A Few Favorite Moments From the Joseph Project
Our 6th annual Joseph Project 'Summit’ recently came to end, and we’re thrilled at how things have grown!
One area of growth the attendees especially noted was how much this community has come to rely on one another. It’s a unique group of people, with a whole lot of diversity. We’ve got young people just getting a business started all the way up to retirees, active farmers, enthusiasts, and everything in between, but we share a common purpose in our desire to see true Kingdom transformation come to these at-risk areas of the world.
By ‘Kingdom transformation’ here we mean less dependence on imported food, more food security and working alongside locals to lower an area’s risk of famine. Earlier this month, our Joseph Project attendees had a chance to visit local soy farmers now seeing a higher corn yield from crop rotations, a still-rare farming practice in the region.
Businesses like Oasis Agro (a subsidiary of Dutch Nature) continue to grow in a way that continues to create opportunity. This growth looks many ways, and can be very difficult to track, but the past week was a chance for the JP community to celebrate jobs created, farmers served, people fed, and the countless other ways we see the impact you’ve made possible.
A special thanks to our C Fund impact investors, your generosity helped the Joseph Project get to this point and we are so grateful! Here are a few of our favorite moments from Joseph Project 2024:
The Kyrgyz soybean farmer who owns this field (pictured above) was originally introduced to the idea of growing soybeans by a Joseph Project company and now sells all of his harvest to our regional partner, which then processes the beans into soybean meal for animal feed.
AgG board members, Kevin Stark and Stephen Maier, were impressed by the operation and were able to give some pointers on comparing different soybean seed varieties sold locally. This quick field visits usually only last an hour or two, but for farmers experimenting with a new crop this kind of coaching can result in weeks of time saved, sometimes even disaster avoided.
A huge thank you to our (mostly volunteer) mentor team for constantly getting out the door or on calls with farmers all over the world!
In between all the field visits, the prayer and planning sessions, and of course the many hours spent celebrating the work you make possible, it's always a pleasure to take time out in the community together, enjoying the local culture.
Near the end of the Joseph Project summit this year, we ended the day at a local chaikhana (tea house) and were serenaded by these two playing traditional Kyrgyz songs. Thanks to all of you who've helped make little moments like this possible over the years, and thanks especially to our Joseph Project attendees this year, it was a fantastic week!
"Restoring Lands, Restoring Lives" was another great talk from the Joseph Project this past week that focused on regenerative agriculture in Central Asia.
Regenerative Agriculture focuses on farming that is ecologically sustainable and restorative. We see this kind of work restoring soil biodiversity or reversing degradation as being in-line with God's restorative Kingdom work in the world, and it's exciting to see our partners in the region taking steps to undo damage and give future generations of farmers hope for a continued harvest!
Special thanks to Mark Polet & Peter Franz for sharing this presentation and visual.
Pictured: Oasis Agro's newly-designed lift helps load grain directly into trucks.
It's always fun to see how ag engineers adapt and improvise. Here a clever Dutch Nature engineer built a machine to help load pallets of feed up and into the back of trucks.
In a recent Joseph Project site visit, we got a tour of facility and saw how customized machine's mechanism can raise and lower, move forward and backward and the conveyor at the end adjusts to the proper level needed. Employees seemed happy to have a less back-breaking way of loading feed up for customers, nice work!
The Joseph Project (JP) is a collaborative effort between AgGrandize Global and our friends at Dutch Nature, and each year we gather to celebrate all we see God doing in Central Asia, particularly through agricultural impact.