Conservation agriculture news

MOU Signing Ceremony for the California Farm Demonstration Network

About fifty people gathered at the farm of Russ Lester just west of Winters, CA on a beautiful afternoon on the 5^th of May for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for the California Farm Demonstration Network, a major undertaking by the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the University of California, Davis, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the California Farm Bureau Federation.  The purpose of the MOU is to memorialize the agreement between these parties to collaborate in support of the planning, establishment, implementation, growth, and continuance of the Farm Demonstration Network that is dedicated to the increased adoption of conservation agriculture, soil health, and climate-smart systems in California.  Its many goals all aim at the development of water-, climate-, and nutrient-smart systems for California's diverse crop production environments.  Focus areas of the Network include, but are not limited to the following:  participatory learning resulting in the adoption of improved management practices grounded in sound science- and experience-based principles, the public, voluntary showcasing of innovative systems developed by experienced farmer leaders, a program of farm demonstration evaluations that employ monitoring, data collection, and analysis of findings, and the use of proven, creative methods for sharing, discussing and communicating results and findings to scale-up even broader adoption of improved systems.

Signers of the Farm Demonstration Network included Secretary of the California of Food and Agriculture, Karen Ross, Dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis, Karen Buhr (for Paul Williams, President), Executive Director of the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, Glenda Humiston, Vice President of the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Carlos Suarez, California State Conservationist of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Paul Wenger, President of the California Farm Bureau Federation.  

The signing ceremony program was emceed by Karen Buhr of the CARCD, Betsy Karle of UC ANR, Tony Rolfes of the NRCS, and Jeff Mitchell of the CASI Center.  The process leading to the signing of the MOU was skillfully led by Catherine Montano, Director, Administrative Policies & Business Contracts of UC ANR with a Network Steering Committee that includes Buhr, Karle, Rolfes, Mitchell, along with Anita Brown and Zahangir Kabir of the NRCS, Wenger of the CFBF, Jenny Lester Moffitt of CDFA, and Kristen Murphy of the CARCD.  This Committee, along with a new wave of partners, will begin work on achieving Network goals during the coming months.  A copy of the MOU for the California Farm Demonstration Network is available at the CASI website. 

CASI’s Munk and Mitchell host CDFA’s Morco at Five Points cover crop study sites

Veteran CASI Workgroup member Dan Munk along with Jeff Mitchell hosted Sheila Morco of CDFA's Specialty Crop Block Grant Program for a site visit for the project,  Evaluation of Trade-Offs between Winter Cover Crop Production and Soil Water Depletion in San Joaquin Valley Row Crop Fields and Orchards, that a very large team of UC researchers, farmers, and other private sector partners is working on at 7 farms throughout the Central Valley.  Morco is the CDFA Grant Analyst who oversees the team's work.  In addition, UC Davis Hydrology students, Alyssa DeVincentis, Sloane Rice, and Anna Gomes took part in a televideo conference call portion of the visit and provided nice summaries of the data that they've been working to compile based on the project's monitoring activities.  This project is determining the biomass potential for cover crops, changes in soil water storage under these cover crops compared to fallow, and data on the carbon and nitrogen capture potential of cover crops so as to inform farmers of the true tradeoffs associated with this practice.  There is considerable uncertainty surrounding cover crop water use and this has been an impediment to their wider adoption.  Additional information stemming from this CDFA SCBGP Project will be shared at the upcoming major educational training event that will take place in Five Points on June 6^th. 

Better Cotton Initiative Leaders Visit Five Points NRI Project Field – March 28, 2017

The US Manager of BCI, the Better Cotton Initiative, Scott Exo, and BCI's San Joaquin Valley Coordinator, Carlos Silva, visited the longstanding NRI Project field in Five Points, CA on March 28, 2017 as part of a tour hosted by CASI's Jeff Mitchell.  BCI is a not-for-profit organization that encourages a holistic approach to sustainable and brings together people who are involved in cotton's complex supply chain, - from farmers to retailers.  Initiated in 2005, BCI exists to make global cotton production “better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in and better for the sector's future, by developing Better Cotton as a sustainable mainstream commodity.”  Exo and Silva visited the NRI Project field to learn about the work that has been done over the years on cotton production in this field using no-tillage and cover crop practices and the benefits that stem from the use of these approaches in lower costs, fewer dust emissions, greater carbon and nitrogen storage in the soil, increased soil aggregation and water infiltration, reduced soil water evaporation, and other positive changes in soil biology that have been documented since the project was started in 1999.  They also discussed with Mitchell the California Farm Demonstration Network, a broad group of partners who are working throughout the State on establishing local farm demonstrations of improved performance, conservation ag, climate-smart and healthy soils systems, and BCI's potential involvement in the network as a partner.

Better Cotton Initiative website: http://bettercotton.org/about-better-cotton/regions/usa/

 

 

CASI meets with California Almond Board

CASI Chair, Jeff Mitchell, participated in an introductory idea exchange meeting on October 11^th with seven representatives of the California Almond Board at their headquarters in Modesto, CA. The meeting provided an opportunity for CASI and the Almond Board to learn about each other's ongoing educational programming and also to exchange ideas related to the California farm demonstration network and other farmer networks that have been developed around the country. The Almond Board has very active farmer education initiatives in place on a number of fronts. This meeting laid the groundwork for possible collaborative efforts between the Board's over 6000 California farmers and CASI's network of farmer, private sector, University, NRCS, and RCD partners.

Fresno Farm Advisor Dan Munk hosts TKI Crop Vitality at NRI Project Field in Five Points

Veteran UCCE soil, water and cotton Advisor, Dan Munk, of Fresno County, hosted a group of sixteen agronomists who work with the international fertilizer company, TKI Crop Vitality, at the long-term NRI Project study site in Five Points, CA on Friday, October 14^th as part of a California tour organized by former UCCE Advisor and currently TKI regional agronomist, Steve Vasquez. Munk shared with the group the research history of the NRI study and provided an overview discussion on water issues in California. The group's visit coincided with the 2016 harvest of grain sorghum that was conducted by local Riverdale, CA farmer, Connor McKean of McKean Farms.   Preliminary findings for the 2016 sorghum crop indicate that there were no statistically significant differences between any of the four tillage and cover crop systems this year with yields being about 6100 lbs or 108 bushels per acre. Following last week's harvest intercrop tillage was conducted in the standard tillage systems ahead of cover crop seeding during the coming week in both the standard and no-till cover cropped systems. 

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