As a part of a national movement, many non-profits, schools, churches, and neighborhood organizations are considering community and cooperative gardening. Community gardens can provide sustainable ways to supplement food pantries, improve school lunch programs, increase neighborhood food security, create welcoming green spaces and build relationships.
ECHO exists to reduce hunger and improve the lives of small-scale farmers worldwide. They work to identify, validate, document and disseminate best practices in sustainable agriculture and appropriate technology. They provide agriculture and technology training to development worker in over 165 countries.
A unique perspective that ECHO brings to the domestic community gardening movement is a perspective of agriculture shaped by their work with small-scale farmers in many of the poorest regions of the world. They seek to provide an opportunity for practical and affordable ideas to be shared and communicated across the globe. This often takes the form of low-cost and low-input recommendations, which typically include the use of nutritious tropical perennials and subtropical plant varieties as part of a sustainable agricultural system.
Download the ECHO Community Garden Toolkit.
This resource was designed to help you discover the diversity of resources available within your community, to meet the felt needs of your community, as well as promote intercultural understanding of issues regarding hunger, poverty, and justice in sustainable agriculture around the world. You can use it to better assist you in the organization and implementation of particular elements crucial to making a garden project successful.
Be creative. Get dirty. Have fun with your students.
