CHAP “Fighting Hunger for Sustainable Peace” INCEPTION & 1ST QUARTERLY REPORT 2014 PILOT PROJECT ON THE SYSTEM OF RICE INTENSIFICATION COMMUNITY OF HOPE AGRICULTURE PROJECT (CHAP) P. O. BOX 5833 Zubah Town, Du-port Road Community, SUBMITTED TO: Paynesville City – Montserrado County Cyrus Sagbe Republic of Liberia Coordinator +231 – 886 – 543 – 735/+231-0886-901-175 West Africa Agriculture Productivity Program [email protected] / [email protected] (WAAPP), PIU/MOA, Paynesville-Liberia 9/15/2014 CHAP Inception and 1st QR) Page | 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACRONYMS 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 1.0 INTRODUCTION 5 2.0 METHODOLOGY 6 3.0 SCOPE OF THE SRI PROJECT 6 4.0 ACTIVITIES IMPLEMENTED DURING THE PERIOD 6 4.1 Recruitment of Staff 7 Table: 1 Staff recruited for SRI Pilot Project 7 4.2 Procurement of Project Equipment 7 Table: 2 Procurement of Equipment for Project 7-8 4.3 Project Community Mobilization and Awareness rising 8 Means/Methodology 8 4.4 Recruitment of SRI Rice Farmers 8 4.5 Distribution of agricultural Tools and inputs 9 Table 3: Summary of total number of farmers 9 Table 4: Distribution of T-Shirts 9 4.6 Capacity Building Training 9-10 4.7 Frequent Asked Question by Farmers 10 4.8 Baseline Survey Result 10 Methodology used 10 Outcome of the Survey 10-11 4.9 SRI Project Sites GPS Coordinates Table: 4 11 4.10 Financial Component 11 Table 6: Personnel Disbursement Detials Under The Period ( May –Aug 2014) 12 Table 7: Expenditure by Component 12 Table 6: Farmers Replaced 13 Phase I: Mobilization, Site Selection and Clearing 13 Phase II: Cleaning and Rehabilitation of Area 13 Phase III: Transplanting and SRI Farm management 13 Tools Distribution 13 Success Stories 14 5.0 CHALLENGES/CONSTRAINTS Table 7 14 6.0 RECOMMENDATION 14 7.0 SUMMARY OF MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS DURING THIS PERIOD Table: 10 Major 14-15 ANNEX Annex A: Attendance during official launch of SRI in Fish Town, Putupo District, River Gee County 16 Annex B: Attendance during official launch of SRI in Putuken, Chedebo District - River Gee County 17 Annex C: Attendance during official launch of SRI in Zwedru, Tchien District - Grand Gedeh County 18 Annex D: Attendance during official launch of SRI in Ziah's Town, Konobo District - Grand Gedeh County 19 Annex E: Attendance during official launch of SRI in Zleh's Town, Gbarzon District - Grand Gedeh County 20 Annex F: List of partners or people met during the period 21 Annex G: Memorandum of Understanding between CHAP and SRI Farmer 22-23 Annex H: Delivery Note 24 Annex I: CHAP SRI Rice Farmer Profile 25 Annex J: Letter to Senators: System of Rice Implementation in the Southeast 26 Annex K: Letter to Representatives: System of Rice Implementation in the Southeast 27 Annex L: List of Agriculture NGOs in the region 28 Annex M: Photographs 29-32 CHAP Inception and 1st QR) Page | 2 ACRONYMS CAC ---------------------------- County Agriculture Coordinator CARI ------------------------- Central Agriculture Research Institute CHAP ------------------------ Community of Hope Agriculture Project CNS-Mali---------------------- Center of National Specialization –Mali DAO -------------------------- District Agriculture Officer DOP -------------------------- Date of Planting ECOWAS -------------------- Economic Community of West African States FUN --------------------------- Farmers Union Network of Liberia GOL ------------------------ Government of Liberia LNRDS ------------------------ Liberia National Rice Development Strategy MOA ------------------------ Ministry of Agriculture NGO --------------------------- Non Government Organization PA ------------------------------ Project Area PF ----------------------------- Project Farmer PMU -------------------------- Program Management Unit SRI -------------------------- System of Rice Intensification TASMOA--------------------- Technical Assistant Support to the Ministry of Agriculture USADF------------------------ United States African Development Foundation USAID ------------------------ United States Agency for International Development WAAPP ----------------------- West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program WECARD--------------------- West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development CHAP Inception and 1st QR) Page | 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Ministry of Agriculture through WAAPP Liberia and PMU seeks to introduce and pilot SRI in Liberia starting with the south east in accelerating agricultural adoption and dissemination of SRI through the lead organization CHAP. It is in this vain that the need has arisen for hiring the services of CHAP who is specialized in SRI Rice production in Liberia and happen to be the first to introduce and practice SRI in Liberia. CHAP is a national NGO specialized in working in Urban and Rural areas in Liberia Since 2008 and was very successful in serving as one of MOA IPs under the TASMOA seed rice Project, and also implemented a Capacity building grant from USADF in 2011/2013.The Organization have been recognized by the President of Liberia, H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for the hard work. The President honor CHAP in 2011 during her annual massage and in 2014 she visited the office and lauded CHAP for the hard work and asked others to follow the example of CHAP and she pledge her own support; Hon. Dr. Florence A. Chenoweth, Minister, Ministry of Agriculture, Regional WAAPP/SRI office in Mali and the SRI Cornel US for the role it have play in leading the process of SRI in Liberia since 2012. CHAP was able to host the first national TOT of SRI Champions under the MOA in 2013 under WAAPP at which time 84 person from the 15 counties where trained. Rice is one of the staple food crops in Liberia. It is largely grown in upland environments by smallholder farmers, with a limited percentage devoted to lowland ecology. Presently, rice is largely cultivated once a year. The high input low risk production keeps the rice yields in uplands persistently low in Liberia. In 2010, about 296,090 tn rice (before milling) was produced from 251,230 Ha with an average yield of 1.18 t/ H (Liberia National Rice Development Strategy, 2012). The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) discovered in Madagascar by the French Jesuit Henri de LAULANIÉ, an agricultural engineer, is an innovation that changes the conventional practices of rice- growing by namely enabling the rice plants to better express their potential of production. In practice, it consists in producing rice with less seeds, water and fertilizers on a soil rich in organic matter and well ventilated. A commissioned regional project, entitled « Developing and scaling up the system of Rice intensification (SRI) in West Africa”, submitted to CORAF/WECARD by CNS-RIZ/WAAPP, on demand of the WAAPP countries, has been approved and officially launched in July/August 2013. It covers the current 13 WAAPP countries for three (3) years. The Service of CHAP was hired by the MOA to pilot the SRI Project in the South East in River Gee and Grand Gedeh respectively and later be scale up in 8 counties in scaling up rice production by placing farmers in the lead. The project has three objectives; Introduce SRI to Rice farmers (They will get to know SRI practices, methodology and principles); Increase the yield, change their planting methods, adapt SRI as way of cultivating rice for higher yield and increase their income per annual; monitor and support SRI newly trained rice farmers on record keeping on farm inputs and cost for cultivation CHAP singed a grant with PMU/WAAPP on June 2014 (Grant N0. 4883-LR & -TF: 099511) but the work started in May 2014. The project hired 7 professional staff to successfully implement the project for the period of 11 months with the possibility of extension base on satisfactory performance. Since the inception of the project it was able to carry out the following ;baseline survey on the knowledge of farmers on SRI practices, signing of MOU with all SRI farmers, training of technicians and farmers on SRI, conducted two missions , payment of farmers incentives, distribution of tools on pay back plan, developed and airing of SRI radio and TV jingles that is been air on the County radio station including LBS radio station , participation in the Regional SRI TOT in Togo 2014.The Project have recruited 177 farmers in the six(6) district of River Gee and Grand Gedeh along with the CAC’s and DAO’s including locals , WAAPP Focal Persons. CHAP also signed a MoA with PIP-COLEACP of Brussels, Belgium on July 31, 2014 for the implementation of PIP PHASES 2 Intervention on capacity building in the area of Horticultural. During this period CHAP held one field day on SRI on May 9, 2014 that was attended by the H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, Hon. Dr. Florence Chenoweth,Minister , MOA, Mr. Tucker WAAPP Representative, Mr. Kenneth Hasson, USAID, Nigeria Embassy, Hon. Fanbulleh Dist. #4, with over 200 person. This report covers May through August 2014. CHAP Inception and 1st QR) Page | 4 1.0 INTRODUCTION The Project is the first in Liberia and is in its pilot stage with funding from WAAAPP through MOA under the PMU. The Project seeks to introduce SRI to 180 rice farmers in the southeast, providing training to others and working along with MOA CAC’s and DAO’s in the project counties, and helping to clear and rehabilitate farmers’ fields. Since the inception of the project, CHAP have been able to carry out the following activities: hiring of professional staff to implement project activities, mobilization of target communities and beneficiaries, sensitizing communities on the objectives of the SRI Pilot Project, conducting baseline survey on the current rice farming system in the project counties, recruiting 177 lowland rice farmers in keeping with World Bank gender guidelines, site selection, clearing and rehabilitation of farmers sites, development of templates such as farmers profile, SRI farmers’ MOU, delivery note reporting template, development of SRI video and audio jingles along with T-shirts to give more visibility to the project, and collection of GPS information on all the project sites, 3 person from Liberia attended the SRI Regional training in Togo in August 2014.