Random Things I Learned at E.C.H.O.

Bamboo is grass. When you put it in your garden, you will have to do no weeding! Bamboo is important in construction for third world countries because they cannot simply go to Home Depot to buy wood and other building supplies.

Eggshells, newspaper, and other trash are added to a bed of dirt and covered in a process called vermiculture T

he worms in the dirt eat the trash and recycle it, leaving more nutrient-filled dirt to fertilize plants.

System of rice intensification is when a patch of land is flooded to grow rice because when the land is flooded, no weeding is necessary. Farmers can grow more crops by having one flooded bed and one dry.

Raised beds are used to grow fruit during the rainy season so the fruit won’t rot when touching the damp ground. Waffle beds are used during dry season to collect the water when it is scarce.

It was surprising

to me when the guide gave us some numbers on how the world’s goods are divided up. 20% of people have 80% of disposable goods, 60% of people have 13% of goods, and 20% of people have 1% of goods. This is why half of the people in third world countries die of hunger everyday. E.C.H.O. believes in relief after a disaster, such as the earthquake in Haiti, but in development the rest of the time. This is evident in the story: Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; Teach a man to

fish and feed him forever.

E.C.H.O. focuses on teaching their farming practices to individual farmers and to children so that they may be carried on to future generations. Many children in third world countries are viewed as labor, so if they are sent to school E.C.H.O. sends them home with the food they have learned to grow. This allows the practices to be viewed as valuable to the parents rather than taking them away from more lucrative activities.

Rainforests replenish the world’s oxygen and take 100 years to restore.

Miracle fruit alters the taste palette, making everything taste sweet for 1 hour so it is fed to diabetics so they can taste sweet things since they are unable to eat sweets.

Sunflowers and marigolds are often planted n

ext to each other because the scent of marigolds repels bugs that are harmful to the sunflowers.

Many diseases are caused by unclean hands, therefore a contraption called the tippy tap is hung on the outside of the houses so residents can wash their hands.

Soil is not necessary to grow crops; only nutrients are necessary. Corn husks, pine cones, aluminum cans, and plastic bottles are some substitutes for soil in a wick garden. A wick garden is made when seeds are planted in carpet and the plants are held in place by the objects around it. Rooftop gardens can be grown in packaging peanuts so the roof does not cave in from the weight of soil. Shallow pool gardens have a

plastic liner to hold water in for the plants.

Air layering is a process in which moss in slits of trees to make new trees. New roots grow into the moss and then the branch can be lopped off and replanted to grow new trees.