SJV CASI Farmers host soil biology researcher from Ghent University in Belgium

Three San Joaquin Valley CASI farmers, - Jesse Sanchez of Sano Farms in Firebaugh, Tom Willey of T & D Willey Farms in Madera and Michael Crowell of Bar-Vee Dairy in Turlock, - graciously hosted Gisele Herren, a soil biology PhD researcher from Ghent University in Belgium at their farms on Tuesday, April 5^th. The farm visits were conducted as part of Gisele's ongoing research that is seeking to characterize communities of nematodes related to the various functional services they provide in soils that have received various organic amendment materials and that have been managed with reduced disturbance practices.

This work is being coordinated in conjunction with Gisele's team in Ghent and also with UC Davis mentorship of Howard Ferris. Gisele's family has a farm in the Capay Valley in Yolo County and her father, Hans Herren, was the first Swiss to receive the 1995 World Food Prize and the 2013 Right Livelihood Award for leading a major biological pest management campaign in Africa, successfully fighting the Cassava mealybug and averting a major food crisis that could have claimed an estimated 20 million lives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rudolf_Herren.

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