Resillient Sustainable Agriculture

RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Building Resilience of Labutta Township (Myanmar) People throughSustainable Agriculture (Veggie Wheel Board)

Background of the Area and Project Labutta is one of the townships at the delta area ofMyanmarin Ayarwaddy region. This area is known as adisaster prone and most hazardous area in Myanmar. In 2008, Nargis Cyclone occured inLabutta and millions of people were severelydevastated by the cyclone. About 84,454 people from this township were listed as dead or missing and the foundation of all economic activities in the village was suddenly collapsed.Many people lost their family, their homes, and their jobs. After the disaster, there was a worldwide effort to rehabilitate the villages and towns of Labutta. Many projects were implemented by various organizations in order to recover the life ofLabutta people. Nevertheless, after 7 years, none of the efforts showed a significant impact in bringing back the normal life of Labutta people. Unlike before the disaster, many Labutta people now are still living in poverty and struggling just to be survived. Furthermore, currently many suicide cases happen in the village which is mostly caused by the debt and poverty issue. It seems that the disaster and unwell-planned post disaster management has taken the self confidence and the feeling of self ownership of thepeople.All of the helps given to the people after the disaster which focused only on disaster adaptation and not much effort in empowering the people to recover had made them so dependent to the outside people including in the matter of food supply. As a coastal area, most people at Labutta work as a fisherman. Before the disaster, besides fishing community,some people alsowork at paddy rice farmingand grow their own vegetable in their gardens. One of the negative impactsof the cycloneis the decreasing ofsoilquality due to the salt water intrusion.Therefore, right nowat Labutta, vegetables cannot be grownanymore due to the high salinity of the soil. Currently, food especially vegetables supply is imported from outside the village. Unfortunately, since the Labutta Township is an isolated area and hard to be reached by common mean of transportation, the shipping cost is so high and make the price of food especially vegetables becomes unaffordable for most people which leads to a health concern especially among children because right now many children in the community suffer from the malnutrition, disease, and lack of vitamins problems. RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Picture 1. Map of Labutta Township (Myanmar)

Goals The goals of the program are : “Recovering Self-Confidence and Self-Ownership of Labutta Township, Myanmar People through Rresilient Sustainable Agriculture(Veggie Wheel Board)”

Objectives The objectives of the project are :  To equip the community withsustainable and resilient gardeningknowledge and skill  To accomodate the community needs for gardening tools and equipments  To demonstrate a good practice of gardening to the community  To educate youth and future generation of the community aboutresilient sustainable gardening practice

Action Plan Idea Overview The idea of this project is based on the vertical farming concept which is one of the alternatives farming system of urban agriculture. We will adopt that concept idea to the rural community to answer their poor soil quality problem. Recently, a quite similar approach had been done in Bangladesh and showed a succesful progress to overcome the problem of salty soil in that area (www.scientificamerican.com).The design of the veggie wheel board will use RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE bamboo as the main material resource. The idea of the creation of the wheel is to make the vertical garden become mobile, so that it will be resillient during bad weather like storm, rain, or windy weather that frequently occured in Labutta area. The other material used is recycled wood and recycled wheel. Kinds of vegetables planted are vegetable plants which are commonly used in traditional cuisine of Myanmar. So, it will not only about producing food but also preserving the traditional cuisine culture of the people in the village. Plants like roselle, morning glory, tomato, onion, etc will be the main vegetables grown.

Picture 2. Design of Veggie Wheel Board

Partner and People Involved This project will align with the initiatives done by non-governmental organization (NGO) Action Aid Myanmar which has main focus in empowering people to recover after the disaster. Su Ei as the coordinator of this project has worked at this organization and at this villages for more than 3 years, so that we try to incorporate her network at Action Aid in this project. The other NGO named Mercy Corps and government entities (local government and Myanmar Department of Agriculture) which have focus on developing agriculture across myanmar. In collaboration with Action Aid Myanmar, we will collaborate with Action Aid Trained Fellows at Labutta Township who will be our main partner and human resource in implementing the program. Other people involved in this project will be the committee member of the villages named Village Disaster Management Commitee which is an independent group of people previously facilitated by the Action Aid Myanmar in their. Dhimas will responsible as agricultural technician coordinator in this project due to his background as graduate of RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE agricultural science major and his experience in working with people in creating a gardening community at his home country, Indonesia.

Project Programs There are 4 basic programs for this project which are : 1. Verticulture Workshop Workshop will be held as an event to educate people about gardening skills and knowledge which include various competences :  Designing and making verticulture structure  Growingand maintaining plants techniques  Composting method and organic fertilizer making techniques  Organic local-based biopesticide making technique  Organic trichodermbiofertilizer making technique Workshop will be held periodically (every 3 months) or according to community needs. At first, the workshop will be held under the supervision of Dhimas as the initiator and agricultural consultant of this project. Dhimas then will train the local fellows about the way to held and manage a workshop event and equipping them with necessary agricultural techniques, so that the local fellows will be ready to take the supervision role at the upcoming workshop event in the community. 2. Tool Library The idea of tool library in this project came from our reflection based on the concept of tool library implemented by MUD Project gardening community in Missoula, Montana. Tool library is a concept of providing gardening tools for the community with adopting the concept of library system. The library will be self-managed and will consist of member of the community. Each member of the community could borrow the tools and has to return it at a certain time. The librarian who will be in charge for managing the library would be people which also part of Village Disaster Management Commitee. The librarian and fellow facilitator will give the report every period of time to make sure the sustainability of the tool library and to prevent tools losing. The member will also responsible for the maintenance of the tool. We will facilitate the tool librarian, commitee, fellows, and member to discuss regarding the library management system, rules, and maintenance which will be based on their local wisdom. RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

3. Demonstration Site The demonstration site has a purpose to give the community an example and ideas about what they can do with their garden. The demonstration site will be the center of new or updated gardening technology that the member of the community could adapt in their own garden. This demonstration site would also be the stage to show the people in the village about what we do and how cool the things that we do. Through that effort, we are optimist that we would attract the attention of the village people and expand the scale of our community member. Dhimas will be in charge in the making of the first demonstration site which will be made at the near of the community hall center. Trained fellows in the community will be the one who responsible for the maintenance of the demonstration site in the long terms. 4. Youth Education Program The purpose of youth education program is to raise the awareness of youth and attract them with the idea of home gardening. Youth as the future generation of the community will be educated and engaged with nature and environmental education. Youth education program will consist of workshop, camp, games, and storytelling.This program will be supervised by Su Ei as the project coordinator. The youth education program will be done periodically to provide the community with a continouos youth involvement program. A specific curriculum and teaching method will be applied based on the community character context. Trained fellows will supervise the upcoming programs in the long term and sustain it in the community.

Community Outreach Plan 1. Identifying the village or target areas and the people in the community The project team will travel to the target area and identify the final village. We will be working closely with the community fellows (who have been trained by the organization on development concept), Village Disaster ManagementCommittee and Women Self-Help Group and volunteers in the village. There will be pre meeting with the core members (fellow, volunteers and some members from the village disaster management committee) 2. Pre meeting with the village head and village development committee The project team will meet with the village head and VDC committee and will discuss briefly about the project. The project team will discuss with the village heads on the potential candidate for initial member for the project. RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

3. Forming committee and selecting the potential candidates Community meeting will be conducted in the village. In this occasion, we will present about the idea of the project and formthe core committee.The potential interested candidate will also be invited for the project beneficiaries. 4. Project Orientation and Implementation Agricultural technician (Dhimas) will travel to Labutta bring his knowledges, skills, and experiences that he got from Indonesia, and try to implement this project in Myanmar. While Dhimas is staying in the community, he will do the research on the soil quality and will try to develop and establish the agriculture model mostly with local resources. He will conduct the workshop with the community and fellows and introducing the home vegetable gardening model and some other knowledge on the agriculture. Tool library will be set up and introduced to the committee members and fellow. He will closely train the fellows on agriculture techniques, manure making, organic composed making training, how to build the model with bamboo, and some other necessary skills in order to facilitate the project implementation in the village.\

Communication Plan The communication planning will be based on the reporting system from the community by fellows. The fellow will send the report by phone every week and will update the process and progress of the project. The project focal person will receive the information and will share to the other project team members and communication focal person. Communication focal point will set up the website in collaboration with other two projects under the ASEAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT Initiative which is held in Myanmar and Phillipines and each project will develop their own facebook page for sharing the good practices and progress and impact of the project. Respective American Embassy Facebook page in each country will be requested for promoting the project.

Monitoring, Evauation and Documentation Plan The monitoring will be conducted throughout the whole project and the project focal person will monitor it every 2 months. The project will be monitored especially in terms of the process and impacts in the community. There will be the final evaluation at the end of the project.Case RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE studies of the project and the result will be uploaded in the website. Case studies, photos and daily record will be used as the documenation tools.

Project Focal Person DhimasHandhiPutranto – Agriculture technician and consultant Su EiNandar – Communication and Project Implementation Queenie Maria EscobillaGuibao – Social media and Communication

Timeline and Budget

No Activities Sub –Activities Timeline Budget 1. Planning Stage Identifying the village or target areas April 1st week Pre meeting with the village head April 3rd week and village development committee Committee forming and selecting the April 3rd week potential candidates Project Orientation April 3rd week 100 USD 2 Verticulture Travelling ( JKT- YGN) two ways June 1st week 700 USD Developing the workshop agenda June 1st week Workshop and methodology Travelling (Yangon – Labutta) June1st week Conducting the 1st time 2 days June 2nd week

workshop 120 USD General knowledge on the verticulture Train the fellows on designing and making verticulture structure and growing and maintaining plants , composed making methods, organic fertilizer making technique, Organic local- based bio pesticide making technique, Organic tlichoderm bio fertilizer making technique ( 2 days training) Providing the seeds and small grants June 2nd week 15 USD x 10 for agriculture model = 150 USD 3 Tool Library Developing the Tools menu for tool May 2nd week library 100 USD Purchasing the required tools May 4th week RESILLIENT SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

( bamboo, wood board, wheels, composter, manure, soil, small shovel, saw , hammer, seeds , nail, mechanic tools, Plastic bag, cormorant, sprayer, beaker glass ) Hang over the tools to the village June 2nd week agriculture committee Train the Committee members for June 2nd week managing the Tools library ( 1 day training) 3. Demonstration Developing the model in the village June2nd week Sharing the technology of how to June 2nd week site build the model workshop 4. Youth The curriculum developing by the April 2nd week Education technician Youth Education One day camp on June 3rd week 50 USD Program Agriculture and home gardening at school ( need to identify the training days 1 or 2) 5. Communication Reporting and documentation from Throughout the - field to Project focal person project Developing the Project Facebook After the project - page for sharing process and implementation progress of the project and started collaborating with other projects under rural development theme 6. Monitoring and Monitoring trip to the project site July 100 USD Evaluation of every 2 months Final Evaluation trip Sept 100 USD the project 7 Mesllineous Dhimas allowance and perdiem in June-July 150 USD cost the village Total Proposed Budget 1570 USD