Mid-month Progress Report: FOOD AND ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY (FED) July 1-15, 2016

As part of an exit strategy to empower the four FED-supported Centers of Excellence (COEs), the activity has contracted a local consultant, Thomas Kanneh, to conduct grants development training. The training sessions, which began on July 12 and will run through August 15, are being conducted with administrative staff and faculty of the COEs, including community colleges in Lofa, Nimba, and Grand Bassa Counties, and the Booker Washington Institute in Margibi County. In addition to the training sessions, a FED Soil Consultant, Emmanuel Lincoln, has been mobilized to the field to conduct refresher sessions on soil testing for laboratory technicians at the COEs. These sessions are also scheduled to run from July 12 to August 15. The training and refresher sessions are aimed at enhancing the capacity of the COEs to provide high-quality education and training in agriculture. FED is also providing textbooks and reference materials to support the faculty and students of the National Diploma in Agriculture (NDA) program at the COEs. A total of 144 books, including 12 textbook titles and eight reference guides, are scheduled to arrive in Monrovia by mid-July. The books will be distributed to the COEs' newly renovated libraries, which will provide students with access to relevant and up-to-date information on agriculture. The activity is also supporting the development of Enterprise Service Centers (ESCs) in Liberia. Top Consultants, Inc. (TCI), a FED-contracted consulting firm, successfully concluded an awareness campaign on July 1 to build the capacity of the ESCs as they transition to fee-based service providers. The campaign included radio jingles, banners, t-shirts, appearances on radio talk shows, and traveling road shows to communities, towns, and districts in Margibi, Bong, Lofa, Nimba, and Grand Bassa Counties. FED has extended TCI's contract to August 5 to allow time for the consultant to write a comprehensive report on its deliverables. FED is also working on drafting acts for three ECOWAS policies (seeds, fertilizer, and agro-chemicals) and the 10% Cassava Composite Flour Policy. Dr. Roland Massaquoi, a FED consultant, is leading the drafting process, which involves incorporating comments and suggestions from technical working groups that include stakeholders from the private and public sectors. Once completed, the document will be presented to FED for review before it is submitted to the working groups for approval and then to the Ministries of Commerce and Agriculture. The activity is also supporting the development of Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) in Liberia. Universal Empowerment Missions (UEM), a local institution hired by FED, presented its final report on the full accomplishments and deliverables of the groups on July 5. FED has renewed contracts with independent consultants to continue monitoring the 723 FED-supported VSLA activities from July 1 to August 31. Tallobenku Engineering has completed conversion work on the Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI) goat quarantine facility in Bong County to convert it into a nucleus breeding herd center. The facility now has ideal space for goat husbandry, including 16 individual quadrants for isolation and an animal crush for examination. FED anticipates that CARI will receive and sign the handover documents in mid-July and fully assume responsibility for the center's operations, which will include sourcing and breeding 100 animals (20 bucks and 80 does) of superior genetic stock. FED-contracted BRAC Liberia has sent blood samples from 200 vaccinated goats and sheep to the Ministry of Agriculture for testing. The blood samples are from animals who were vaccinated under a FED-supported campaign against the Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) disease. The campaign ended in June with more than 103,000 animals vaccinated. FED anticipates test results at the end of this reporting month. FED's Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team is continuing to collect data to complete the smallholder farmer survey by the end of this month. The survey began on June 20 and, by mid-July, enumerators had already interviewed more than 1,330 farmers (1,070 upcountry in rice, vegetables, and goat production, and another 262 individual vegetable farmers in Margibi and Montserrado). Data on the cassava value chain will be collected in late-August to accommodate the agricultural cycle for that crop. Planning has been initiated for an Agribusiness Expo to be conducted in September 2016 that will highlight development of agribusiness activity under FED. The expo will focus on value chain development over the past five years and the strengthening of the agribusinesses serving it. It will be an opportunity for businesses serving the agricultural sector to showcase their products and services to potential customers. The target audience for the expo includes