1,000 Farmers Participated in Field Days of VEGCAP and Vegimpact Myanmar
In the Dry Zone in Myanmar in Pwint Phyu Township an impressive number of vegetable farmers and professionals visited the field days on February 6 and 7. The field days were organized by the combined projects VEGCAP and Vegimpact with a common goal to provide practical training and accountable information for farmers producing vegetables.
The vegetable farmers of Myanmar are facing a number of challenges. Productivity and quality of produce needs to improve to secure farmers income, lower the cost price and to increase the sustainability of cultivation practices. The project engages private sector partners, the public sector and knowledge institutes to promote and introduce advanced technologies such as high quality varieties, trellis netting, plastic mulch and seedling trays, to name a few. The advanced technologies require more and knowledge and skills of farmers. For that reason a comprehensive knowledge transfer program under VEGCAP has been developed and is implemented with partners with active participation of the Department of Agriculture, State Agricultural Institutes and NGO’s. Wageningen University and Research is leading the knowledge transfer program and is training 25 so called Super Trainers, who in turn train key farmers and other professionals.
The focus of the training is to make available practical knowledge and information for the farmers and to actually demonstrate these practices and skills in the field. The ultimate aim of this project is to reach 65,000 farmers during field demonstrations. In the farmer event of February 6 and 7 more than a thousand farmers were informed about crop nutrition, crop protection, seedling raising, trellising and the use of mulch in vegetable production. The field day was organized by the group of super trainers. The program was highly interactive. Farmers attended short presentation in the field at the various stations. In addition the farmers received crop guides and technical guides in local language and there was an opportunity for creating exchange and discussions. The field day also used live dissemination of the event on Facebook. To date more than 35,000 have been reached. VEGCAP and Vegimpact are working on the so called Pesticides Selection Tool for Myanmar. This is a web based tool which assists in selecting the proper pesticides for vegetable farmers.
The Pesticides Selection Tool can be found on the following link or contact for more information: flip.vankoesveld@wur.nl
