ECHO North America Impact Center — Attraction in Florida

Now. This place is very relaxing and beautiful! They have a lot of plants and I got really excited because they were some that I had been looking for so I was happy to see them.. I took the tour and I thought we could eat some of the fruits and plants not sure if I had read that on the website or was told that would be the case. There were so many star fruits that were ripe and fell off the tree.. so a few of us picked from the trees, there were trees all over. Some people never saw the fruit on a tree so wasn’t sure what it was. The tour guide she had us sample a few leaves but when we ate the star fruit she said not to pick them because they are sold in the farmers market. Like lady do you see how much is on the ground? Why aren’t they being harvested everyday? These things will fall and rot really fast.. (but then again they are the experts). That just really annoyed me, but it’s a great place to visit. They had a few fruits that you could purchase but if they would sell most of their produce, I would definitely do my grocery shopping there. The people are really nice otherwise, just be clear about the rules. I bought quite a bit of plants. I am still searching for the shampoo ginger plant, (they had it on the farm but they don’t have it for sale), nutmeg tree and the Kama sutra mint/ Jamaican stick mint. You should check it out with your family. Just be careful we saw a huge black and red snake( didn’t know if it was poisonous), but they have ducks, chickens and pigs on the farm. I have videos so I am unable to...

Took the tour here for the first time and first visit, guide was nice and informative and kept it entertaining. Even answered all our annoying newbie questions. Nursery is one of a kind 5++ star amazing. The only reason is a 4 star instead of 5 is the website and online information is real garbage and very difficult to navigate. In our age where we rely on the internet so often. Would love to see a online list of what is available in the nursery even at a basic level because they shift from "completely sold out for 6 months" to "we have too many of these they are on sale" and they only way a customer knows is by constantly calling the front desk to check inventory every two weeks or so. For instance today they have a fall sale, everything 10% off and up... No mention whatsoever anywhere but in person. The only reason i know is because i call consistently to ask for specific plants before i drive 3 hours there and back. Don't get me wrong it's worth the drive but they could save us both a lot of hassle with decent online presence. Actually the way i found Echo was via someone else's YouTube video who lives In logs Angeles, Google searches didn't clearly define that echo was a nursery at all and obviously the website wasn't clear. My first call to them before my first vist started literally by asking "what do you do here, what exactly are you". Anyway that's all, a little constructive criticism maybe but still a amazing place...

While I appreciate the concept of what they are trying to create there as a demonstration farm and innovative farming techniques, they lack basic animal welfare. Just one example are the rabbits. Rabbits are not sustainable to raise and virtually impossible to raise in a humane way. Rabbits are fragile and have a high mortality rate. They have a relatively high environmental impact as only about 20% of feed converts into meat. If people want to eat rabbits that is their choice but at least give them some quality of life while raising them. They have this prey animal in suspended wire bottom cages with barely room to turn around. It's a miserable existence and certainly not an example of God's call to action to be stewards This farm has created such a headache for my rabbit rescue over the years as folks visit their site and then get the idea to raise rabbits but have no clue what they are doing. Then they are calling me with rabbits cages ripped apart by predators, fly strike, and overbreeding. They often have upwards of a 100 rabbits in no time and no clue what to do with them. From what I've seen, there is little regard for respect and.care for the community of life that ECHO likes to talk about in...