Livestock knowledge sharing contests in eight core villages of SAPLING

The CGIAR Initiative on Sustainable Animal Productivity for Livelihoods, Nutrition and Gender Inclusion (SAPLING) has been implemented in Mai Son District, Son La Province, Vietnam, from 2022 to 2024. One of its objectives is to establish and enhance the capacity of livestock farmer groups to help small-scale livestock households access input and output markets more effectively. These groups also serve as a platform for capacity building and addressing issues related to pig and cattle farming in the locality. Currently, SAPLING is supporting eight farmer groups, with over 120 members in total, focusing on improving capacity, production organization and marketing.

Over the past two years, the eight farmer groups have significantly benefited from the project’s support, including gaining better access to technical assistance, identifying quality input suppliers, visiting and learning from successful value chain models, and establishing market connections. SAPLING aims to have these farmer groups become a driving force to encourage wider adoption of its innovations by other farmers in the community.

To achieve this goal, SAPLING Work Package 4 on Competitive Livestock Value Chains organized a series of village sharing events in the eight core villages where farmer groups are active. These events had two main objectives:
1) Introduce farmer groups and SAPLING's core innovations to all people in the village, thereby increasing the number of adopters, and
2) Strengthen the identification of farmer groups in the community and with local government agencies.