The Third National Poultry Dialogue in Myanmar by SAPA Project

The 3 rd National Poultry Dialogue of SAPA Project has been organized on 22 nd September 2019 at Perfect Hotel, Mandalay. The third National Poultry Dialogue is mainly focused on sustainable production of broiler meat considering with

1. mitigation on climate change effects upon broiler production
2. least cost production for maximum profits and
3. broiler production standards for higher quality production.

The main discussions were focused to find out possible solutions for climate effects and getting low price in market. As part of SAPA, four National Poultry Dialogues will be organized until 2020. The first national poultry dialogue of the SAPA project has been organized on 2 nd December 2017 at Park Royal Hotel, Yangon. The second National Poultry Dialogue has been held on 28 th November 2018 at Mingalar Thiri Hotel, Naypyitaw. The third National Poultry Dialogue was organized at Perfect Hotel, Mandalay. MLF is focal responsible organization for all National Poultry Dialogues as the local consortium partner of SAPA project. Different organizations from private sectors and government sectors are participated including MLF, Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Development, Myanmar Agricultural Service, De Heus, Fresh Studio, Bel Ga, American Chicken and New Hope and also many farmer representatives are attended.

Dr.Kyaw Naing Oo, Secretary of Livestock and Agriculture Committee, Mandalay was delivered the opening remark and he addressed that the event can provide linkages and find out solutions to improve livestock sector in Myanmar. Dr.Aye Maung Zan, Commercial Director of De Heus Myanmar explained about SAPA project activities and main outcomes of SAPA project.

Dr.Kyaw Htin, President of Mandalay Myanmar Livestock Federation and Representative of SAPA project presented short briefs about First National Poultry Dialogue and Second National Poultry Dialogue. And he highlighted on the importance of sustainable production with least production cost.

Group discussion for sustainable production was facilitated by Dr.Thet Khine from MLF. Participants discussed and considered to do on mitigation measures on climate change effects as

• Upgrading farm management practices and farm design
• Providing comfortable zone for broiler in open type system (18 to 25 degree C is optimum condition for broiler chicken) if close type system cannot be established
• DOC management technology (In system, practicing DOC to temperature resistant and training DOC to get well adopted in high temperature)

To minimize production costs and to maximize profits, participants discussed and recommended the following factors as

• Establishing public company or cooperatives to perform the whole value chain activities for broiler meat production
• Collective buying inputs to decrease the interest rate 8% (because broiler farmers need to pay 8% interest rate if they bought their inputs with credit)
• Integrated farming with fish pond and broiler farm
• To improve farming performance including for farm design, feed management, handling anti biotic and medicines, water quality, DOC management and waste management
• Promotion campaign to encourage chicken consumption.

And attendees suggested that Standards should not be established for only broiler farmers should be established but also for companies to control feed quality and DOC quality in Myanmar. Final National Poultry Dialogue will be held at Yangon and it will be come out with project results and forming broiler farmer club results. This event will be showcase of SAPA projects and will present and conclude all of project success story and lesson learns from projects within 5 project years. As main result of NPD, the coming event will bring collaborating between public and private sectors including government officials, MLF, De Heus and Fresh Studio and broiler farmers in Myanmar.

Broiler Meat Market Study Report

Study Background

In May 2019 Fresh Studio completed a comprehensive study of the Yangon broiler meat market. This study, the first of its kind in Myanmar, describes the complete value chain for broilers sold in Yangon. The study was undertaken as part of the Sustainable and Affordable Poultry for All (SAPA) project, which began in 2015 and will be implemented until 2020. The study objectives were to map and analyze the broiler meat value chain and market in Yangon, to identify target markets for SAPA-certified farmers, analyze producer constraints, and to provide strategic recommendations to overcome constraints and increase farmers’ access to the urban market. The study was conducted from 2017-2019 and consisted of primary research throughout Yangon and producing regions, complemented by secondary research on the national and international broiler sectors.

Major Findings

The study found that production is led by international firms, whose farms and contract farmers produce 60% of the country’s broilers, while independent farmers produce the remaining 40%. Production has been increasing steadily from 2014-2018, with an annual increase of 3.9% during the period. In 2018, ~168,000,000 broilers were farmed nationwide. Consumption has increased more quickly than demand, rising by as much as 9% per year from 2014-2018. Per capita consumption during this period rose from 4.6 kg to 7.7 kg. The broiler value chain in Myanmar divided between a traditional system of market linkages and an emerging integrated value chain dominated by large foreign firms. The traditional value chain is characterized by an elaborate web of small actors with overlapping and often redundant roles. This system evolved to meet the needs of a broad base of widely spatially distributed retailers and consumers who demand small quantities of fresh birds on a daily basis. In contrast, the emerging market linkages are highly streamlined and serve the city’s growing network of large modern retailers, restaurant chains, and international hotels. This new value chain is positioned to improve food safety in the broiler sector as modern slaughter facilities and cold chains become more widely available. Despite the demand growth in Yangon and changes taking place in the value chain, farming methods and farm-gate prices have been stagnant for the last few years. Low-efficiency farming techniques typically lead to high bird mortality and high production costs, which squeeze farmers’ margins. At the farm gate, broilers rarely fetch more than 1.50 USD/kg, and net profit rarely exceeds ~0.30 USD/kg. At these profit levels, external shocks, such as unseasonably hot weather or a disease outbreak, are devastating to independent farmers.

Recommendations

The study found that two key interventions are needed to strengthen the value chain in order to improve farming practices and enhance the quality and safety of broilers that are delivered to consumers. These are the development of a cold chain and modern slaughter system that independent SAPA farmers can access, and a marketing campaign to raise consumer awareness of the high quality and safety of SAPA chicken.

SAPA project milestone: 2500 corn farmers successfully trained

Fresh Studio team has just reached one of the milestones of SAPA (Sustainable and Affordable Poultry for All) result 4, to train the SAPA feed corn production standard to 2500 small holder corn farmers in Myanmar. Fresh Studio Agronomist team consisted out of Ko Thein Win and Ma Hsu Thet Wai Aung started the training since October 2017 with the help of 24 extension staffs in order to implement this project target. After spending about three years in Southern Shan and Kayah State, 2543 small holder corn farmers with 802 females have been trained with not only to train to the farmers but also corn demonstration plots and farmer field days were done in each village in order to see the plant performance of SAPA standard and traditional methods.

SAPA project active areas have 31 villages located in Taunggyi, Hopone, LawkSawk, Pindaya, Sesai, Pinlaung, Pekon, and Loikaw townships. 24 extension staffs who are supplied by the 12 local corn traders who sell corn to the Deheus feed mill factory (one of the participant of SAPA project) are the same ethnic (Paoh, Shan, Kayan, Danu); they took the responsibility to recruit and monitor the farmers during the corn growing season. They all have received the TOT training for three whole days before starting the farmer training. During the farmer training time and farmer field day, they all assisted to the Fresh Studio team by translation or training with their local language in order to get more effective training to the farmer.

The SAPA feed corn production training consisted of two modules. Module one training was related to soil sampling method, land preparation, sowing, weed control, fertilizer application, pest and disease management strategy. Regarding the fertilizer application, farmers were trained how to select the right fertilizer categories based on cost benefit and high nutrient percentage. Moreover, the fertilizer calculation based on the expected yield was trained not only in the training room but also the extension staff assisted to calculate in the field as well. Integrated Pest Management Strategy (IPM) was trained in order to manage pest and disease as a minimum level by increasing the beneficial insect population. Especially for Fall Army Worm (FAW) management, Trichogramma and other least impact to the environment were introduced to the corn farmer and also shown in the SAPA demonstration plots as well.

Module two training was about harvesting, post harvesting, storage method and record keeping. The current practices of corn farmers do not consist out of systematic on time harvesting time because of early and late harvesting. Furthermore, most of the farmers do not know about aflatoxin effects forming while moisture of corn seed is high in storage time. During module two, systemic harvesting, post- harvest and storage methods were trained in order to skip the low quality of corn. Every farmer needed to attend two modules, module one before sowing and module two before harvesting in order to finish all training packages of SAPA and then they will get the SAPA training certificate.

Farmers were really satisfied on the SAPA standard because they can get twice the normal yield, more profit and also a good kernel quality which they never get with their traditional method. After participating to the training and farmer field day in demonstration plot, a lot of famer accepted and changed their corn production standard from their traditional method to SAPA standard.