On the range where the deer and the antelope play

I have gone on a road trip again. After the Australian West coast in 2016, I am now making my way down the United States Pacific coast in 15 days.

This blog post is also a way to circle the full circle. I started this blog eight years ago after following a course on knowledge management tools and methods. Our course coaches had encouraged me to start a blog and I did so. I have also taken every opportunity I could to facilitate knowledge sharing events, as I have related in several of the posts in this blog. So after all this time finding my own way in knowledge management with help from various friends, I was delighted to be greeted as I alighted from the airport train in Seattle, Washington, by knowledge management guru Nancy White. Nancy had been the principal facilitator of the knowledge management course I had taken so many years ago and she has managed to keep some links with many of her followers all these years, providing helpful advice and pictures of chocolate goodies all along. I started my road trip by settling in for a few restful days in the cabin Nancy and her husband Larry have purchased overlooking Skagit Bay, very close to the Canadian border.

The first week of my trip has been through damp, humid, even wet terrain in the North West and Northern California. I actually consider I have been pretty lucky with only one day and a half of actual rain. I only got really wet when hiking in the North Cascades national park, but I think it was mainly because of my own moisture staying trapped under the waterproof jacket, and the fact that my ten-year-old hiking boots had lost their waterproof powers! Otherwise, I have had glorious sunshine or only cloudy skies.

Here are some notes from this first humid part of my trip:
I have been amazed by all the beautiful landscapes I have passed through.

When the navy jet fighters would pass over Skagit Bay, I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie with space ships zooming past a wonderful natural landscape; only that today's jet fighters do not screech like in the movies.

I have encountered orcas just five meters away from me during a whale-spotting boat trip.

I have not managed to get into the Pacific ocean: it is too cold!

I have soaked several hours in the Sole Duc hot springs in Olympic national park: they are soothingly warm.

The giant redwoods of Northern California form a natural awe-inspiring cathedral.

I can only eat French fries four days in a row. I had to switch to pasta on my fifth day in the US. Despite all the variations on bread type and filling for my daily sandwich lunch, despite the differences in types of fries I had sampled, my stomach needed a break from deep-fried food. However, I happily went back to burger and fries when something really interesting was placed within the bread bun. Read more next week to find out more and for my highlights from the second drier half of my road trip.

Home on the range
Traditional, Roy Rogers, Home on the range, Vanilla OMP

Tell me more, tell me more, did she put up a fight?

Where goats produce numbers and tell stories about women to statisticians.

Intrigued? Read more here.

Summer nights
John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Soundtrack from the original motion picture Grease, Paramount

Photo: ILRI/Mann

Adapted to these models

Read how I had to adapt my scientific methods to the interest of our local partners in Thailand and Cameroon here.

Adaptation
The Weeknd, Kiss land, Motown Universal

Photo: ILRI/Jo Cadilhon

The talk of the crop at every county fair

Read about how I uncovered the inconvenient secrets of the maize value chains of mountainous Son La province of Northwest Vietnam here.

Corn star
Craig Morgan, This ole boy, Black river records

Photo: Michelle DeFreese/CIMMYT

So if there's one thing that I could say

Read about the main lesson I have learned from facilitating a writeshop to synthesize mountains of data and reports into a 50-p report involving multiple authors: identify the key messages.

One thing
Stan Walker, From the inside out, Sony music entertainment

Photo: LSE Library

Bring me flesh and bring me wine

I am ending a week spent in Oxford. It has been chilly but very fulfilling intellectually, musically and for my tummy.
 

I have interacted with many experts of participatory agricultural research.





I have listened to rowdy caroling in the streets of town, wonderful choir music during evensong at Christ Church Cathedral and a festive delight of early Western music by Poeticall Musicke.

I have enjoyed cooked breakfast and enormous puddings at the dining hall of Saint Anne's College.

Good King Wenceslas
Various artists, Carols from Oxford, The gift of music

Photo: Tejvan Pettinger

It's gonna take patience and time ... to do it right child

I was invited by my colleague Keith Child (pictured) to facilitate the monitoring, evaluation and learning planning meeting of a large research-for-development program. Read what I took out of it here.

Got my mind set on you
George Harrison, Cloud nine, EMI UK Beatles

I can hardly express my mixed emotions and my thoughtlessness

To read about three lessons I have learned from participating in a gender workshop, click here.

Woman
John Lennon, Double fantasy stripped down, Capital records

Photo: United Nations Photo

I read the news today oh boy

Jo Cadilhon saves himself and 57 other people from death by powerpoint!

Read all about it here!

A day in the life
The Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's lonely hearts club band, EMI

Photo: Nick Quaranto

Every valley shall be exalted

Read here about my working in a Vietnamese mountain resort on building partnerships for a research program on HumidTropics farming systems in the mountainous region of Northwest Vietnam.

On the evening after the meeting I went to sample traditional ethnic minority Hmong food at the new branch of The Hill Station restaurant on Fansipan street in Sapa: simple sauces with forest herbs that replace the usual Chinese spices in the meat stews. An interesting change from the delicious Vietnamese food.

And on the next day I went to see this:

Messiah
G-F Haendel, Howard Crook and The English Concert directed by Trevor Pinnock, Archiv

Photo: ILRI/Jo Cadilhon

A new fantastic point of view

To discover how boring numbers can become fascinating stories, read on here.

A whole new world
Music from the original motion picture Aladdin, Walt Disney video

Photo: eye/see

Medley: You are not alone - We are the champions - How can I tell?

Read about my impressions after working a whole week on innovation systems in agricultural development here.

You are not alone
Michael Jackson, The essential Michael Jackson, Epic/Legacy

We are the champions
Queen, Greatest hits, Hollywood records

The shoop shoop song (it's in his kiss)
Cher, If I could turn back time - Cher's greatest hits, Geffen

Photo: Cody Hoffman

Step by step, ooh baby, gonna get to you

Read more about how I survived organizing a strategic meeting of over 200 people and see a recent picture of me here.

Step by step
New kids on the block, Step by step, Sony

Photo: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet

Sometimes I am frightened but I'm ready to learn

(This post was written on Wednesday 15 May but only posted today for lack of time.)

 Today is the first day of ILRI’s 2013 Annual Planning Meeting; it is a regular strategic meeting where many of ILRI’s staff members get together to discuss the way forward for the Institute.

I am part of the organizing committee of this year’s meeting. It has been hard work to come up with a relevant program of activities that will keep a mixed crowd of researchers and administrators engaged during three days. The meeting also has to reach its objective: to figure out how ILRI can unlock livestock development potential through science, influence and capacity development. This is all part of delivering our new strategy.

Together with colleagues Barry Shapiro, Iddo Dror, Peter Ballantyne, Siboniso Moyo, Stuart Worsley, Sylvia Silvestri, and an army of diligent and helpful national support staff, we have worked under the stimulating supervision of Peter Thorne, chair of the organization committee, to devise the program of activities, set up an enormous tent to hold the event on the ILRI Addis campus, make arrangements to feed and house more than 200 participants, and try to keep everybody happy.

Last night, the biggest worry for some of the organization committee members was that the 'sauce' we had prepared for our colleagues to taste might not go down well. Some of the facilitation methods we have chosen require strong commitment from participants to attain the desired objectives. We can only be confident that these proven knowledge sharing methods like open space will work once again. 

There are still a few things to sort out before the meeting starts this morning but I am sure it is going to be a great event.

The power of love

Céline Dion, My love - essential collection, Sony BMG

APM2013 logo: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu

Photo: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet

Out to the woods away, we'll hunt the stag to bay

Read here how I found myself being the game of an interesting hunt.

Foresters sound the cheerful horn
Henry Bishop
The singing club, The Hilliard ensemble and Paul Hillier, Harmonia mundi

Stag hunt: David Hoffman

I like simple tools

What made us so hungry that we literally wiped the plates clean at lunch time during a research workshop in Northern Vietnam? Read more here.

Simple tools
Ry Cooder, Pull up some dust and sit down, Nonesuch

Clip-clop, giddy-up!

Read my latest blog post on ILRI clippings: where I want to go in the next few years of my work life with the International Livestock Research Institute.

Clip-clop
Cloud cult, Advice from the happy hippopotamus, Rebel group

Gotta go back, back, back to school again

To read about my first experience in teaching animal production systems and markets of developing countries to young postgraduate students, click here.

Back to school again

Soundtrack from the original motion picture Grease 2, Paramount

Photo: Eugène Trutat

How do I feel by the end of the day... of a strategic retreat

I have been involved this whole week in the strategic retreat of the Changing Demand and Institutions Team at ILRI. It has been a very intensive exercise involving all the team members. I got to meet all my new colleagues.

The team leader Derek Baker wanted us collectively to write a conceptual framework for value chain analysis. This document is meant to serve as a common method for the team to respond to the various research questions our development partners will be asking us to solve.

We spent most of the first three days sharing ideas on team building and value chain analysis methods and tools. Epi Katjiuongua, Sirak Bahta and Nadhem Mtimet gave presentations on value chain performance indicators and methods for robust sampling of livestock traders in developing country contexts. But in general, Derek had limited powerpoint presentations to a minimum, preferring more interactive methods of knowledge sharing.

Acho Okike facilitated a workshop on who we were as a team, what we did and who we worked for.

Francis Wanyoike and I held a brainstorming exercise on why it was important to do whole livestock value chain analysis. In just five minutes and only three rounds of interventions from the colleagues present, we managed to fill up two flipcharts.

 I also facilitated a workshop on the different methods we could use to respond to value chain issues. We held two subgroup discussions too. The first was to come up with an outline for our conceptual framework. During the second subgroup discussion  we projected ourselves in three years time to decide who we wanted to be, what we would do, and who we would be working for. This was the mirror exercise to the first one facilitated by Acho. We all hope our team's work will be clearly focused on solving the issues of the poor and livestock value chain actors in three years' time.

Thursday and Friday was extremely studious. Derek had booked three meeting rooms in ILRI campus where he virtually locked us up for the collective write up of our conceptual framework. Colleagues passing by the meeting room were surprised to see a group of scientists gathered around a meeting table, but each one of us was bent over our laptop computers typing out our ideas without exchanging a word. Perhaps a result of too much discussion over the previous three days?

Derek had also ordered sandwiches into the meeting room so that we did not have to go to the canteen for lunch breaks. Motivated by the deadline of Friday 17.00 for the first draft of our conceptual framework, I guess we all kept on going, fueled by a generous provision of coffee, tea and biscuits.

I am delighted to say that we made it! Our conceptual framework for value chain analysis has been written up by 14.30 today. We will all go back to our respective duty stations with the first draft to read and improve upon. I look forward to using it to respond to the research questions of our institutional partners. 

I also look forward to the week end... This has been focus-intensive teamwork conducted under a tight deadline.

With a little help from my friends
The Beatles, The Beatles 1967-1970, EMI

All photos except coffee break: Nadhem Mtimet

This littly piggy went to market

I have just joined ILRI’s Changing Demand and Institutions Team as an Agricultural Economist based in Nairobi, Kenya. I am delighted to be back in the development business and to be able to blog about it!

Only two days into my new position I joined a team of colleagues already working in rural Uganda on the Livestock Data Innovation Project (LDIP). The objective of this project is to strengthen the capabilities of national statistical and veterinary services in collecting and analysing livestock data. The project is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented by ILRI, the World Bank and FAO, in collaboration with the African Union Interafrican Bureau of Animal Resources. 

ILRI’s contribution to this project is to develop the methods and tools that will enable local development partners, veterinary services and statistical departments to understand better the structure of livestock production and marketing systems in their country. The objective of this trip to Uganda was to continue testing the group interview workshop method to collect quantitative data and the constraints analysis workshop method to collect more qualitative data on local dairy and pig production and marketing systems. The ILRI team comprised animal breeding experts Julie Ojango and Ben Lukuyu, the animal health expert Henry Kiara, and my economist colleagues Derek Baker and Nadhem Mtimet. The workshops with producers went very well thanks to the logistical support of ILRI’s Diana Oduor and facilitation and translation help from our local consultants and project partners. Despite the important human resources mobilized for this exercise and some more work needed to strengthen the sampling method, Derek believes this method is a cost-effective way to collect reasonably robust statistical data from farmers.

The concept is to gather around 35 producers dealing with the product we are interested in from one area into one large room so that they may complete the interview questionnaire individually, though with the help of the research team and their producer friends and local veterinarians. We had asked the local veterinary counterparts to sample the producers for us in order to get a wide selection ranging from smallholders to medium-sized agribusinesses. The questionnaire filling exercise took around four hours including a tea break and we are confident the data collected is robust as the research team was assisting all the time. 

On Friday afternoon I facilitated a value chain constraints analysis workshop with a group of six pig producers from Wakiso District. The objective of the workshop was to identify the marketing constraints the producers were facing to develop their pig production enterprises. We first started by mapping out the pig value chain in the district. 

I then asked the producers to state their objectives in terms of developing their pig enterprise.

 

Finally, I invited the farmers to list the one most important constraint they were facing to reach their development objective. I narrowed down the list to four items by asking the farmers to identify the most important and the second most important constraints. We then linked these to ILRI’s hypotheses of five major constraints faced by livestock producers: land and water, labour, capital, knowledge and information, and other (government policies, institutions, infrastructure etc.).

Further analysis of all the data collected through these producer workshops will enable us to identify the constraints faced by livestock producers in Uganda and Tanzania, and to link these with their general characteristics and choices of production systems.

This little piggy
Traditional nursery rhyme
This little piggy - 30 favourite songs and rhymes about animals on 1 CD, BBC Audiobooks