Ayeyarwady Delta is a 3.5 million hectares region of mangrove where agriculture is the main source of income for 80% of the population. Known as the “Myanmar rice bowl”, the Delta covered 50% of the national rice production until 2008 when the cyclone Nargis severely and simultaneously destroyed the economic and productive systems of the region. After the cyclone, several GRET projects were successively implemented in Bogale and Mawlamyinegyun townships, evolving from a post emergency to a long term development approach.

The current program combines 4 projects :

• Delta RISE in consortium with Welhungerhilfe (LIFT) aiming at offering diversified opportunities for economic growth of rural households;
• MyCulture in partnership with WorldFish (LIFT) for developement and dissemination of innovative small scale aquaculture system;
• Promoting farmers’ innovation towards agroecology (Louis Dreyfus Foundation) for horticulture production and marketing improvements;
• FIDEL (multi funding) aiming at creation of a member based financial organization.

These different projects contribute to the improvement of livelihood security, economic development and local governance in Delta by:

• Empowering the rural households through knowledge and skills building;
• Supporting the emergence and strengthening CBO to sustainably provide appropriate services for rural communities;
• Facilitating experience sharing and networking of rural development stakeholders.

In terms of approaches, some key features are shared among these different projects:

• A complementary approach to support food and income generation for both farmers and landless;
• Farmers to Farmers extension to focus on capacity building and experience sharing;
• Participative and self management for Community based organizations for sustainable ownership;
• Agroecology promotion for agriculture to develop sustainable and safe production system, with a focus on nutrition sensitive agriculture.

Different videos aiming at sharing these approaches towards the Myanmar rural population have been produced over the last years. The English translations are available from the following links:

• Paddy Quality seed production – 2016 – 37min
• Management advice for family farms (an advisory approach) – 2015 – 15min
• Innovation in small scale irrigation – 2016 – 6min

In brief, the projet works in 66 villages with approximately 3500 families, from 2 townships. 35 farmers’ based organizations will be supported, an estimated amoung of 38 tons per year of certified quality rice seed produced and over 2000 loans provided.

Agriculture Advisory Services

The program supports development and dissemination of improved and innovative practices to increase productivity, quality and diversity of rice, vegetable, fish, duck and pig production. Cross cutting topics such as Farm and business management (with Management Advice for Family Farm) and Marketing are developed and integrated to others activities, allowing rural households to take appropriate decisions by themselves. A complementary Nutrition Awareness campaign, following the LANN (linking agriculture nutrition and natural resources) approch is conducted in 2016 to sensitize households on their production and consumption practices.

Farmers’ organisations

As collective actions are more effective to solve usual challenges of the rice value chain, the program supports Producers Organizations (PO) based on cooperative model. These PO are offering many services to their members such as inputs purchase, credits, storage facilities. collective sales, etc. To answer to the specific need of rice quality seed barely covered by the formal sector, GRET first build technical skills of seed growers to reach quality production standards and then adapted Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) to have a certification process independent of formal administrative ways. The challenge now is to extend PGS Network so it can ensure long term supply of local quality seed.

Microfinance farmers-owned institution

In order to face the lack of affordable financial services, three products adapted to farmers needs are developed:

• Inventory credit loan using paddy stock as collateral;
• Hire purchase leasing system to access equipment;
• Productive microcredit dedicated at landless farmers (called Small Producer Credit System).

Building on its innovative decentralized system, GRET is now under process of creating an independent and sustainable local structure (community based financial institution) to ensure effective service delivery on the long term.

Networking and advocacy

Coordination of development actors is done at two complementary level :

• At communities level through empowerment and experience sharing of leaders and support to voice out with a Farmers’ Gazette (journal written by and for farmers);
• At stakeholders level through the coordination of the Delta Livelihood Network that will implement sharing and learning events and joint advocacy actions.