The Ayeyarwady Delta is a 3.5 million hectare region of mangroves, where agriculture is the main source of income for 80% of the population. Known as the “rice bowl of Myanmar”, the Delta covered 50% of national rice production until 2008, when 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 to provide diversified opportunities for rural households’ economic growth;
• MyCulture in partnership with WorldFish (LIFT), for the development and dissemination of innovative small scale aquaculture systems;
• Promoting farmers’ innovations for agroecological transition (Louis Dreyfus Foundation), to improve horticulture production and marketing;
• FIDEL (multi-funding), aiming to create a member-based financial organisation.

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

• Empowering rural households through knowledge and skill-building;
• Supporting the emergence and strengthening of Community based organisations to provide appropriate services for rural communities over the long term;
• Facilitating sharing of experiences and networking by 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 families;
• Farmers to Farmers extension to focus on capacity-building and sharing of experiences;
• Participative and self-management of CBOs for sustainable ownership;
• Promotion of agroecology so that agriculture can develop sustainable and safe production systems, with a focus on nutrition-sensitive agriculture.

Various videos have been produced over recent years to share these approaches with the Myanmar rural population. The English translations are available on the following links:

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

In brief, the project is working in 66 villages with approximately 3,500 families, from 2 townships. 35 farmers’ organisations will be supported, an estimated 38 tons per year of certified quality rice seeds will be produced, and over 2,000 loans will be provided.

Agriculture Advisory Services

The program supports the 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 Farms) and Marketing are developed and integrated in other activities, allowing rural households to make appropriate decisions by themselves. A complementary Nutrition Awareness campaign, following the LANN (Linking Agriculture, Nutrition, and Natural resources) approach was conducted in 2016 to raise households’ awareness on their production and consumption practices.

Farmers’ organisations

As collective actions are more effective to solve common challenges for the rice value chain, the programme supports Producers’ Organisations (POs) based on the cooperative model. These POs provide many services to their members, such as inputs purchasing, credits, storage facilities, collective sales, etc. To meet the specific need of quality rice seeds, barely covered by the formal sector, GRET first built seed growers’ technical skills to reach quality production standards, and then adapted Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) to have a certification process independent of formal administrative procedures. The challenge now is to extend the PGS Network so it can ensure long-term supply of local quality seeds.

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 to landless farmers (called Small Producer Credit System).

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

Networking and advocacy

Coordination of development stakeholders is conducted at two complementary levels:

• At community level through sharing of experiences among leaders, empowerment of the latter, and support to speak out with a Farmers’ Gazette (a newspaper written by and for farmers);
• At stakeholder level through the coordination of the Delta Livelihood Network that will implement sharing and learning events, and joint advocacy actions.