Leeann Estrada rides around on her favorite skid steer with her favorite co-pilot. Photo provided by Leeann Estrada.

By Marissa Sweatland
InkFreeNews

LEESBURG — Leeann Estrada’s love for agriculture is deep rooted, planted by her grandparents who ran a farm and tended a garden.

Raised in Eagle Pass, Texas, Estrada and family would come to Milford to visit and Estrada could not wait to get her hands dirty. She describes working with her grandparents on the farm as “very impactful.”

Like with agriculture, her love for Africa started young. She recalled seeing an African choir and she just fell in love with the energy. This inspired a missions trip she took when she was 16 to Mozambique, and her next trip to a global farm in Tanzania.

These impacts would follow her, as she participated in FFA. During her time in FFA, she served as a horticulture judge and also won a first place national award through the National Junior Horticulture Association. Estrada mentioned participating in FFA was “the first time I could see myself doing this as a career.”

A graduate of Wawasee High School, Estrada went on to attend Indiana University, in Bloomington, where she graduated with a degree in outdoor recreation parks and human ecology, with a concentration in natural resource management.

Estrada joined ECHO to satisfy an internship requirement for her degree. She was sent to work on their farm in Fort Myers, Fla. During her time on the farm, Estrada noticed an aerial predator problem. To remedy this, she implemented “guard geese.” Essentially, she raised chicks with geese, and the chicks imprinted on the geese. The geese then acted like bodyguards for the chicks. The aerial predator problem vanished. “It was very powerful to given a chance to pioneer an idea and see it come to fruition.”

Life was going well for Estrada. She had found something that she was passionate about, a job that “God had called me to do.” However, all of this changed when Hurricane Ian hit.

“All of the staff left,” Estrada said, “I wanted to stay for the animals. I felt called to stay.” So Estrada stayed.

She was not alone though. One of her bosses’ wife, Alison, stayed with Estrada. Estrada and Alison hunkered down and prepared to wait out the storm.

“It was boring until it wasn’t,” Estrada remembered. They lost power right after the storm started, and were without for about four days.

She recounted seeing “palm trees whipping around like rag dolls.” This was the first hurricane Estrada had ever experienced.

Once the storm dissipated, the destruction was overwhelming. However, Estrada was excited to report that none of their animals perished.

“I was called to stay through the hurricane. God wanted me to be there for Alison.” Estrada is appreciative for the impact she was able to make on Alison. Estrada and Alison became “hurricane buddies,” a term they coined.

“While we were walking around the farm, it was hard to see the place I had worked for a year and half flipped upside down,” Estrada admitted. The clean up process started immediately, but took about three months to get to a “good, working place.”

In the midst of the aftermath horrors of Hurricane Ian, Estrada found joy in driving the skid steer. “Every morning when the bosses were handing out assignments, I asked to be on the skid steer.” On the skid steer, she was responsible for moving debris off the tour path and moving it to the designated debris pile.

“It’s weird how tragedy unites people,” Estrada said, “but it was encouraging to see people rally together in a time of such devastation.”

However, the human race is resilient. Almost as resilient as plants, “Did you know some plants can be grown in carpet with no soil?” I did not.

Estrada is only home for a couple more weeks before she ships off to work on her next global farm, but this time she is going to Tanzania.

During her six month stint, Estrada will be supporting the staff as the technical advisor. She explained how she will be shadowing other employees doing farmer field visits. On these visits, Estrada and crew will teach and train local farmers sustainable agricultural practices.

While there, Estrada is excited to contribute to their database, what she described as “the Google of Tropical Farming.” Farmers can use this database to find answers and solutions to almost any question or problem they have.

“I really like that they focused on localized, contextualized solutions. The farmers can choose what is best for them, their community and their families.”

Estrada is excited to get to work, but she did admit she was a little worried about the language barrier. Swahili is the official language of East Africa. Stacy, a worker on the Tanzania global farm, has been helping Estrada learn. Stacy has lived in Tanzania. “My Swahili is shaky, but I think once I get completely immersed I will surprise myself.”

“I feel so fulfilled. I am excited to take everything I learned from ECHO Florida and apply them here,” Estrada explained.