Agroecology for resilient and sustainable livelihoods of natural disaster affected communities in Myanmar. Lessons from the STRONG project approach to farmer field schools (FFS) in Chin State and Sagaing Region.

Rapport, 2018

Rural people in South-East-Asia have, for centuries, adapted their livelihoods to cope with

natural disaster risks. But climate change and transitions from traditional to industrial modes

of farming have changed the vulnerabilities of these people and their communities. Farm

reliant households, in Myanmar and across the region, are increasingly exposed to market

forces and disruptive impacts of extreme weather events. New approaches to rural

development, which enable communities to build resilient and sustainable livelihoods are

therefore needed.


The STRONG project’s approach to farmer

field schools (FFS), promoting agroecological

practices for poor, rural households in western

Myanmar, is an example of such approaches.

In 2016, Ar Yone Oo – Social Development

Association and Welthungerhilfe partnered to

initiate the STRONG project – in response to

severe landslide and flooding events that

devastated rural communities in Myanmar

during the 2015 Monsoon season. The project

supports disaster affected households to

recover their livelihoods and build long-term

resilience, through a portfolio of

complementary disaster risk reduction and

rural development interventions.


This brief (i) provides an introduction to the

STRONG project approach to adult learning in

FFS, (ii) documents agroecological practices

that the initiative promotes in target

communities and (iii) presents key insight from

the STRONG project for inter-organisational

learning and knowledge exchange. The

presentation builds on results of a collaboration

between Ar Yone Oo (Myanmar) and Chalmers

University of Technology (Sweden), formed to

document lessons from the STRONG project

implementation process, and assess project

beneficiaries’ experiences with promoted

agroecological practices.