1. RESILIENCE
BUILDING
MECIS ECONOMIC JUSTICE COMMUNITY 0F PRACTICE
LEARNING WORKSHOP
ARMENIA TEAM MARCH 17-20, 2014

2. Page 2
FACILITATING PRODUCTIVE AND
RESILIENCE SMALLHOLDER
AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT IN
ARMENIA
NUMBER OF BENEFICIARIES: 6000 (3600 women and 2500
men)
LOCATION – Vayots Dzor and Tavush regions of Armenia
STAFF AND PARTNER NAMES:
OXFAM Economic Justice team (5 persons)
BSC – Business Support Centre
SCVIC – Scientific Centre for Vegetable and Industrial Crop
PROJECT DURATION; 2010-2017

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SECTION I: CONTEXT ANALYSIS
Armenia
Population: 3.1 million
GDP per capita $5,279
Gender inequality ranking (out of 146): 60
Rural Poverty rate: 37%
Number of farmers: 340,000
Country challenges:
• Big number of small-holder farmers,
• Unfavourable weather conditions
• Weak involvement of private sector,
• Lack of sufficient natural resources,
• Lack of market access
• Lack of access to agricultural services,
• Lack of access to extension services,
• Lack of access to financial resources (credits, micro-credits)

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SECTION II: MAIN INTERVENTIONS
• Strengthening Resilience of Smallholder Agriculture in Tavush and Vayots Dzor
regions
• Creation of adaptive rural agricultural model (greenhouses with drip irrigation),
• Successfully piloted the Pre-Vulnerability Assessment in Tavush and Vayots Dzor regions
• Establishment of community based business and social enterprises,
• Establishment of Regional Farm School (Tavush region),
• Coops/smallholder farmers’ access to Micro-credit/zero interest loans (500-600 GBP;/ farmers (100 GBP),
(64% of loan takers are women),
• Women Economic Empowerment and Leadership
• Establishment of women cooperatives in Vayots Dzor and Tavush regions,
• Establishment of business and social enterprises
• Food Female Hero/GROW Campaigns
• Enterprise Development Project
• Construction of Food and Berries Processing Plants in Ayrum community,
• Increasing the role of women farmers in food value chain through sourcing berries and fruits from poor
women collectors,
• Creating employment opportunities for about 60 people, particularly women,
• Sourcing products from neighboring 10 communities (with about 1800 collectors 70% of which are women)
• Advocacy through multi-stakeholder alliances/platforms
• Intensive work with Agricultural Alliance and DRR National Platform

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SECTION III: STAKEHOLDER
ANALYSIS
• Engaging multi-stakeholder alliances/platforms (AA, DRR
National Platform, CSPN)
• Influencing national policies on Agricultural development/Food Security
and Agricultural Risk reduction,
• Generating recommendations for policy change,
• Public campaigns and events,
• Creating linkages between private sector and smallholder
farmers
• Mapping private sector companies in Armenia,
• Promoting marketing capacities of cooperatives (forwarding contracts,
promo materials, booklets, website),
• Sensitization of private sector (national processors, big traders) to
source farmer coops’ produce

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SECTION IV: ACHIEVEMENTS
• 30% increase of income of smallholder farmers, particularly women
(60%) through involvement in coops’ enterprises
• Increased yield of smallholder farmers (cooperatives)
• 18 agri-coops established in 18 rural communities inTav.& VD)
• Access to high-value adaptive and resilient crops (tomato, cucumber,
bean, pepper, broccoli, cherry tomato etc),
• Access to innovative seeds breeding, cultivation and reproduction
technologies,
• Available capacity for production of high value vegetable crops and
seeds/seedlings breeding(reproduction)
• Improved access to knowledge/education and new agricultural
practices on soil husbandry in resource scarce communities through
farm school
• Available pre-vulnerability assessment data for target communities
• Joint advocacy through Agricultural Alliance/ DRR Platform (e.g.
Agricultural Insurance)
• Establishment of (attractive) replicable rural business model (EDP)

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SECTION V: SUCCESS AND
CHALLENGES
SUCCESS
 Creation of a Social Investment Fund for allocations for community social projects
 Availability of seeds reproduction
 Established relations with SCVIC and extension services/RASC (Regional Agricultural Support
Centre)
 Successful advocacy for development of Agricultural Risk Reduction Project
 Established paid employment mechanism for cooperative members (5-6 persons per cultivation
season),
 Attracting new funding opportunities for EDP/Leveraging (CARE, Orange)
CHALLENGES
 Cooperative management – Need for improving the system of internal structured management and
more delegation of tasks among all members,
 Marketing knowledge – Need for developing capacities of the cooperatives in marketing of their
produce and proper business planning (agricultural sale)
 Need for additional funding resources for EDP,

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SECTION VI: LEARNING AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
• More intensive work with agricultural cooperatives to
promote group work and social corporative thinking,
• Build capacities of cooperatives in financial management
(allocation of income/profit etc),
• Present the efficiency and affordability of piloted models
to make it more attractive for stakeholders,
• Advocacy for replication of rural community based
adaptive and business models at national, provincial and
local levels,
• Work on government’s existing policies and
commitments (both national and international),