General Technical Documents

Building Living Garden Soil With a Worm Tower - 2017/01/20

Using worms to create Living Soil results in :

Nutrition: Delicious, nutrient-rich plants.

Vitality: Plants growing in living soils are inherently stronger and need less protection, allowing low input food production methods to be used.

Drought tolerance: Nutrients are in colloidal states rather than being soluble, naturally grown plants only feed when they want to, are not overloaded with chemical salts, and can continue to grow under drier conditions.

Pollution: Nutrients are not soluble so they stay in the soil where they are needed rather than leaching away and causing pollution.

Greenhouse impact: Does not require energy intensive inputs of agricultural crop chemicals and fertilizers.

Collaborators : Brad Ward and Jerry Larson, January, 2017

Materials List

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Greenhouse Gardening for the Purpose of Self-Sustaining Ministry in the Former Soviet Union - 2017/01/20

This paper is shared as a case study of a greenhouse project in a cold climate. It contains information on the benefits of greenhouses in a temperate setting. Technical details provide practical considerations in greenhouse construction, some of which would also apply to tropical settings. We noted, in particular, efforts to keep costs low, such as using a gravity-based drip irrigation system. The paper also details costs involved, and includes an appendix with information on crop performance, labor, and vegetable yields.

List of Short Season Crops Appropriate for Haiti - 2016/10/26

This document was originally prepared in response to hurricane Matthew in 2016.

As organizations are responding to Hurricane Matthew damage in Haiti and in other parts of the Caribbean, they are developing short, medium, and long term plans of how to respond.  With much of the damage in Haiti occurring in rural communities, organizations are considering how to respond with seeds and trees so to help the agriculture sector rebound.  In agriculture there are crops that produce in the short term (various vegetables, beans, etc.), medium term (bananas/plantains, yams, cassava, etc.) and long term (fruit/forestry trees) that can be part of the response planning.  How to properly respond will depend on various factors such as access to land, available seeds/seedlings, time of year, available water (irrigation or rain fed), soil salinity (often an issue after storm events near the ocean), and cultural preferences.

Agricultural Prosperity for Dry Africa - 2016/01/19

Prof. Dov Pasternak working in Israel, was among the pioneers of drip irrigation. He researched irrigation with saline water and conducted domestication of arid land crops. He received a UNESCO Chair for his work on desert research. For over 10 years Prof. Pasternak worked as Principal Scientist for Crops Diversification at ICRISAT-Niger and then continued as advisor on development projects in Africa.

This book describes his experience in Africa. The book is written for both laymen and scientists. It is a must for anyone interested in or dealing with Africa’s agricultural development. It starts by explaining how development projects fail and what can be done. It offers many systems, technologies and crops for a more profitable agriculture. The book emphasizes irrigation of vegetables, fruit trees and profitable field crops as a solution to current conditions and ends by suggesting how to carry out development programs.

Forty four photos and many anecdotes of the author’s life experience, make this book easy and a pleasure to read.

Case Study: Global Websites – Improving Access for Global Agricultural Extension - 2016/01/01

ECHO exists to reduce hunger and improve lives through agricultural training and resources. Working through the internet and regional impact centers around the world, ECHO connects small-scale farmers, and those working to eliminate world hunger, with essential resources and each other. These resources include a knowledge-base of practical information, experienced technical support, and an extensive seed bank focused on highly beneficial underutilized plants.

The world wide web promises cost-effective access to its more than 3.2 billion users, with more than 2 billion of these users coming from developing countries. As internet penetration improves in the developing world, agriculture extension stands to benefit from its reach and rapid growth. For every internet user in the developed world there are two in the developing world. More than 95% of the world’s population is now covered by at least a second generation mobile data network (International Telecommunications Union 2015).

As internet access has grown in both the developed and developing world, the need for more sophisticated online tools for agriculture extension has become apparent. In 2011 ECHO launched an online collaborative membership community called ECHOcommunty.org. Since that time, more than 10,000 members worldwide have accessed technical resources, participated in online discussion, registered for events, and requested trial seeds from ECHO seed banks.

In 2014, ECHO saw the need to upgrade the capacity of the ECHOcommunity website to provide a solid foundation for its continued growth. The re-design called for the native support of nine languages key to its current areas of impact, and the ability to effectively deliver rich-media resources and communications tools to internet users with varying bandwidth capacities and devices. This document serves to illustrate the lessons learned in the process of improving the global accessibility of our resources. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of best-practices in website development for a global audience, but rather a look inside the decision making process behind one site.

EX-Post Evaluation of the Introduction and Promotion of Grain Amaranth Program in Eastern Africa - 2014/07/01

World Renew’s (formerly Christian Reformed World Relief Committee or CRWRC) work on introduction and promotion of grain amaranth in East Africa began in 1999 in 2 villages, Ngaamba and Kalonzoni, in the semi-arid part of the Machakos District of Kenya.  World Renew staff, Tom Post and Francis Muthoka, received training and amaranth seed lines from Dr. Davidson Mwangi, a Kenyan agronomist who had been working on selecting amaranth lines for some twenty years.   Amaranth’s drought resistance and drought avoidance, its requirement of about 50% of the water required by maize, it’s high protein/high lysine content with a good balance of amino acids and other nutrients, and its taste acceptability---particularly when mixed with other staples such as maize and millet, wheat, cassava, ---- led World Renew to begin experimenting with grain amaranth in the semi-arid circumstance of these villages.   These were also villages located in a region that had repeatedly sought CFGB-World Renew food relief during drought years.

The goal of this evaluation was to determine the impacts and lessons from the grain Amaranth promotion work of World Renew, CFGB and the World Renew partnering organizations in East Africa. 

Planning for a Schoolyard or Community Garden - 2013/12/01

Brad Ward has many years of experience in agricultural finance as a loan officer and underwriter, and has reviewed and advised on hundreds of business and farm plans. Currently he works on the North Coast of Honduras as the farm manager for Cornerstone Farm/Hospital Loma de Luz. He also works with several school garden projects in his area. His background and experience mean that he has a good grasp of what questions are important to ask when considering a schoolyard or community garden.

When considering a schoolyard or community garden, I suggest that you use the following five steps to organize and guide the planning process. These steps can help you use words to paint a comprehensive picture of what currently exists, paint a picture of what is hoped for, and lay out an organized list of tasks to get from the first picture to the second. This garden plan is not meant to be something done at the beginning of the project and then filed away. It should be a living, working guide, reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that the vision and purpose of the garden are being realized. As much as possible, include all of the garden’s stakeholders in the planning and review process.

The 5 steps for planning are as follows;

1. Describe the current situation in detail.
2. Describe the purpose and vision.
3. Break the plan down into manageable tasks.
4. Integrate the project components.
5. Budget

F.A.I.T.H Gardening - 2010/05/20

Food Always in the Home as modifed by Larry Yarger, ECHO, 2010  under the auspices of the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, International

Most rural areas of the world subsist on growing food, with food security top-of-mind for most agrarian communities. Believe it or not, there are still hunters and gatherers who glean food from local plants and forests, while also growing food for their own families.

My second favorite agriculture project helped provide food security.

Given the importance of growing food, the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) created and promoted a home-yard gardening program known as “Food Always in the Home” or “FAITH” gardens. For four decades, the program has helped maximize home-gardening by promoting available local resources and introducing new vegetable varieties and growing techniques.

From the size of the garden to enabling year-round production to educating farmers about the nutritional quality of the food they plant, the FAITH garden program has provided a means of sustenance, improved health, and income for families. A well-managed 30×30 foot garden in the tropics can provide food and some extra income for a family of four to six people throughout the year! Moreover, it is fairly easy to do with the local resources available to most rural, farm families.   -- Baptist Global Response

Technical Details on the Microgardening Production System - 2010/01/20

The Microgardening technology is mainly based on 1 or 0.5 m2 wood tables and therefore, can be installed everywhere. Land is an issue in peri-urban/urban and even in some rural areas. The technology can be installed everywhere in household compounds (even in terraces and balconies) to replace land. In addition, the reduced area of the tables (a few m2) is compensated by the high yield expected. Other materials can also be used (recuperated tyres, pipes, etc.). This is a crucial advantage in built-up areas where already limited space is under rising pressure as urban and periurban populations continue to grow. This can also sometimes be an issue in rural areas where farmers (particularly women) have not yet secured ownership rights over the land they cultivate, and so remain reluctant to invest in inputs and plant crops whilst there remains a risk of their land being taken away from them.

Microgardening involves far less physical labour than conventional gardening due to the process involved. As a result, people with different handicaps (disabled and old persons, PLHIVs) can be involved in it.