ECHO Asia Agriculture and Community Development Conference
Presented By: ECHO Asia
Register Before:
October 09, 2015 11:35
Event Contact:
Rebecca Garofano (rgarofano@echonet.org)
The 5th Biennial ECHO Asia Agriculture and Community Development Conference will be happening from October 6-9, 2015 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The theme for this conference will be “Equipping Workers.” ECHO Asia is looking forward to bringing together a wide and diverse assemblage of NGO workers, agriculture missionaries, development agents, farmers, and organizations from across Asia for a time of mutual learning and encouragement that will bring forth an abundance of practical applications. Mark your calendars now and keep posted on ECHOcommunity.org!
Please note: This event is currently full. If you would like to be added to a waiting list, please e-mail the event contact, Rebecca Garofano.
Event Details
Location
Holiday Garden Hotel
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Language
The conference will be hosted in English, with translation for morning plenary sessions and afternoon workshops offered in Thai and Mandarin.
Cost
These conference registration packets include: all conference costs, lunch, coffee breaks, sample packets of seed, and post-conference tours (except for a couple of exceptions, which require an additional charge).
Registration After August 31st:
Day Package (no hotel): $200
Shared Room (4 nights): $250
Single Room (4 nights): $300
Registration will close September 18th.
Payment Options
Conference fees can be made by PayPal or Bank Wire Transfer. Attendees will be sent an invoice shortly after registering.
Lodging
If registering for the "Shared Room" or "Single Room" package, these costs also include four nights of stay at the Holiday Garden Hotel (5th, 6th, 7th, & 8th) and breakfast.
Food
All three of the conference registration types include lunch and coffee breaks.
Additional Opportunities
Conference Poster Session Announcement and Details
In addition to the plenary and workshop sessions, this year, we also would like to invite delegates to participate in a poster session as a means to share and exchange other information. This might be a particularly suitable venue for any research or information which academics, graduate students, or practitioners have conducted or created regarding experimentation, crop evaluations, or to showcase an agricultural development project. Presenters are asked to submit a brief title and synopsis (2-3 sentences) ahead of time, and e-mail those to echoasia@echonet.org.
View Full Details on the Poster Session
Additional Information
Morning Plenary Sessions:
- Samuel Gurel, CEO of Torch Coffee, will discuss coffee as a development tool and niche agriculture product in a talk entitled “The WHY Behind Coffee Development.”
- Keith Mikkelson, the Executive Director and co-founder of Aloha House and Natural Farm, as well as the author of “Sustainable Agriculture in the Tropics,” will be giving a talk entitled “Natural Farming: A Key to Higher Production with Reduced Inputs.”
- Tom Love, Agriculture Advisor at USAID, will be giving a talk about the nature of value and how it is created, entitled “The Mystery of Value.”
- Siem Sun, manager of the Improved Indigenous Livelihoods program for International Cooperation Cambodia, will be discussing livelihoods improvement through development and giving a talk entitled “Community Solutions to the Changing Context of Livelihoods in Northeastern Cambodia of Indigenous Minorities.”
- Dr. Paul McNamara from the University of Illinois and Director of the Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS) will share about lessons learned from agriculture extension best practices.
- Dr. Peter Quesenberry from Christian Veterinary Mission and the Mekong Minority Foundation, as well as author of the book “Where there is No Animal Doctor,” will discuss livestock and community development and give a talk entitled “Livestock Bridges to Community Development and Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards.”
- Mother and daughter team, Wanpen Channarod and Phicharinee Suksree, innovative farmers from Nakhon Sawan, Thailand, will share about recent innovations in the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and lessons learned.
- Dr. Sabine Scheucher is a botanist and horticultural therapist from Austria who has worked in Nepal, Tibet, and North-India. She will be sharing her research on culinary herbs, specialty greens, and highvalue fruits as an alternative for small-scale farming in the tropics and sub-stripcs.
- Dr. Bhuwon Sthapi, senior Scientist and Regional Project Coordinator for Bioversity Nepal will speak on community seed banking.
Post-Conference Tours:
Following three days of plenary sessions and workshops, the ECHO Asia Agriculture & Communidty Development Conference will culminate in a fourth day of field trips and site visits to local community development projects, farms, and businesses. The tour is included in the cost of registration. To give you an idea of what’s in store, here is a list of current post-conference tours that conference participants can select from:
- Natural building at Mae Mut Garden farm and small farm resource center.
- Tropical forest restoration and stewardship with the Chiang Mai University Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU).
- Community-appropriate biochar research and application at the Warm Heart Small Farm Resource Center.
- Integrated Pest Management and Biological Pest Control at the Chiang Mai Pest Management Center.
- System of Rice Intensification with a visit to a Northern Thai farmer’s field in the Chiang Rai area. Fa Mui has grown organic brown rice and produced GABBA using SRI for over four years.
- Vermiculture and mushroom farming at Mae Jo University
- Coffee farming, processing, and cupping.
- Dairy farming and farmer cooperatives with a local Thai dairy cooperative.