The presentations made by Rhoda Mahava and Samson Oguntoye focused on the summary of the activities they have done together with ACAI in 2018, positive experiences, key challenges, going forward in 2019, and expectations for the meeting. The highlight of 2018 activities for development partners was the onset of the validation activities for the ACAI decision support tools. Development partner participated in the Training of Trainers and then facilitated the step down trainings at state level for project anchors in their respective states. Following the trainings, partners established validation trials within their locales reaching a combined total of 741 new trials in 2018. In Nigeria the partners have collaborated with ACAI team on the evaluation of the different formats of the DSTs. Partners across the two countries are set for the dissemination phase of the ACAI DSTs from 2019 by intensifying field activities and integrating learnings from ACAI into their work plan.

1. Development Partners’ feedback:
Summary of Past Year’s Activities &
Expectations for 2019
Samson Oguntoye

2. Summary Of Past Year’s Activities
Experiences with the VAL2 – Development Partners
• Val2 - Validation trials holding to verify whether
the recommendations supplied by the tools
outperform current practices or current blanket
recommendations.
• TOT sessions held for State Project Anchors of Dev.
Partners: Notore & SG 2000 (Awka, March 2018),
CAVA II (Abeokuta, April 2018), OYSCGA (Ibadan,
April 2018) & Psaltery (Iseyin, April 2018).
• Step-Down trainings for EAs from Notore, SG2000
and CAVA II to manage trial clusters were held
from May - June, 2018. EAs were registered on the
Step-down training day. They in turn identified
and registered the HHs.
• Trial establishment followed from May – July 2018
for all Use Cases across the project locations. A
total of 741 trials were established by the EAs from
the Development Partners.

3. Summary Of Past Year’s Activities
Experiences with the VAL2 – Development Partners
• Summary of trials established by
Development Partners in 2018:
Notore – 183.
Psaltery – 90.
OYSCGA – 60.
CAVA II – 158.
SG2000 - 250.
• After upload of HH data on the ODK, site-
specific fertilizer recommendation was
proffered for each farm.
• Fertilizer formulation was then sent to
each SVP from IITA for the respective
farms. There were different
recommendations for different farms.

4. Summary Of Past Year’s Activities
Experiences with the VAL2 – Development Partners
• EA Baseline Capture was done from Aug
– Sep, 2018 to capture present
knowledge base of the EAs prior to the
project.
Total number of EAs captured was: 231
• DST Format Evaluation with Farmers and
EAs was also carried out from Oct – Nov,
2018 to get the buy-in of End-Users on
preferred formats.
The evaluation was overlapped with
Partner-specific activities as a cost saving
measure.
A total of 179 respondents (EAs-47;
Farmers-132) were evaluated from the

5. Val2: Positive
Experiences?
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Experiences with VAL2 – Development Partners
• Farmers already seeing significant differences
between plots (e.g. higher plant populations and
lesser costs of land preparation) and are eager to
see the outcome of the validation trials at harvest.
• Majority of the EAs quickly adapted to use of the
ODK & had little or no difficulty using the app.
• All the Dev. Partners are preparing for the
dissemination phase to reach out to more farmers
and working towards mobilization of more EAs and
Farmers for the next phase of activity.
• Introduction of Extension payments based on
deliverables.
• Direct payment to the EAs has led to increased
transparency and the Direct interface with IITA has
also given them a greater sense of belonging and

6. Val2: Technical challenges
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Experiences with the VAL2 – Development Partners
• Difficulties with download of new forms
and uploading of data due to internet
issues and complete absence of network
coverage in some remote locations.
• Absence of transportation/logistics cover
for the movement of EAs greatly depletes
their actual allowances.
• Complaints from farmers on the timing and
frequency of data capturing and
monitoring.
• EAs working with NAS not getting
payments for this extra engagements with
the NAS team, apart from those pre-
negotiated with the Development
Partners.

7. Going Forward in 2019?
Notore:
• Participate in the dissemination of
the DST to end-users by integration
of the DST into our planned farmer
education activities for 2019 to
reach 24,240 HH through 50 EAs
• Engagement in the fertilizer
blending/formulations aspect of
the project to guide our cassava
blends production plan.
• Support current farmer outreach
programs e.g. mega field days
and radio sessions & training
program for farmers on fertilizer
application.
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Experiences with the VAL2 – Development Partners
Psaltry
• Be engaged in the
dissemination of the DST to
farmers in our field activities for
2019 to reach 1500 farmers.
• Integrate learning from the
project in the operation of the
3rd line of the plant planned for
June 2019.
• Support for the existing
outreach programs e.g. radio
sessions for mobilization of
more farmers who could
adopt DST formats
• Generally, Dev.Ps expect a support framework for increased synergy
between them e.g. Notore & Psaltery/ OYSCGA.
Other Partner-Specific expectations are as follows;

8. Going Forward in 2019?
SG2000
• Engage in the dissemination of
the DST to farmers by integrating
71 EAs through group approach.
• Engagement of the Management
of SG2000 and State ADPs to
map out program for the
sustainability of the ideas of the
ACAI project beyond the current
spans of the SG2000 project.
CAVA II
• Engagement of the Management
of CAVA II and State ADPs to
map out program for the
sustainability of the ideas of the
ACAI project beyond the current
spans of the CAVA II project.
• Be involved in the dissemination
of the DST to farmers through
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Experiences with the VAL2 – Development Partners
OYSCGA
• Be involved in the
dissemination of the DST to
farmers by integrating 55 EAs
in additional 7 LGAs in the
state.
• Profiling of their existing
farmers in the 11 LGAs where
they currently have activities.
• Support for planned model
farm for the sustainability of
the ideals of the ACA I
project.

9. Key expectations from review and planning workshop
1. 120,000 targets of farmers to be reached for
adoption of DST:
- What is the target attributed to each
partner?
- How will partners be supported during
dissemination phase to meet up and/or
mobilize more?
2. Results from the field trials on all Use Cases:
- What are the possible blends?
- How will commercialization phase be
attained?
3. How do we move forward with partners’
preferred
DST formats?
- What are the possible timelines for the
dissemination?
- How will project further support
dissemination strategy of DevPs? www.iita.org | www.cgiar.org | www.acai-project.org
Experiences with the VAL2 – Development Partners

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