PET Activities
PET Capacity Building
The PET Assessors’ Course is designed to give trainees practical instruction and field experience in assessing the crop, and body condition of domestic livestock as well as assessing the availability of forage and browse. The training course is designed to provide trainees with theoretical and practical knowledge of using the PET app to assess crop and forage yields and animal body conditions. AgriTechTalk Africa (ATTA) is the only organization authorized to deliver the capacity building on the methodology.
PET Assessments
PET assessments involve the collection of data on multiple journeys (transects), these data are collected during walking, driving, and hybrid transects. Later, formulae are applied to these data to assess the average (mean) yield/condition of the area being studied.
The PET assessments may be part of regular monitoring, or an ad hoc assessment to provide instant data based on specific needs (e.g. after a crisis to provide immediate feedback on general animal condition; or in an area of specific interest as determined by the results of initial observations).
Crop Yield Assessments
A crop assessment aims to produce data at harvest time of the main staples of specified locations for a particular season. The assessments involve the independent derivation of production data, by combining disaggregated estimates of
- the probable area of staple foods being harvested; and
- The expected yield per unit area of those commodities for contiguous administrative zones, accessed throughout a given area.
Livestock assessment
Livestock assessments provide information on the status of flocks, their likely performance during recent months, and how they should be managed in the near future. Regular implementation of PET livestock assessments over time allows trends of LBC to be monitored, and possible forecasts to be made when used in conjunction with other tools like weather forecasts or NDVI prediction. Therefore, the tool can be used for monitoring livestock body condition for early warning of possible crises, or to monitor the impact of the responses to the crisis.
Data Analysis
All data collected by the assessors/officers are stored and archived in a server owned and managed by AAI. AAI supports the analysis and reporting of all PET data for all the projects implemented by ATTA.
