A training course on participatory variety selection or PVS was conducted in the Labutta (13-15 September) and Bogale districts (18-20 September) in the Ayeyarwady Delta of Myanmar.
The course aimed to improve understanding of participatory adaptive research on variety selection among participants; introduce new technologies for stress-tolerant rice and rice-based cropping systems in adaptation to climate change; and enhance the capacity of participants to plan and implement PVS in their areas.
The last day of each 3-day course was devoted to a ‘mock’ farmers’ field day for PVS in the two project villages—Bo Kone in Labutta and Pyin Ma Kone in Bogale.
Forty-five extension agronomists and technical staff from partner NGOs (Mercy Corps, Welthungerhilfe, GRET, and others), staff from the district and township offices of the Department of Agriculture, and local IRRI agronomists in Myanmar attended the course.
Resource persons were IRRI scientists Glenn Gregorio and Donna Casimero, project consultant Romeo Labios, and Department of Agricultural Research staff Daw Tintin Myint and Daw Ohnmar Myint.
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In 2008, Cyclone Nargis affected the rice areas in the Ayeyarwady Delta and left many farming families even more impoverished. Early in 2012, a project financed by the Livelihood and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) was implemented in the three main rice-growing districts of Labutta, Bogale, and Mawlamyinegyun. The project aims to improve the livelihoods of rice-based rural households in the lower Ayeyarwady Delta by introducing high-yielding varieties for the favorable areas and stress-tolerant varieties for the salinity- and submergence-prone areas, adapting the best pre- and postharvest crop management practices for rice and improving the capacity of NGOs in rice agronomy.
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