Monthly Feed the Future Report Mali Cereal Value Chain Project

The project team was still undergoing recruitment of personnel, with key positions including the Deputy Chief of Party and the Value Chain Competitiveness Director. These positions were approved by USAID/Mali, with the Value Chain Competitiveness Director beginning work on February 12, 2014. The project's local consortium partners, GFORCE and Neyta Conseils, had recently opened their offices in Sikasso and Mopti, respectively. Following a common planning session in February, field interventions were scheduled to start in early March. The subcontract with the third consortium partner, d intl, had also been finalized, and short-term technical assistance for financial services and business development services support was planned for mid-April to mid-May 2014. The project team conducted a first round of field visits to contact main actors in the respective value chains and inform them about the upcoming program. An inventory of production figures for the 2013/14 campaign in the Feed the Future villages was carried out, with draft results showing cereal production in the intervention zones estimated at 41,920 MT. The production figures varied significantly across different zones, with 14.6% rice, 46.5% millet, and 38.9% sorghum. Meetings were organized with the Centre de Développement des Cultures Tropicales (CMDT) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to prepare a contractual arrangement for large-scale promotion of sorghum and millet in CMDT's intervention zone in southern Mali. The same partners were discussing an intervention strategy on natural resource management for the Koutiala/Yorosso area. Working sessions with important traders and processors were also initiated to develop an intervention strategy, focusing on credit and input supply to producers. ACDI/VOCA's signature training curriculum for producer organizations, "Sell More For More," was being adapted to the Malian context, and an overall training plan was being drafted. ACDI/VOCA's Senior Technical Training Director arrived in Bamako on February 22, 2014, to work closely with the Training and Capacity Building Director and other relevant CVC staff to ensure they were capable of conducting the training-of-trainers on the SMFM model. The director would also provide short-term technical support to existing CVC staff members, including customizing the SMFM curriculum for the Malian context and facilitating the debriefing and learning process.