Rural Economy & Agriculture Dry Zone Survey - April-May 2017

The Rural Economy and Agriculture Dry Zone Survey (READZ) survey was conducted in April and May 2017 to generate a detailed picture of livelihoods, cropping systems, farming practices, irrigation access and the state of the wider rural economy in the Dry Zone - one of the country’s most important agricultural regions, and home to more than 10 million people. READZ was comprised of household and community survey components. Prior to the READZ household survey, scoping studies identified the main agro-ecologies, cropping systems and forms of irrigation access present across the three main regions of the CDZ (Mandalay, Magway and Sagaing). Four townships, containing the main sets of conditions identified during scoping were selected for inclusion in the household survey. The READZ household survey was implemented in April 2017. 1578 rural households, selected at random from 100 communities (also randomly selected) were interviewed to collect data on households’ activities over the past year. The survey instrument contained modules on household composition, migration, employment, land and asset ownership, irrigation, agricultural machinery and draft animal use, input uses, changes in production practices over the last decade, and access and utilization of agricultural credit. Agriculture modules focused in particular on the crops green gram, groundnut, sesame and paddy. The READZ community survey was designed to track temporal changes occurring at the broader ‘landscape’ through use of multi-year recall questions. The community survey instrument included modules on the recent history of: village populations; access to educational facilities; modes of transport and travel times to nearby urban areas; access to irrigation facilities; crops grown; use of agricultural machinery; wages, labor costs and labor availability; inventories of agriculture related and non-farm businesses; land ownership; access to and terms of credit; climate change. Community questionnaires were administered during group interviews with four to six knowledgeable men and women in the 100 communities where the READZ household survey was implemented. To increase the survey’s spatial coverage and lend it greater statistical power, the survey was extended to a further 200 villages in ten additional Dry Zone townships (total 300 communities in 14 townships). These were also selected purposively, based on the main cropping systems present and distance from major urban areas, with the intent of incorporating a broad range of geographies.