Addis+Ababa+workshop,+May+2013

**Techfit development meeting, Addis Ababa, May 23-24**
Group photo


 * Background**

At the last Techfit Development meeting in Addis Ababa a series of actions were agreed.

From May 23-24, 2013, a group of people met to take some of these tasks forward.

Areas worked on included:


 * Adoptability component
 * Finalising the Intervention expert scoring
 * Initial template for intervention 'factsheets' (or decision-sheets)
 * Ideas to adapt FEAST to generate context scores for Techfit
 * CBA approach
 * TechFit Manual

Detailed actions are mentioned on each page; overall actions here

The group identified potential techfit (and FEAST) test locations: africa rising milkit nicaragua dairy SPVCD Uganda CRP Humidtropics in nigeria and kenya CLW SE Asia Ethiopia small ruminants / SNV / Hawassa Univ

Work on the design of the tool continues after the workshop; A FEAST user group will be planned for later. Other actions are listed here

Day 1

 * ~ Time ||~ Activity ||~ Person ||~ Notes ||
 * 09:00 || Welcome and intros || Peter ||  ||
 * 09:15 || Overview of Techfit

|| Alan || FEAST – in Fodder Adoption Project (FAP) – started by Alan and Werner Feed often very isolated issue and not placed in broader livelihood context; pushed by research institutions – lack of farmer ownership; è FEAST Lack of how interventions fit the context, i.e. land, labour, cash, knowledge; è TechFit Recent development is a Data Aggregator for easy download of the data See flow chart:
 * how to better connect the different challenges, map them and show that they are interlinked?
 * one issue is that researchers take the quantitative data more important than the PRA outputs!



Who will be the users? Extension workers + researchers – all? We need to very precisely write the manual with all necessary details. ||
 * 09:30 || Steps so far || Alan || TechFit – an attempt to deal with a more systematic approach – decision support tool – started in Dehradun, India, Sept. 2011.

Core concept – key context attributes (land, labour, cash/credit, input delivery, and knowledge); following steps are: List of technologies all scored according to the same attributes Match context with technologies; Key context attributes x Key technology attributes = Score Filters, then cost-benefit assessment; Final output – ideas for promising feed interventions and understanding why some of the favourites from researchers often do not work;

New filters – already in use yes/no? potential mitigate constraints – score on seasonality, quality, biomass quantity. Applicability to commodity (beef, dairy, sheep/goats, pigs/ poultry). Applicability to farming systems (pastoral, agro-pastoral, mixed, commercial grassland). ||
 * 10:00 || Reflections on Techfit

|| Werner || There has to be enough feed – even small amounts added will immediately translate into more production. //Ad libitum// feeding is not an intervention (quantity first!). Smart feeding next step – increase quality – where quantity is enough. Quantity available then needs to be seen regarding main constraints, like dry/cold season, or rainy season or generally quantity. Voluntary feed intake is highly related to feed quality. Michael B, assumption that animals would eat more of the same (low feed quality) feed stuff, is too simplistic.

How to weigh changes of a new intervention vs. current practice – e.g. labor for planting forages vs. supervised herding, which requires lots of labor; also we have not gotten any gender aspect in the scores! ||
 * 10:15 || Designing the tasks and assigning participants to groups || Peter ||  ||
 * 10:30 || Coffee ||  ||   ||
 * 11:00 || Group work ||  || We divide into groups based on agreed tasks ||
 * 12:30 || Lunch ||  ||   ||
 * 14:00 || Group work continued ||  ||   ||
 * 15:30 || Tea/coffee ||  ||   ||
 * 15:45 || Cross-group reporting and review ||  || We review together progress of each group and feed in ideas to stimulate further work ||
 * 16:45 || Day 1 wrap up and Day 2 task development ||  || Based on the above discussion we set up further tasks for Day 2 ||

Day 2

 * ~ Time ||~ Activity ||~ Person ||~ Notes ||
 * 09:00 || Reminder of group work tasks || Peter || progress report on day 1 ||
 * 15:30 || Agreeing next steps and wrap up || Alan || ===Wrap up===

Row descriptions should come with the Fact sheets; column descriptions rather in the manual. Testing is needed, could be with some existing FEAST data. Testing should be done through the upcoming FEASTs – AfricaRising in Ethiopia and Tanzania. è new FEAST needs to come up rapidly. Will there be any gathering of feeds experts to check through? Sensitivity analysis would need to be done to really roll out.
 * Werner + scoring group**: group very diverse with different backgrounds + origins, but no major disagreements among group members; all scores done – but reasons for scores have not been captured as yet; need to do descriptions; need to get back to compare what individuals (Werner + Harindar) scored against the current group scoring; test it and see what calculations are producing and check whether algorithms are right; there was no major disagreement between cattle, sheep/goats regarding breeding. All rows were ok; columns also ok.


 * Alan on FEAST**: existing data from FEAST can generate some of the information on seasonality; some questions need to be added to the questionnaire; it will be difficult to use existing FEAST reports to run the TechFit.


 * Adrian on the Fact sheets**: what still has to be done? Draft needs to be circulated (on the wiki); link them with scoring system; write a few examples (Ben, Harindar Makkar, Eduardo).


 * Keith on the Manual**: description of the TechFit Tool; introduction; step-by-step how to use the tool; glossary; 50 pp.? – by July?


 * Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA)**: Padma mentioned the actions
 * Tool design**: Peter Thorne
 * Adoptability**: Brigitte still to finalize.

News item/story for the Blog: Peter Ballantyne. ||
 * 16:30 || Close ||  ||   ||


 * Participants**


 * Name || From || e-mail address ||
 * Adrian Bolliger || CIAT || a.bolliger@cgiar.org ||
 * Adugna Tolera || Hawassa University || atolera@yahoo.com ||
 * Alan Duncan || ILRI || a.duncan@cgiar.org ||
 * Alexandra Jorge || ILRI || a.jorge@cgiar.org ||
 * Barbara Rischkowsky || ICARDA || b.rischkowsky@cgiar.org ||
 * Biruk Hailu || FAO || burew2@gmail.com ||
 * Brigitte Maass || CIAT || b.maass@cgiar.org ||
 * Danilo Pezo || ILRI || d.pezo@cgiar.org ||
 * Eduardo Somarriba || CATIE || esomarri@catie.ac.cr ||
 * Firehiwot Tesfaye || Send a Cow || firetsaceth@ethionet.et ||
 * Isabelle Baltenweck || ILRI || i.baltenweck@cgiar.org ||
 * Keith Sones || Independent || ksones@africaonline.co.ke ||
 * Lemma Gizachew || FAO || Lemma.Gizachew@fao.org ||
 * Martin Mena || CIAT || m.a.mena@cgiar.org ||
 * Michael Blummel || ILRI || m.blummel@cgiar.org ||
 * Michael Peters || CIAT || m.peters-ciat@cgiar.org ||
 * Nicholas Nyathi || SNV || nnyathi@snvworld.org ||
 * Padmakumar || ILRI || v.padmakumar@cgiar.org ||
 * Peter Ballantyne || ILRI || p.ballantyne@cgiar.org ||
 * Peter Thorne || ILRI || p.thorne@cgiar.org ||
 * Rein van der Hoek || CIAT || r.vanderhoek@cgiar.org ||
 * Shirley Tarawali || ILRI || s.tarawali@cgiar.org ||
 * Tsehay Regassa || ILRI || tsehayregassa@yahoo.com ||
 * Werner Stur || Independent || stur@warrawilla.com.au ||