Trainees of the JICA course “Rural Development through creating Agricultural Value Chain” attended sessions for roughly two months at OUAVM and, among other places, on a nearby ranch.
This training course, based on a contract between OUAVM and the Hokkaido Center (Obihiro) of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), aims to develop human resources who can develop and implement national and regional rural development plans through value chain establishment that brings producers (rural areas) and consumers (urban areas) together.
In the training, which began on June 17, the trainees received lectures and practical training about animal nutrition, bovine mastitis, the quality control of milk, pasture utilization, meat production, the evaluation of meat quality, biogas production, food sanitation and more. They also took a tour through a ranch, factory, and other facilities. This course was attended by 11 trainees from 10 countries, including Botswana, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and lasted until August 7 with the assistance of course leader Professor Masafumi Tetsuka of the Department of Life and Food Sciences.
On the last day of the nearly two-month course, trainees made presentations on their action plans to use what they had learned in the training to add higher value to livestock products. In the closing ceremony, they were awarded a certificate of completion from OUAVM and JICA.
