16 farmers from Uzbekistan visit CASI and the NRI Project in Five Points

July 31, 2018

News Release

Sixteen farmers from the Fergana and Jizzakh regions of Uzbekistan visited five farms and toured the NRI Project in Five Points, CA July 30th and 31st as part of a project sponsored by the World Bank to improve wheat and cotton production in their country through the use of no-till and conservation agriculture approaches.  The tour group was hosted by CASI's Jeff Mitchell who was asked by John Bradley, formerly of the University of Tennessee's legendary Milan Research Center and Monsanto, to coordinate the tour.  Bradley had visited CASI back in the early 2000's when he spoke to us regarding the advances that farmers in Tennessee had made with no-till systems. 

The Uzbek farmers were hosted by Danny Royer of Bowles Farming in Los Banos, Gary and Mari Martin in Firebaugh, Don Cameron in Helm, Mark and Connor McKean in Riverdale, and John Diener in Five Points.  They also took part in a presentation/discussion on conservation agriculture and a field tour of the NRI Project at the Five Points field station that was hosted by Jeff Mitchell and Geoff Koch, a graduate student at UC Davis who is working with the Martins in Firebaugh and Mitchell in Five Points on a new CDFA Healthy Soils Project study of cover crop impacts on soil function.

Uzbekistan has a very similar climate to California's San Joaquin Valley and thus, the tour group visited largely arid regions of the US including stops in Lubbock, TX, Goodyear, AZ and Five Points, CA.  The World Bank is working with Uzbek farmers with the transition to no-till cotton systems and technologies as a means of invigorating the private sector agricultural economy.