FEATURE-Water-saving tech, veg gardens grow hope in Myanmar's Dry Zone

In parched lands, families grow food in gardens using drip irrigation, hydroponics and soil moisture sensors to cut down on over-irrigation and save water

Myo Myint fondly remembers when his one-acre farm regularly produced 100 baskets of rice. But as rainfall became erratic in this arid region, he started growing betel leaves, a less thirsty cash crop.

This summer, the 50-year-old is considering leaving fallow his land in Myanmar's central "Dry Zone" because when the stream behind his house dries up in March, the cost of irrigation outstrips the income from any crop.

A 2016 drought followed by heavy rains already battered his farm.

"Water is becoming more scarce every year. I want to keep growing the crops but there's not much I can do without water," he said, sitting beneath the ground floor of his stilt house.

His village of Myay Ni Twin, in Pakokku township, is around two hours' drive from Bagan, Myanmar's top tourist destination known for its ancient Buddhist temples.

"When I was growing up, the stream didn't go dry. Now there's less rain, and it's very hard to plant things," he said.

Myanmar recently emerged from decades of military dictatorship only to face a bigger existential threat.

The Southeast Asian nation of 50 million people is the world's second most vulnerable country to climate change, according to the Global Climate Risk Index from research group Germanwatch. Studies have shown the onset of the monsoon is becoming more variable, increasing the risk of drought.

The Dry Zone, an area comprising 58 townships in Mandalay, Magwe and Sagaing, is home to around 10 million people, who mostly rely on rain-fed agriculture. It suffers from year-round water shortages.

A recent assessment by the Myanmar Climate Change Alliance (MCCA), an initiative funded by the European Union and United Nations, predicted a temperature increase of up to 3 degrees Celsius and a shorter monsoon in Pakokku by 2050.

Farmers like Myo Myint - already struggling to make ends meet - will bear the brunt of those changes.

His village has a well, but pumping water costs too much, he said. So he was intrigued by the prototypes of soil moisture sensors in the hands of Tayzar Lin, a product designer with Proximity Designs, a Myanmar-based social enterprise that develops affordable products for farmers.

"I've been curious since I saw something similar on Facebook," said the farmer, as Tayzar Lin plunged into the soil a boxy contraption with a dial at the top and an alloy-tipped brass rod at the bottom.

The hand on the dial moved to green, showing the soil still held water. Red means dry, and blue means too much water.

Myo Myint dreams of watering only when needed, instead of every two days as he now does, to save the precious resource.

WASTED WATER

Agriculture - including livestock, fisheries and forestry - contributes nearly 40 percent of Myanmar's GDP and employs around half its workforce, according to Andrew Kirkwood, director of the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT), a poverty reduction fund supported by 12 governments.

"Agriculture is extremely important to Myanmar's economy and future growth," he said.

A 2013 study funded by LIFT identified the Dry Zone as Myanmar's most water-stressed region and one of its most food-insecure areas. Inexpensive water sensors made abroad are already available, but their instructions are in English and they are not widely used, nor calibrated by soil type.

Proximity Designs' sensor works with loam and clay, and its staff will train farmers to use it properly, the firm said.