Conservation agriculture news

Formation of California Farm Demonstration Evaluation Network

We would like to let you know about the formation of the California Farm Demonstration Evaluation Network, - a grassroots, locally-based effort that has been developed by farmers throughout the State, the Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI) Center, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, the University of California Cooperative Extension, and a variety of private sector partners to address the simultaneous goals of better farm management, greater farm profits, and increased farm productivity and sustainability. 

The California network is modeled after a number of other farm networks that have been created in several states around the country as a means for providing opportunities for progress, the development of improved systems, and greater efficiency in face of the many challenges that agriculture faces today.  Key elements of the California farm demonstration network are 1) participatory learning and adaptive, improved management based on sound science- and experience-based principles, 2) the public, voluntary showcasing of innovative systems developed by experienced farmer leaders, 3) a program of farm demonstration evaluations that employ monitoring, data collection, and analysis of findings, and 4) the use of proven, creative methods for sharing, discussion and communicating results and findings so as to scale up broader adoption of improved systems. 

The network has a broad array of goals that it is pursuing that include the development of water-, climate-, and nutrient-smart systems for the State's diverse crop production environments.  An initial series of network-sponsored farm visits that showcase innovative soil health practices of five Central Valley farmers is being conducted in June of 2016. 

Information for these visits and for ongoing activities and opportunities of the network is available at the CASI website http://casi.ucanr.edu/ or by emailing or calling, Jeff Mitchell, CASI Workgroup Chair, at jpmitchell@ucdavis.edu or (559) 303-9689.

 

CASI members discuss conservation agriculture and overhead irrigation on Farmer Fred Cap Radio program 650 AM KSTE Sunday, June 5, 2016

The link to the Farmer Fred KSTE 650 AM Cap Radio program that was broadcast on Sunday, June 5^th, is provided here. 

https://twitter.com/farmerfred/status/738806795980832769 

In this segment of the Farmer Fred program, CASI's Jeff Mitchell talks with Fred about overhead irrigation and Eric Kueneman talks about conservation agriculture.

Farm Demonstration Network’s Soil Health Farm Visits

 

KMJ 580 radio's early-morning Ag Report which is produced by ag reporter, Don York, featured a short audio segment on the upcoming California farm demonstration network's series of farm visits featuring innovative soil care farmers.  You can hear the audio of the interview that York conducted with CASI's Jeff Mitchell about the farm visits here.

 

 

 

CASI's Monte Bottens and Rob Roy featured in Central Valley Farmland Trust article on conservation agriculture

 

Thanks to Emeritus UCCE Advisor, Maxwell Norton, of Merced County, CASI was invited to prepare an article for the Central Valley Farmland Trust's LEGACY newsletter that has now been printed.  The article includes a nice photo of Rob Roy, Monte Bottens, and Richie and Shannon Iest at one of their very early strip-till corn fields in Chowchilla and it also mentions our goal of creating the California farm demonstration evaluation network that is being worked on now by many of you. 

 http://valleyfarmland.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/CVFT_SPR16_WEB.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spanish tomato researchers tour NRI Project field in Five Points

Spanish tomato researchers, Pedro Garcia of Transformaciones Agricolas de Badajoz in Spain, and farmer Francisco Carapeto, along with Westside Equipment's Abraham Quiroga, and Oxnard, CA vegetable crop consultant, Jesus Valencia, visited the longstanding NRI Project conservation agriculture field in Five Points, CA on April 27^th as part of their whirlwind tour of innovative tomato production efforts underway in California. The tour was organized and sponsored by founding CASI private sector partners, Juan Trujillo and Alan Wilcox of Wilcox Agriproducts in Walnut Grove, CA. Wilcox Agriproducts provides a vast array of minimum tillage equipment to row crop farmers worldwide. The visitors also met with Jesse Sanchez of Sano Farms in

Firebaugh and learned about the work that he and Alan Sano have been conducting with cover crops and minimum tillage for tomatoes.

This visit was also a reunion for Valencia and Mitchell who hadn't seen each other since they toiled together more than twenty years ago hoeing weeds and putting together irrigation systems under the tutelage of University of California Fresno County Cooperative Extension Emeritus Advisor, Don May.

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