Where does hope come from? For Dr. Jason Streubel, Senior Director of the Center for Agriculture & Food Security for the Convoy of Hope, hope comes from being able to feed yourself, your family, and your community. Hope comes from the security of knowing where your next meal is coming from and the ability to turn your focus to the future instead of the immediate present. Hope comes from agriculture.
In the latest Measured Science podcast from LECO, Andrew Storey and Mason Marsh interview Dr. Jason Streubel about the recent partnership between LECO and the Convoy of Hope Center for Agriculture & Food Security. LECO has been a friend of the Convoy of Hope since 2005, donating money, time, and resources to their disaster response programs, but this is the first time we are donating actual instruments to benefit their cause.
The Convoy of Hope is a faith-based, international humanitarian relief organization. As Streubel puts it, “[we want to] work ourselves out of a job.” Convoy of Hope goes into impoverished, hungry, and hurting communities and begins by feeding the community, focusing on the children. They set up programs to empower women to create businesses that can support their families and help communities develop and learn agricultural methods that can sustain the community after Convoy of Hope leaves. One recent success story comes from Nepal, where Convoy settled in to help a village after the Nepalese earthquake of 2015. Now, the community they were in is thriving to the point where Convoy doesn’t have a line-item in their budget for this village any longer. It has recovered and is able to support itself, without Convoy’s help. Convoy will always be available if they need advice or connections, but they no longer need to dedicate resources to this village.
That sort of self-sustainment is something Streubel wants for developing countries all around the world, but he acknowledges a huge gap in the market for the emerging farmer. Someone without the education, connections, or capital to access the latest and greatest agricultural developments is already starting on the back foot. What Streubel wants to do with the Center for Agriculture & Food Security is take on the risk and struggle for those emerging farmers. With over 40 acres of managed farmland, a perennial orchard, 10 acres of animal paddock, agricultural mechanic classes, and a small analytical lab, this Center can test, develop, and record new and improved methods of agriculture. They can create lessons that can be deployed around the world, sharing best practices among their network of connections to improve the food situation for hungry and hurting communities everywhere.
In collaboration with Convoy, LECO is providing them with two analytical instruments for their new Center: a CN828 and a TGM800. These will be instrumental in moving the analysis capabilities forward and helping feed the world. To learn more about Dr. Jason Streubel, the Convoy of Hope, and the Center for Agriculture & Food Security, listen to this Measured Science episode.
