A two-day training on “Technical Extension for Hulunbeir Herders” was successfully held in Hailar on November 18-20, 2007. 101 herders and extension workers, who came from over 20 gachas of Chenbarhu Banner and Ewenki Autonomous Banner, participated in this training.

This training consists of seven parts: 1) nutritional management of ruminants; 2) disease control of domesticated animals; 3) marketing of livestock products; 4) commercial management of farms; 5) participatory extension approach; 6) making of silage; and 7) field training. Four Canadian and Chinese experts - Mr. Bazil Fritz, Mr. Peter O'Donnell, Dr. Shi Shangbai and Gao Rong gave well-prepared lectures. As a detailed survey of herders’ needs has been conducted before the training, the courses were arranged to be practical and specific, with rich knowledge and skills that the herders are aspired to grasp, and the event was certainly warmly welcomed by the herders. In and outside class, the herders were active to ask and answer questions, and active to participate in discussions. The training proved to be an enormous success.

There are quite a few good points highlighted at this training.

Good point 1: The organizers of this training were mainly the trainees from Sustainable Agriculture Development Program. This embodies the original intention of the project - help the project provinces with capacity building and cultivate a team of high-quality technical promoters.

Good point 2: This training session invited Mr. Peter O'Donnell, a long-term expert of Animal Health Project stationed in Jilin Province. This not only increased the training effect, but also achieved the purpose of sharing resources.

Good point 3: Herders from over 20 gachas of two banners (counties) participated in the training, which was unprecedented before.

Good point 4: This training has brought a completely new space of thinking to herders, not only in knowledge, but more importantly, in ideas.

This training gained great support from AAHB of Ewenki Banner and AAHB of Chenbarhu Banner. It established a great platform for interaction and communication between technical extension workers and herders in the two areas, and laid down a solid foundation for training herders in the future.