The fourth ECHO Asia Agricultural and Community Development Conference will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand at the Empress Hotel from October 1-4, 2013. Registration for the meeting will begin on the afternoon of September 30 in the lobby of the Empress Hotel with morning plenary sessions and afternoon workshops offered during October 1-3. Additionally, an interesting selection of post-conference tours of local agriculture and community development facilities and projects will be offered on October 4.

Conference Rates

Once again Southeast Asia Marketing (SAM) has been asked to coordinate our conference logistics. Please click on the Register Here button to go to the SAM registration page (opens in a new tab). Once your registration is complete you will be taken to the ECHO Asia PayPal account to make payment. If you need to pay at a later date, please return to this page and click on the PayPal link below to go directly to the appropriate page.

The registration password is "echo13"

Please note that rates will go up on September 1, 2013

Package 1 (Single Room): $410 USD

Package 2(Double Room Sharing): $335 USD

Includes:

• Accommodation for 4 nights
• Daily buffet breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks, Thursday BBQ dinner
• All meetings and post-conference tour
• Roundtrip airport transportation

Package 3: $225 USD (intended for local residents only and excludes accommodation and breakfast)

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The internet in Thailand can fluctuate from time to time causing some difficulty on occasions.

Confirmed plenary speakers and topics include:

Dr. Manny Palada - retired international horticulturist previously worked at AVRDC /The World Vegetable Center in Taiwan as a Crop and Ecosystem Management Specialist - will offer a plenary session entitled The Progress in Moringa Research and Development with a Focus on Asia. Additionally, Manny will offer afternoon workshops related to moringa processing and utilization, affordable micro-irrigation systems for vegetable production and vegetable grafting techniques for tomato, eggplant, sweet and chili pepper.

Dr. Doug Fraiser (SIL International), Melanie Edwards(Lilypad, Myanmar) and Ken Thompson(CAMA, Cambodia) will each share on the theme of "Getting Started" related to their individual experiences in establishing agriculture and community development work in respective locations in Southeast Asia. They will also lead related workshops.

Boonsak Tongdee – Director of the Upland Holistic Development Project (Mae Ai, Thailand) – will speak on Offering Holistic Development and Holistic Ministry to the Poor of Various Faiths in Northern Thailand and lead related workshops in English and Thai.

Geoffrey Wheeler – Founder of the Center for Vocational Building Technology (Udon Thani, Thailand) – will share offer a presentation on Appropriate Construction Materials and Technologies for Community Development and lead related workshops in English and Thai.

Daycha Siripatra – Founder of the Khao Kwan Foundation (Supan Buri, Thailand) – will share on Conservation and Breeding of Local Varieties of Rice: The Khao Kwan Model and lead related workshops in English and Thai.

Drs. Ricky Bates(Associate Professor at Penn State University) andAbram Bicksler (ECHO Asia Impact Center) will speak on the topic, Small Farm Resource Center’s: antiquated or adaptable? and offer a related workshop.

Rick Burnette – ECHO – will offer a session entitled A Toolkit of Resilient Agricultural Responses to Climate Change in Tropical Asia and will lead related workshops in English and Thai.

Post-Conference Tours

The following is a list of likely post-conference tours to be offered on Oct. 4, 2013

Hilltribegreen manure/cover cropping (relay cropping) and agroforestry.

Mae Jo Universityvermiculture facility.

Mae Tha Natural Farming Community– Community-based production and marketing of organic fruit and vegetables.

Chiang Mai Aquatic Development Farmin Chiang Mai’s Mae Taeng District – Tilapia hatchery and production.

UHDP Agroforestry and Small Farm Resource Center and ECHO Asia Seed Bank – UHDP’s small farm resource center promotes agroforestry, backyard agriculture, natural farming and other technologies for resource-limited farmers. The site also hosts the ECHO Asia Seed Bank facility.

Mae Jo University Energy Research Center– Researches and promotes a wide range of alternative energy technologies including wind turbines, micro-hydro, hydro ram pumps, solar technology, biogas, biofuel and gasifier technology.

Khru Pratum’s Farm – The farm produces natural, direct-seeded rice and is a site for farmer-led development and promotion of various types of appropriate, labor-saving farm technology such as solar power, electric farm implements and transportation, gasifier stoves, small-scale charcoal production and fuel from plastic.

Tour of structures constructed from alternative building materials such as preserved bamboo, rammed earth, compressed earth blocks and adobe (sites to be chosen)

Wanted: Good Development Ideas

New to the ECHO Asia Agriculture and Community Development Conference –

A friendlyGood Development IdeasCompetitionfrom the ECHO Asia network!

On the afternoon of Wednesday (October 2) from 4:30-5:15 p.m., persons with brief slide presentations (PowerPoint) or video clips of proven agriculture and community development ideas, technologies and/or approaches that they have developed, adopted and/or promoted will be given 5 minutes each to pitch their ideas and answer questions from the audience. Following the presentations, the entries will be put to a vote to choose the top three ideas. The top three ideas will be announced during the final session of the conference on the evening of October 4. The top competitors will receive choice ECHO prizes and their ideas will be highlighted in an upcoming ECHO Asia Network News or possibly other ECHO publications.

Using the following criteria, competitors must demonstrate that their ideas, technologies or approaches are in some way:

1. Original and/or unique.

2. Have been proven to be useful, successful and/or adoptable to some degree by smallholder farmers.

3. Likely to be appropriate (replicable or adoptable) elsewhere under similar circumstances without an extraordinary amount of skill, effort or funding.

To register for the competition, interested persons can send a title and description of their ideas, technologies and approaches, including reference to the three previously mentioned criteria, toECHOasia@echonet.org.

Resource Fair

Organizations are encouraged to reserved space for a resource fair that highlights the services and activities of the participating organizations. Arranged outside the main conference room, table and floor space can be arranged to allow for the display of posters, audio/visual information and demonstrations. Appropriate materials can also be sold or distributed for free. For more information about renting space and tables for the resource fair, contactechoasia@echonet.org.