Mid-Term Review Workshop and Training

Mid-term review workshop-cum-training for resident field investigators of VDSA project, SAT India component

Away from the calm environs of the village, the field investigators of the Asia component of the project attended a 4-day mid-term review workshop-cum-training during 24-27 Aug 2010 organized by the VDSA team at RP-MIP at Patancheru.

As many as 19 field investigators, one each from the 18 target villages spread across five states of SAT India -- Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh -- and a lady field investigator from Patancheru, actively participated in the workshop.

Interacting with farmers during a visit to
Aurepalle village in Andhra Pradesh.

The program aimed at reviewing the progress made by the resident field investigators during the last one year of the VDSA project, obtaining their feedback on the surveys and stay in the villages, enhancing capacity and finalizing work plans for year 2 of the project.

Presenting an overview of the project and its objectives, Director RP-MIP Dr MCS Bantilan highlighted the importance of the village profiles in the project outputs. She advised the investigators, “Just collecting data over years is not enough; it is important for you to publish and pursue PhD degrees using the data generated in the project”. Drs VR Kiresur, P Parthasarathy Rao and UK Deb gave brief accounts of the progress achieved in the project during the project’s first year. This was followed by a rigorous discussion on the implementation of household surveys in the 18 villages using revised survey instruments. Guidelines for and progress made in writing the village profiles were also discussed.

Discussions with a woman farmer.

The capacity building component of the workshop included sessions on qualitative data collection methods (R Padmaja), computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) instruments (GV Anupama), soil sampling method for soil analysis (IYLN Murthy, DOR, Hyderabad), method of using rain gauges (NN Srivastava, CRIDA, Hyderabad), and the use of anthropometric equipment (K Mallikarjuna Rao and Sree Rama Krishna, NIN, Hyderabad).

The third day comprised a visit to Aurepalle village in Mahbubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. Field investigators, supervisors and data entry operators were split into four groups during a mock household survey organized to appreciate the effort of quality data collection at the field level.