Have you ever had someone
describe a place and/or job to you and it just sounded really confusing, or you
just could not picture it? If you then had the opportunity to visit that place,
it then made a lot more sense what that person was talking about. Being there
in person makes most things so much more clear.
Well, that is exactly how
ECHO is. It is so hard to describe this place and the internship which I am in.
Coming and seeing the farm is really the best way to understand all the amazing
things that go on here. So now that I have explained how difficult it is to
explain it to someone, and for them to understand what it is like, allow me to
tell you all about it!
ECHO was founded 30 years ago
as an organization to help develop better agricultural
techniques for Haiti. Originally Educational Concerns for Haiti Organization, it changed
to Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization to reach more people around the
world with new ways of growing plants and introducing new crops.
 |
| Timothy with quinoa on terraces |
The Global Farm is made up of six climate zones, a community
garden, and the appropriate technology center. Each of the 10 interns is
responsible for keeping one of these areas going for demonstration and teaching
purposes during the year-long internship. The climate zones showcase cropping
systems used in these areas, as well as specific crops that you would normally find
in them. The hot humid lowlands, for instance, has rice in a rice paddy, the
mountain has quinoa on terraces, and the rain forest has purple yams growing up
trellises.
The Seed Bank is also on
campus, and collects seed from the demonstration areas, assesses it, and
distributes it out to development workers all over the world. People can go online,
or write to ECHO, and order from hundreds of seed choices that suit their
climate and conditions.
Finally there are the
resources ECHO provides. There is a huge library full of resources that range
from aquaculture, to community development, to spiritual development, to using
plants as pesticides, and much, much more. There are also many online resources
that anyone can access for free if they have an internet connection.
 |
| Timothy talking to a tour about the mountain |
During the year here, the
interns have many responsibilities - some of them structured, and some not so
much. We are required to lead tours of the farm to the public, work in the sales
nursery, take care of an animal, take care of a demonstration area, and cook
for all the interns a few times a month.
All these things stretch
different people in different ways, but teach you a variety of things like how
to cook for many starving interns after a morning's work (I haven’t quite
mastered that one), or how to manage unruly kids on a tour through the farm on
a hot day. There are also many important skills that are learned, like how to
diagnose spots or things going on with your plants, getting to experiment with
different kinds of plants, and seeing how they grow, produce seed, and try
fruit.
Oh yeah. In the afternoon we
have a different schedule where we work on general farm tasks, have seminar taught
by one of us or a staff member. Other afternoons, half of the interns work in
the nursery, taking care of trees to sell at the retail nursery, while the others
work in the seed bank.
Now that I have thrown a ton
of descriptions at you of where I work, and you are probably even more confused
about this place than before, here is a video I put together that will show
just a few images of the farm. Hopefully this will allow you to visualize what
is happening a little better.
