On 5 November, the Karnataka AKF will be held in Hubli. It will be followed by the CoDI team’s annual learning and planning meeting 6-8 November.

During September and October, a series of international visitors from Bangladesh, Chile,  France and Spain have paid visits to CASRAD’s Hai Duong processing site and learned about CoDI’s approach of linking farmers to markets.

After only 5 months, 80% of the Bo Khai cuttings set in the Bang Lung nursery in March have now developed into healthy plants. These are now being sold for VND8-10,000 a piece, depending on whether they are of the ‘white’ or ‘red’ variety.

Trainees at the Thua Thien Hue and the Ha Tay sites in Vietnam proudly received their certificates after successfully completing a course in Integrated Pest Management.

Indian farmers from Karnataka visit a jackfruit fair and return making their own jackfruit chips which are being sold at the BIRD-K campus.  In Gujarat, the opportunity of the general meeting of the BAIF-promoted cooperatives in the area was taken to organize a side-event to create awareness of underused crops.

A farmers’ organization is formed and registered in Bac Kan for the marketing of bo khai vegetable and 3 groups are formed in Hai Duong for sticky rice marketing. Training in India includes the making of cashew syrup and karvanda pickles.

CoDI participated in the PROLINNOVA Innovation Asia-Pacific Symposium and showcased its Monitoring, Impact and Learning component. Baseline surveys in Vietnam are completed. Training events take place in Vietnam for plant propagation and nursery management.

Baseline surveys in Vietnam are under way interviewing over 400 households. Training activities are ongoing in the implementation sites in India and Vietnam.

The WII team visits Vietnam to train the field investigators on data collection and data management systems.

Carlos Barahona from Reading Univeristy visits Delhi, to assist in the finalisation of the Monitoring, Impact and Learning aspects of the project with the team from Winrock International India, and project manager Hannah Jaenicke. Work begins on the assessment of project initiation activities in preparation for the first annual report.