**FAO Feature Story

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Community savings open new opportunities for women in Myanmar

In Myanmar, FAO helped establish a women-led savings and credit group, through which the women were able to start a small rice noodle production business in their community. ©FAO/Htike Koko Aung

29/01/2026

On the grounds of a primary school situated between the towns of Pwintbyu and Salin in Myanmar’s Magway Region, Maw Maw Hmwe runs a modest food stall where she sells her famous rice noodle salads. Each day, students and teachers stop by for a nourishing meal. This independent noodle shop is just one of the two businesses Maw Maw operates.

“I never imagined I could run a business,” she said. “Now I feel confident and independent.”

Rice noodles are a staple across Myanmar and deeply embedded in the country’s food culture. Served in a variety of dishes from morning to night, they take different forms and places in the cuisine. In Myanmar’s national dish, the fish-based soup mohinga, they appear thick and round, while in Shan noodles, they are thin, and stringy. Beyond their role as a staple, rice noodle dishes remain an affordable and familiar comfort for many.

Maw Maw saw rice noodles as a natural next step to her rice farming, a way to bolster her income and provide some stability to her earnings in a time where climate change means crop yields aren’t consistent anymore.

“Some years we have good yields,” she said. “But the next year, there is nothing. I worried constantly about how we would survive.”

In the last years, floods swept away her crops or droughts scorched the soil, causing her rice, beans, and sesame plants to fail. A mother of a family of eight, Maw Maw would wake up each day worried about putting food on the table, a fear echoed by many.

Things have been further complicated since the 2021 political crisis. Political instability and armed conflict have spread across the country, disrupting economies and pushing rural communities into crisis. Fertiliser, fuel, and seed prices have soared, while farmers have faced shrinking access to markets and few alternative livelihood options. Even when farmers managed to harvest crops, low market prices meant that agriculture alone could not sustain their livelihoods.

For these reasons, Maw Maw could no longer rely on her unstable seasonal income. What she needed the most was access to funds to invest in herself.

The opportunity came to her in 2024, when she overcame her hesitation and decided to join a women’s savings and credit group in her community, supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In rural Myanmar, obtaining loans is difficult for many households, especially for women, since official documentation or collateral is required. As a result, people often turn to informal sources like friends, relatives, or moneylenders, which can carry high or unpredictable interest rates.

To address this gap, FAO helped establish women-led savings and credit groups, through which members pool small, regular savings and access low-interest loans.

Maw Maw recalled: “I was curious but unsure if I could keep up regular savings because of my low income, but the group’s management committee explained how the system worked.”

Soon after joining the savings group, she took a small loan to invest in better-quality seeds and tools, which improved her harvest.

Maw Maw later found more than financial support in this group. It became a space where women could meet to share ideas, discuss challenges and support one another. Amid economic stress, fear and displacement, this sense of connection became a lifeline for the women.

Climate change and political crises meant that farmers like Maw Maw (pictured left/top) could no longer rely on agriculture alone to sustain their livelihoods. She saw rice noodles as a way to bolster her income and bring some stability to her earnings. ©FAO/Htike Koko Aung

Noodles nourishing families

It was through these connections that Maw Maw and the other women in the savings group decided to start a small rice noodle production business. In their community, demand for rice noodles is high but access was fairly limited, forcing people to travel far to get them. So the women, who already owned rice paddies, decided to make rice noodles to meet this local demand.

Through its Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, FAO provided a noodle-making machine and hands-on training in production techniques, food safety and hygiene. The women also strengthened their financial skills, learning savings and credit concepts, bookkeeping, accounting, and micro-business management planning. Equipped with these tools, the Taw Win Thazin noodle business quickly became a popular stop in the community, generating a steady flow of income that covered the costs of food and school.

It was seeing the success of this woman-led business that led her to take an even bolder step and secure a larger loan from the savings group to open the food stall at the primary school.

Today, her stand draws students and teachers alike, who return daily for her known and loved rice noodle salads. She proudly sources her rice noodles from the Taw Win Thazin business. The daily profits from her stall provide a meaningful income that enables her to repay her loans and manage her expenses.

In addition to the women-led savings and credit group, FAO provided a noodle-making machine along with training in production techniques, financial skills, and credit concepts, equipping the women with the tools to operate their agribusiness. ©FAO/Htike Koko Aung

Across Myanmar, FAO together with its partners, has established over 60 women’s savings and credit groups, engaging 1 300 women farmers since 2024. With agribusiness training from FAO, more than 350 women now operate their own ventures, ranging from oilseed processing to groundnut and sesame brittle production.

Taw Win Thazin rice noodle business is just one of 48 small-scale group enterprises resulting from this effort. These business models have provided income for many families in areas where few options exist. In a country facing daily uncertainty, these women have persevered, creating opportunities to feed not only themselves but also their families and communities.

Rural women often carry the heaviest burden, as they are the backbone of their communities—working in agriculture, food processing, livestock rearing, household management, and childcare—yet their contributions remain invisible and undervalued. Access to financing empowers women to make decisions that strengthen livelihoods and uplift communities.

This story is part of a series celebrating women farmers worldwide, from producers, fishers, and pastoralists to traders, agricultural scientists, and rural entrepreneurs. The International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 recognises their essential contributions to food security, economic prosperity, and improved nutrition and livelihoods, despite heavier workloads, precarious working conditions, and unequal access to resources. It calls for collective action and investment to empower women, in all their diversity, and to build a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable agrifood system for all.