This SRA actually commenced operating in October 2005. This initial report covers the first 3 months progress.

HUAF staff have conducted capacity building activities in Dong Giang each month for representatives of the District, World Vision staff, extension staff, para-vets, farmers and farmer associations in the following:
General course in cattle production
Feeding and nutrient requirements of cattle
Quang Ngai study tour
Extension methods
Establishing cattle demonstration models in 3 communes
Up-skilling hamlet facilitators (5 communes)
A stakeholder workshop was held in Hue in August 2006, to consider the activities that had been undertaken, their benefits, the challenges and future opportunities.

In cooperation with local District Agriculture Extension Station (DAES) and Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry (HUAF), the project has made some major achievements as follows:

A Training Manual Document on Cattle Production has been published: The project and HUAF consultants compiled the manual to help local agriculture workers, at commune and hamlet level, facilitate the training for farmers.
Members of the Commune project management boards (C-PMB) and the network of Hamlet facilitators (HF) improved their training skills. To apply the Training Manual Document on Cattle Production that was published, the project conducted a TOT training course for selected members of C-PMBs and HFs with a "learning by doing" approach. The participants were the trainers who facilitate training courses for local farmers. This is a strategy for sustainability of the project.
Capacity on cattle production for local farmers was improved: In collaboration with Hien ADP, the selected trainers, who had received the TOT training, trained poor farmers to set up 59 cowsheds for 59 households and 137 households to plant grass for cow raising. In addition, Hien ADP helped 67 households with loans to buy cows.

In cooperation with local District Agriculture Extension Station (DAES) and Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry (HUAF), the project has made some major achievements as follow:

Project planning and management improved for local hamlet facilitators network. After providing the same training course to Project management Boards members, the project keep conducting a 4- days training course on project planning and management to improve the quality of planning and management of the project for 15 hamlet facilitators. This network help the project make the annual plan of action with bottom- up approach
A 3- day training course on credit loan management conducted for commune accountant and commune PMBs members. Currently, each project commune has a recycle credit loan scheme for cow raising. The monitoring results showed that after the training, 8 among 10 communes managed the loan better.
Network of hamlet heads, mass organization, community based organization at commune and hamlet levels improved on training skills: To apply Training Manual Document on Cattle Production that was pulished, and to follow up the TOT training course conducted for commune project management boards (C-PMB), network of extension workers and network of Hamlet facilitators (HF) in the last six months, and in integration with Hien ADP, this training made completion of the TOT network on cow raising from district level to hamlet level.
More 60 commune and hamlet cadres and about 300 farmers had basis knowledges on cow raising. The project conducted 11 trainings on cow raising for local people that were facilitated by TOT network trained by the project.
6,000 pieces of three kinds of leaflets on cow raising published and distributed to local farmers already.