share their agricultural challenges and successes, personal experiences, and transferrable principles for improving the lives of millions facing food insecurity daily. The highlight is networking with like-minded practitioners, researchers, and educators. The conference is from November 7-9 in Fort Myers, Florida. Come celebrate 30 years of networking and learning together!
AgriStewards Events this month! 2023-08-01
This month, AgriStewards is hosting 3 concurrent events in Indiana, USA.
NetCAP | August 9 Register Here
The 2023 Conference of workshops and networking is around the topic “Supply Chain – from Farm to Feed – supporting farmers and food security among the rural poor.” We always have a variety of topics not necessarily all related to the main theme. The main goal here is networking and it has been a great opportunity for that. Please come to learn and share your ideas.
Foundations for Farming Training | August 10-12 Register Here
Foundations for Farming Vegetable Training | August 14-15 Register Here
Speaker Highlight: Lucia Petro 2023-07-20
ECHO East Africa Symposium on Appropriate Technology Innovations and Renewable Energy
Biography: Lucia Petro is the founder of Burnstove Manufacturing Company Limited. She holds Master degree (MSc) in Sustainable Energy Science and Engineering (SESE) from Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology for two years, she has been working with The Arusha Technical College at the Mechanical Engineering Departments - Biomass Engineering section. Ever since Lucia was a child, she was always fascinated by how things work and how they were made. Little did she know that her curiosity would end up making a difference to the community. Lucia was very determined to come up with a solution to help the village she grew up from, from using firewood and charcoals due to health problems they were facing. While in secondary school, Lucia started to realize the importance of environmental conservation to communities and she was not happy on people cutting down trees.
I was not pleased with how our environment was polluted, it was a turning point in my life, and made me think about environmental and ecological issues caused by humans and started thinking about possible solutions.
Session: Lucia will share her experience on low-cost cook stove which is using Waste engine oil or waste vegetable oil for clean cooking energy source.
Register for the Symposium Today!
EDN #160 Now Available 2023-07-17
In this issue:
- Low-Cost Seed Storage Technologies
- Extending Postharvest Life of Fresh Produce: After-harvest handling
- Echoes from our Network: Experiments to Control Millipedes with Locally Available Ingredients
- From ECHO's Seed Bank: Erythrina berteroana
Low-Cost Seed Storage Technologies
Tim Motis
Excerpt:
Tolerance to ambient conditions varies with crop. Our findings showed that velvet bean seeds tolerated high heat and humidity much better than sorghum seeds. This shows that crops can vary significantly in their tolerance of unfavorable storage conditions. Of the two vacuum sealing treatments, vacuum drawn on glass jars with a modified bicycle pump proved to be as or more effective in maintaining seed moisture content in storage than a much more expensive machine sealer. Both desiccants proved effective in maintaining baseline seed moisture content, but only the zeolite Drying Beads® reduced seed moisture over time. Calcium oxide is more widely available (as burnt lime) than zeolite Drying Beads® but takes more heat to reuse—after saturation with moisture—than zeolite Drying Beads®. Zeolite Drying Beads®, at the ratio used in the trial, dried seeds to the point where final germination percentages were adversely affected.
Do you recommend a smothering cover crop? 2023-07-12
ECHO corresponded with community member Glenn about Jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis) as an option for smothering weeds. Slow-growing and erect, not spreading, we could use it for crowding out weeds and grasses in orchards. Other cover crops such as Velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) send out vines and can climb up trees and take over orchards if one is not careful! We may need to plant jack bean closer together, at 6-8 inches (15 -20 cm), to achieve a higher Leaf Area Index, LAI, and out-compete weeds and supplement nitrogen needs. Do you have experience with using jack bean or other weed-smothering crops that you'd like to share with Glenn?