Most of the planned activities were initiated in the July-September quarter of the 2008 work plan. Following the completion of community and livelihood analysis, community plans related to agriculture were developed in collaboration with all stakeholders. Several production related activities were launched aimed at evaluating crop and soil management technologies in the targeted project communities. To drive production, market studies were initiated. The study helped identify market gaps in the project communities. Further activities have been initiated to link farmers to input and output dealers. To foster interaction between IP members, several monitoring meetings were organised at IITA Station in Kano and at the project sites in Kano and Katsina states. A mega field day was held in Shanono Local Government Area to scale up project activities to policy makers and also to showcase the potential of production improving technologies to farmers. Two agrochemical companies (CZARD and JUBAILLI) exhibited their products to the farmers. The chairman of the seed company, Project Seed Co also participated in the field day where he initiated contacts with community seed producers for eventual purchase of seeds of various crop varieties from them. In this quarter, the remaining village description questionnaires were completed for both IAR4D sites and counter factual villages.
