Support to Integrated Farming

Overview

The major socio-economic challenges the country currently

strives to overcome in the agriculture sector include reducing the

over-dependence on imports of agriculture products, improving

national food security, strengthening organized farming and

subsistence farming systems, applying appropriate technologies

and developing the required market infrastructure. Lessons learnt

from previous engagement in this area through the Support to

Integrated Farming project (2008-2010) show that sustainability

of community level agriculture activities depends essentially on

having focused policy level interventions that enable the creation

of an environment where small community businesses (SMEs) can

grow. This includes enabling the expansion of production

capacities, developing business and managerial capacity at island

level, establishing formal market linkages for such SMEs through

private sector partnerships as well as encouraging greater private

sector engagement in such activities at a commercial level.

A beneficiary of the Haa Alif Baarah Island poultry project – such

community level engagements require policy level support for

sustainability. Photo: Masrah Naseem/ UNDP Maldives 2012.

Our Focus

With the main objective to strengthen economic resilience of

island communities and vulnerable groups including women and

youth, this project builds on the first phase of Support to

Integrated Farming Project (2008-2010) during which innovative

and environment friendly agriculture technologies such as auto-

pot farming systems, medium scale poultry facilities and high-

quality, standardized food processing projects were successfully

set up in eight community islands. The main strategy involves

building up on the successes and lessons learnt from these

interventions to expand and commercialize innovative farming

and mari-culture ventures in local communities. To this end, the

project aims to assist at policy level in strengthening the

sustainability of livelihood activities through expansion,

commercialization, and knowledge exchange and market

Project Snapshot

Project Status Ongoing

Start date 1 January 2011

Estimated end date 31 December 2013

Geographic coverage Nation wide

Focus area Poverty Reduction

MDG 1

Partners Ministry of Fisheries and

Agriculture, Marine

Research Centre

Project Focal Point Aysha Solih

Integration through private sector partnerships, as well as

building the overall institutional capacity of the Ministry of

Fisheries and Agriculture (MoFA).

Our Work

- The community level integrated farming and value

addition activities (Autopot farming, poultry and chilli

sauce production) which were successfully

demonstrated with UNDP support in eight island

communities were used as a baseline for MoFA to

scale up and replicate such initiatives with other

donor support, as a result of which these farming

avenues have seen considerable progress in the past

few years.

- UNDP worked closely with MoFA in introducing the

concept of cooperative societies to island

communities and successfully establishing

Cooperatives that are better capacitated to engage in

and expand business ventures.

- UNDP supported the development of feasibility

studies on the commercialisation of poultry, Autopot

and chilli sauce production activities in order to

enable private sector engagement in these activities

at commercial level.

- UNDP helped achieve successful market linkages

between community NGOs/cooperatives and the

private sector.

- UNDP supported the Maldives Food and Drug

Authority (MFDA) and MoFA in the initial steps

towards development of a standardised quality

control system and local certification system for

agriculture and value added products.

- Knowledge materials for mari-culture activities were

developed with UNDP assistance, which can be used

by interested private sector parties in taking up

commercial mari-culture initiatives.

Funding 2013

Funding Amount

UNDP 129,225.00

TOTAL 129,225.00

Delivery 2012

Funding Amount

UNDP 131,619.00

Delivery 130,065.36

TOTAL 98.2%

Delivery 2011

Funding Amount

UNDP 223,000.00

Delivery 189,869.39

TOTAL 85.1%

Policy and Inclusive Growth Unit

United Nations Development Programme - Maldives

For more information on Policy and Inclusive Growth

Contact: athifa.ibrahim@undp.org

- UNDP also plans to support the development of a

monitoring and evaluation system and database to

strengthen the plant and animal quarantine mechanism of

Maldives

Future Direction

The project has helped set up innovative and environment

friendly agriculture technologies in eight islands. Photo: Masrah

Naseem/ UNDP Maldives 2012.

2013 being the final year of the project, UNDP is working

closely with MoFA in ensuring the achievement of the

project objectives and the linking up of activities initiated by

the project with other projects under the broader plan of

MoFA, in order to ensure smooth transition by the end of

UNDP assistance.

Since this project has been instrumental to MoFA in

providing a basis on which the Ministry can build up future

interventions, UNDP is supporting MoFA in liaising with other

partners such as the International Fund for Agriculture

Development (IFAD) and the Food and Agriculture

Organisation (FAO) in scaling up and expanding the work

initiated under this project, particularly in policy level

interventions that would help create an enabling

environment for small scale community businesses and SMEs

to thrive and sustain in the developing agriculture industry of

Maldives.