Community Agricultural Resource Management and Competitiveness Project

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The development objective of the Community Agricultural Resource Management and Competitiveness Project for Armenia is to improve productivity and sustainability of pasture/livestock livelihood systems in selected communities. There are four components to the project. The first component of the project is community Pasture/Livestock Management System. This component aims to introduce efficient and sustainable community-managed pasture/fodder-based livestock production systems in selected mountainous communities, where livestock is the main source of livelihood and communities express a strong interest in improving their pasture production, through support for the development of pasture/livestock management plans and a community fund for the implementation of these plans. The second component of the project is strengthening support services. This component aims to increase livestock productivity and pasture health by improving the supporting services for farmers involved in livestock production. This will be achieved by providing support to: (a) improve agricultural advisory services in livestock-related topics; and (b) improve community animal health services. The third component of the project is competitive grants program. This component aims to increase sales from livestock and natural resources through support to village-level agri-business and farmer groups to develop new business opportunities, improve marketing, promote food safety practices, and introduce and demonstrate new technologies that could benefit communities focused on livestock production. The fourth component of the project is project management and monitoring and evaluation. The project will be managed by the same Project Implementation Unit (PIU) that was implementing the Rural Enterprise and Small Scale Commercial Agriculture Development (RESCAD) and the Avian Influenza Preparedness (AIP) projects. This component will finance: (a) project management and training, including annual operational reviews and audits; and (b) monitoring and evaluation (M&E).