Click here to donate
About us

 

Humphrey Fulbright Fellows Tour Ecology Action
by Mary Zellachild and Karen Gridley

Ecology Action Headquarters

Humphrey Fulbright Fellows with interns, apprentices and staff at EAH Mini-Farm.

On September 28th Ecology Action hosted a special six-hour tour for ten Humphrey Fulbright Fellows from UC Davis, who are in California from October 2013 through mid-June 2014. The ten countries represented were Iraq, Brazil, Algeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Panama, India, South Korea, Myanmar and Pakistan. One participant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was unable to come because he had a conference in Europe.

Each person that attended holds an important position in his or her country with either the government, a university, or other high-level organization, which will allow each to have an impact when they return home. The fellows' area of study at Davis is split among Natural Resources, Environmental Policy and Climate Change, and Agriculture and Rural Development. Half of the group are women.

In response to strong interest by the Fellows, John Jeavons offered to give four One-Day Workshops during their time in California, one each on detailed understandings of Compost (and EA's current research into how to enable it to be two to ten times more powerful), GROW BIOINTENSIVE® Low Natural Rainfall Farming without Erosion, Sustainable Biologically Intensive Income Farming (since one participant did not realize you could do this without machines, chemicals and poisons), and Growing Energy Crops with GB Sustainably (so countries like South Korea do not have to import ethanol).

The participants were also invited to attend other EA workshops and were informed of the Four-Week Farmers Course in Willits in January and the Five-Day Conference and Workshops in Dominican Republic in November 2014.

Participants selected many EA publications to take back with them to UC Davis, including the GROW BIOINTENSIVE DVD. One of the six-month interns from Sri Lanka suggested that the people from Pakistan and India become part of the South Asia GB Network that he and two other interns from Sri Lanka are developing. The man and woman from Pakistan and India also would like to translate the online Farmer's Handbook into Urdu, and the woman from Myanmar (formerly Burma) wants to translate it into Burmese.

It was a dynamic day, one that could catalyze the spread of GROW BIOINTENSIVE food-growing even further into the world.



top | Newsletter Home | Article Index | Archive

Please donate $40 to our 40th Anniversary Fundraiser! Click here to donate!