Wai Wai's Home Garden

The FAO-GAFSP Programme enhances knowledge and encourages the adoption of good nutrition practices through a social and behavior change communication approach across six townships in the Central Dry Zone of Myanmar. It aims to support all community members in achieving effective behavior change on nutrition. The project is supporting home-based food production through provision of Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture (NSA) packages and orientation training to ensure further availability of fresh food locally and meant to secure the source of income.

Wai Wai in homestead garden at irrigation and maturity state with her baby

Wai Wai, a 21-year-old mother of two children and also a member of the Mother-to-Mother Support Group (MTMSG), who lives in Mandalay Region, triggered a significant change in her family's approach to health and nutrition through FAO-GAFSP Project supported NSA package and training in Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture. She established a productive homestead garden, and successfully grew eight vegetable types nutritious for her family nutrition.

Through project sessions, she learned systematic vegetable cultivation and natural fertilizers application techniques being the highest need in the country due to skyrocketing prices of fertilizers. Her father's crucial support in managing the homestead garden and producing organic fertilizers has been a key to sustaining her vegetable production. The skills, knowledge, from the training and her own interest have enabled her to stop relying on purchasing vegetables from the market, allowing her to save money for other basic necessities of life. In addition, the nutrition sensitive agriculture knowledge ensures an important source of diverse food for women and children's diets in her family.

Ma Wai Wai’s long beans and ridged gourd crops produced bumper vegetables, providing nutritious meals and extra income as well from the sale of surplus.

 “It (crops from her home garden) is more than enough for us and our neighbors, so we sell the surplus” – cited by Wai Wai. 

 She claimed that now she can buy chicken and spend on bread for the children. Her vegetable homestead garden promoted diet diversity for her family, thus avoiding external purchases.

 Wai Wai’s story indicates that an integrating agriculture and nutrition reduces malnutrition, fostering confidence in positive change in terms of transforming knowledge and behavior.