100 Mile Walk

To raise awareness and support for ECHO Asia's work and to show solidarity for partnering agencies, in early December Rick Burnette (current ECHO Asia Director), Kimberly Duncan (ECHO Asia Intern) and Bunsak Tongdee (UHDP Director) walked 100 miles from the city of Chiang Mai to the ECHO Asia Seed Bank in the Mae Ai District of Chiang Mai.   Along the way, they were joined by Karl Frogner (UBI), Boonsong Thansritong (ECHO Asia) and Abram Bicksler (ECHO Asia's next director) as well as interns and volunteers from the ECHO Asia Seed Bank (Jen Smeage and friend Joel, Sam Bollenbacher, Ruth Tshin, Seth Morgan, Ben Burnette and William Burnette).

The walk took place over six days, beginning in Chiang Mai's urban environment, passing through fields and mountains, villages and small towns before ending at the seed bank not far from Thailand's border with Myanmar.  The entire trip took place on foot except for a 50-meter leg across the Ping River on a tiny boat in Chiang Dao (we took a wrong turn).

ECHO Asia is grateful for so many who supported this effort with contributions and encouragement.

Companion Planting at the Seed Bank

ECHO Asia intern, Jen Smeage, has spent the last several months evaluating companion planting at the seed bank.  According to the Wikipedia Companion planting entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting), this approach, whereby different crops are grown together, is intended to enable mixtures of select plants to assist each other in various ways, including with nutrient uptake, pest control and pollination.  Ultimately, this synergy is intended to increase crop production.  In addition to planting known compatible vegetables, various types of flowering plants are also planted to attract both beneficial insects, including pollinators such as bees and predators that eat pests such as aphids.  Some companion plants also serve as "trap crops," attracting pests away from vulnerable crops.  Some examples (University of Rhode Island; http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/sheets/compplant.html) include:

• Basil planted among tomatoes may repel tomato hornworms.
• Marigolds, mint, thyme, or chamomile may repel cabbage moths.
• Radishes make excellent trap crops for cucumber beetles among squash and cucumbers. Radishes also attract flea beetles when planted near cole crops.

Companion crops being evaluated at the seed bank include cosmos, calendula, hyssop, allysum, peppermint and marigold.  Jen says that the companion crops are definitely attracting lots of pollinating bees at the seed bank as well as lady bugs and lacewings that eat pests such as aphids.  And she sees trap crops, such as allysum, attracting aphids.  However, the current cool-dry season doesn't have as much insect pressure as the upcoming hot and rainy seasons.  So the coming months will offer a critical time to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the companion crops on in pest management at the seed bank. 

For persons who delight in pure, orderly, organized stands of crops, companion planting be too messy for them.  But for those who appreciate the positive effects that crop biodiversity might bring, not to mention patches of color in a sea of green, then companion planting should definitely be considered and evaluated.    

Favorite Photos from 2012

Bunong Village, Cambodia

Northeast Cambodia

Senmonorom, Northeast Cambodia

ECHO Asia Cambodia Workshop

Sahibganj, India

Outside of Sahibganj, India

Sahibganj, India

ECHO Asia Seed Bank Team and Volunteers

Legumes growing in hill fields, Huay Pong Village, Thailand

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar

ECHO Asia Myanmar Workshop

ECHO Asia Myanmar Workshop

Rice harvester, outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand

Street side gardening, Chiang Mai

Road to Fang, North Thailand

Roadside forest, North Thailand

North Thailand

Threshing rice, North Thailand

Rice fields near Mae Hong Son, Thailand

Doi Chiang Dao Mountain, North Thailand

Near Chiang Dao Cave, North Thailand

North Thailand

Mae Hong Son, Thailand

A Banana Multiplication Success Story

ECHO Asia technical advisor, Dr. Abram Bicksler, carrying out a similar banana  multiplication  test (results may vary according to banana varieties and locations).

At the 2011 ECHO Asia Conference we asked the delegates to share stories describing successful uses of ECHO's information and resources. The following is one in a series of posts containing these success stories.

ECHO's activities, from publications to conferences to seed distribution, all have one goal: getting resources into the hands of workers on the field so that we can indeed “honor God through sustainable hunger solutions.” For long-time members of the ECHO network all these disparate activities really seem unified. Buzz Maxey, of CAMA Services, shared a few comments with us, illustrating how he has utilized a number of different ECHO information and resources over the years:

“First, banana propagation gleaned from EDN [66]. A lot of my efforts and trials have been a fiasco but I was successful in this one: peel off 3 layers of the banana stalk, cut off the leaves, bend stalk over in [the shape of] a number 7. Drive a stake through the stalk at knee level, dig out a bit at the base of the plant, refill with compost, and in a few weeks many pups will sprout.

Second, chaya, moringa, papaya, loquat, and erethrina have all grown well. One farmer has sweet 

papaya—50 plants—at 5000 ft. elevation and his 75 head of cattle are eating chaya.

Third, I have attended four ECHO conferences and benefited every time. I have been blessed to be with people of like mind who are impacting the world's poor.” --Buzz Maxey, October 2011

Buzz Maxey was able to learn about banana multiplication from an EDN, receive samples of useful species from the ECHO seedbank, and share encouragement and information at four ECHO conferences. This is just one example of how ECHO's multiple activities serve the ultimate goal of serving the poor through sustainable agricultural solutions.

If you'd like more information about rapid banana multiplication see EDN 66, which Mr. Maxey referenced, and EDN 99, which demonstrates a slightly different technique. Both are available at ECHOcommunity.org.

Seed Production at Tung Kwang Tong Community

Much of the ECHO Asia Seed Bank's seed production takes place at our facility on the campus of the Upland Holistic Development Project in the Mae Ai District of Thailand's Chiang Mai Province.  However, a significant portion of the seed we distribute, including green manure/cover crops such as rice bean, jack bean and lablab bean, is grown by area farmers.

Tung Kwang Tong (Field of the Golden Deer) Community, also in Mae Ai, is predominantly ethnic Palaung.  Despite limited access to fields for rice and cash crop production, they tend impressive kitchen gardens.

ECHO Asia recently worked out an arrangement with community members to grow select crops, such as tomato and long bean, for the seed bank.  This arrangement provides supplemental income for the participating gardeners while improving the seed bank's access to more types of seed.  

A Village Hike

In October, staff and volunteers from ECHO Asia accompanied students from the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute (ISDSI) on a hike between the Pang Daeng Nai, Mae Jawn and Huai Pong communities in Chiang Mai’s Chiang Dao district.  October was the perfect time to see the local production of green manure/cover crops, such as rice bean (Vigna umbellata) that is produced in a farming system known as relay cropping.  The rice bean was planted into a fully mature stand of corn around the end of August.  By the time the corn is harvested in September or October, a thick stand of beans has become established during the final weeks of the rainy season, forming an excellent soil-improving ground cover.  After the bean crop is harvested in January, farmers allow the decomposing corn and bean residues to remain in the field in order to supplement soil organic matter.

October was also a good time to see the mature upland rice fields.  Farmers in these communities often rotate production years of relay-cropped corn and legumes with upland rice production.  When the upland rice is planted, it is also grown with other rain-fed field crops such as grain sorghum, foxtail millet and pigeon pea as well as understory crops that include cucumber and pumpkin.

And interspersed between the hill fields are agroforest plots planted by local farmers in diverse mixtures of fruit trees, such as mango, and indigenous forest species, such as rattan (Calamus and Daemonorops species), black sugar palm (Arenga westerhoutii), fishtail palm (Caryota mitis), fan palm (Livistona speciosa), forest vine pepper (Piper interruptum) and snowflake tree (Trevesia palmata).  The farmers, such as Mr. Jawa in the Huai Pong Community, value the forest crops as they produce non-timber forest products that have become increasingly rare in the region due to the overharvest and forest degradation.