California Farmers Host FAO Visitors

San Joaquin Valley farmers, Scott Schmidt of Five Points, Darrell Cordova of Denair, and Michael Crowell of Turlock, along with UCCE Stanislaus County Advisor, Marsha Campbell-Mathews hosted Eric Kueneman and Dirk Lange, both formerly international agriculture development workers with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy, at their farms on July 27^th.

Kueneman is the former director of international conservation agriculture programs at FAO and was responsible for the organization's CA efforts throughout a number of regions with several member nations. He is currently a consultant involved in the evaluation and review of several development programs in India, Nigeria, and Brazil.

Lange is a career international development worker who has had stints with FAO, the German development agency, “GTZ,” (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit), and has also worked with fellow German development pioneer, Rolf Derpsch, - who was hosted by CASI for a series of seminars in California back in 2012.

CASI members, Schmidt, Cordova, and Crowell, shared insights related to the production systems they work with here in the San Joaquin Valley and the ways in which they now incorporate conservation agriculture principles into their production practices. Schmidt has reduced tillage operations as well as the overall horsepower of his tractors dramatically in recent years and employs a number of creative ways for inserting cover crops into his diverse crop rotations that include tomatoes, wheat, garlic, onions, cotton, and alfalfa. Cordova now uses no-tillage for both his winter forage mixes and his summer corn that are both irrigated using a precision-application center pivot. Crowell, a dairy farmer, has been no-tilling his small grain and corn crops since 2003. A video describing the efforts he has made to develop his no-till system and his emphasis on soil care is now available as part of the USDA NRCS “Unlock the Secrets of the Soil” farmer profile series at https://youtu.be/I92ORwVkfiY.  He will also be on the program of the National No-till Farmer conference that will take place in Indianapolis, IN next January 6-9^th.

Additional information about conservation agriculture and the CASI Center is available at the CASI website http://casi.ucanr.edu/. 

 

Read more