The project is progressing well with all proposed activities and milestones for the reporting period completed. The project commenced with a whole-of-team project planning meeting in Mataram in early April 2005. The project was officially launched by a representative of the Governor of Lombok. The meeting covered a range of topics including: an overview of the project objectives, activities and milestones; the proposed research methodology; and, discussion and agreement on the roles and responsibilities of each project team member. Separate small group sessions were held on the design & implementation of biophysical and socio-economic benchmarking and monitoring programs.
Farmer workshops were conducted at a transmigrant village in Sumbawa (Desa SPA) and at another village in South Sulawesi (Desa Barru) in April 2005. Benchmarking information relating to these farmers had been collected in previous ACIAR projects. At these workshops, discussions were held in order to clarify the constraints and opportunities to improving livestock production. A shortlist of these opportunities was then selected for analysis using the Integrated Analysis Tool (IAT), a simulation model designed in previous ACIAR projects for exploring the biophysical, economic and social impacts of change in smallholder farming systems. The results of this analysis were then discussed with the farmers in order to identify technically, economically, environmentally and socially feasible 'best-bet' options. A small group of farmers in each village (~5 per village) were then chosen as case study farmers to trial these best-bet options over the course of the project. We then met separately with each case study farmer later in the year, in order to customise the best-bet options to their individual farm operation and to design related on-farm trials. Further biophysical, social and economic benchmarking was undertaken to provide baseline data and information against which impact could be later compared (via the ongoing monitoring activity). The rollout of best-bet trials at these two villages has now commenced in these two villages and will continue over the first half of 2006 (with trials to be repeated in following years).
Benchmarking has commenced in the two other project villages, namely Desa Mertak in Lombok and Desa Pattalikang in South Sulawesi. As these are new villages that were not previously involved in the earlier ACIAR projects, we have had to start from scratch in terms of building relationships with the farmers, village heads and local Dinas staff and management. The benchmarking began with the collection of village and sub-village level secondary structural, production and management data at the village and sub-village level. This was then followed up with small farmer group discussions and individual farmer interviews to further characterise the social, cultural, management and economic attributes of each household. The nature of information gathered and the methods by which it is to be collected were developed collaboratively between Australian and Indonesian project team members. This information will be used at farmer workshops planned for mid 2006 to inform the analysis and selection of best-bet options and be used later as a benchmark for impact assessment activities.
Climate monitoring equipment has been established at each of the four sites to provide daily timestep rainfall, radiation and temperature data. Key soils at the two new villages (Mertak and Pattalikang) have been surveyed with samples collected from the most significant types for chemical characterisation. This data will be used to drive the farming system model component of the IAT. Similarly, forage and livestock monitoring activities have commenced in each of the four villages; for the purposes of benchmarking and model calibration in the case of Mertak and Pattalikang (ie new sites); and for monitoring the impact of best bet strategies in Barru and SPA.
There has been regular contact between this project and the related project entitled: Strategies to increase growth of the weaned Bali calf (AS2/2004/023). Staff from the latter project have attended the aforementioned farmer workshops and annual planning meeting. Feed options arising from the activities of the 005 project will be incorporated into the feeding trials of the 023 project.

This project involves working with smallholder farmers in Eastern Indonesia to develop, test and apply tools and knowledge sharing techniques for evaluating strategies to improve Bali cattle production. The approach combines the principles of system analysis in considering the social, economic and biophysical impacts of change, with strong farmer participation in all steps from benchmarking, identification of cattle/forage improvement options and the on-farm testing and communication of findings. The work has involved a multi-disciplinary team comprised of forage, livestock, farming systems scientists, social scientists and economists from a range of Indonesian and Australian Government agricultural research and development agencies.

A one-day annual review meeting was held in Makassar in April 2006 to review and discuss project activity over the first 12 months of the project. The full project team attended along with regional heads of Dinas, representative farmers and village heads from each of the case study villages.

Benchmarking was completed in Desa Mertak, Lombok and Desa Pattalikang, South Sulawesi. The required social and economic information was sourced from a combination of historical village records; structured interviews with farmer groups and individual farmers; and the 'expert-knowledge' of staff from the collaborating extension (Dinas Peternakan) and development (Balai Pengkajan Teknologi Pertanian, BPTP) agencies.

The interviewing of farmers was complemented by the collection of various primary biophysical data relating to forage availability (i.e. composition, quantity, quality), feed management (i.e. grazing, cut and carry, supplements), cattle breeding cycles (i.e. times of mating, calving and weaning), cattle performance (i.e. liveweight gain, condition score, disease, dimensions), soil characteristics (i.e. key physical and soil attributes), climate (i.e. long and short term records of temperature, rainfall and radiation).

This benchmarking information was subsequently used in farmer workshops held at Mertak and Pattallikang in July 2006 to identify best-bet options for improving livestock production. At these workshops, discussions were held in order to clarify the constraints and opportunities to improving livestock production. A shortlist of these opportunities was then selected for analysis using the Integrated Analysis Tool (IAT), a simulation model designed in previous ACIAR projects for exploring the biophysical, economic and social impacts of change in smallholder farming systems. The results of this analysis were then discussed with the farmers in order to identify technically, economically, environmentally and socially feasible 'best-bet' options.

A small group of farmers in Mertak and Pattallikang were subsequently chosen as case study farmers to trial best-bet options arising from the desktop analysis and farmer workshops. We met separately with each of these case study farmers to customise the best-bet options to their individual farm operation and to design related on-farm trials. Trials were subsequently established on each of these case study farms at the commencement of the 06/07 growing season. Data relating to forage yield and quality, livestock production and social and economic impact is being collected across all case study farms and will form the basis for evaluating the impact of best bet activities.

The first year of best-bet trials at the other two focus villages of Desa Barru, South Sulawesi and SPA (Sumbawa) were generally successful. These trials involved a range of different grass and legume forage species to enable the farmer to assess their comparative performance. Farmers were encouraged to establish an area large enough to enable some rudimentary feeding trials and to explore the impacts on cattle growth. At the end of this first year, farmers have formed a view in terms of the preferred forage species and coming into the second (current) growing season have been encouraged to expand the area of forage production thus enabling the trialling of other technology such as preferential feeding and feed budgeting. Farmers were periodically interviewed to gain insights into their experiences and impressions of the technology. The impacts on forage availability and cattle performance are monitored using the same techniques adopted during the benchmarking activities.

The best-bet trials at Barru and SPA were used as a centrepiece for two field days held in the second half of 2006. Best-bet farmers from Mertak and Pattallikang attended along with farmers from surrounding villages, local Dinas staff and other Government officials. These field days served as an invaluable conduit for the exchange of ideas and experiences between farmers and extension agents. Participants were provided with handouts detailing the objective and impacts of each trial. Permanent signs were installed at each site for longer-term exposure. A second series of field days are planned for 2007 across each of the four sites.