Woman Farmer: Bouachanh Sivilay
Woman Farmer Group: Organic Farmer Association of Paek district, Xiengkhouang province (OFA)
National FO Affiliation/Membership: Lao Farmer Network
Organisation Involved in the Case: Sustainable Agriculture and Environment Development Association (SAEDA)
Timeframe: 1997
Location/region: Yone village, Paek district, Xiengkhouang province
Case/initiative:
Resiliency is made when farmers can have higher adaptation while lowering risks to climate changes. That is why it is very important to help farmers to diversity their production and income generation sources in order to increase adaptation capacity and reduce risks to climate changes.
Ms. Bouachan Sivilay, president of OFA-an organic farmer association has been running her farm of a total area of less than 2 Ha organically and integratically since 2007 with technical support from SAEDA-an local NGO working on sustainable agriculture.
Bouachanh and her husband has a garden of about 1,600 Square M and about 1 Ha of rice paddy field. She also managed to raise chicken and ducks with a fish pond in her backyard. Currently, she can produce about 5 Tons of rice which is only half a Ton is needed to feed her family while she sells the rest of the rice for income (12 Million LAK per year).
For the vegetable garden, she produces varieties of vegetable for selling at organic market at provincial town. She can make over 20 million LAK per year from the sell.
For chicken and duck production, this is mainly for household consumption. However, she managed to sell 2 lots per year which can make up to 6 million LAK.
Bouachanh said that she decided to do integrated farming because if she lost one crop from disease or natural disaster, she can still have other crops. Having more than one crop also help her to manage with market prices which often not stable. If one crop has a very low price, other crop can compensate the loss of income.
Weblink: laofarmers.net
Contact Details: lfn@laofarmers.net
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