Every four years, thousands of horticultural researchers and practitioners gather for the International Horticultural Congress, one of the largest global forums for horticultural science. This August, that gathering was in Kyoto, Japan, and three ECHO staff members, Dr. Abram Bicksler, Shaun Snoxell, and Dr. Tim Motis, were there representing decades of field-tested knowledge drawn from farmers and from ECHO’s own research.
For the ECHO team on the ground, the trip was a rare chance to stand alongside leading researchers from around the world, not as observers, but as contributors with something real to offer. Years of trial, error, and field experience, built by farmers and researchers across ECHO’s network, held their own next to the best of academic horticultural science.
Conversations started in Kyoto are already becoming new collaborations. Research shared there is sharpening ECHO’s strategy for the years ahead. And the relationships built there strengthen a global network working toward a shared goal: farmers with more options, and better ones, for feeding their families and communities.
While in Japan, the team also carved out time to think together about where ECHO’s research is headed next, region by region. It’s that combination of rigorous science and genuine partnership that keeps ECHO’s work rooted in both faithfulness and effectiveness.
Every conversation, every presentation shared, every new connection is another thread in a much larger effort to move ECHO’s mission forward, together.