Mizzima

As many as 85% of livestock farmers in the Ayeyarwady Region have ceased their business.

The farmers said that they had many difficulties to continue their businesses after the prices of animal feeds and medicines rose up two-fold.

Similarly, small-scale livestock farmers in the Yangon Region are preparing to cease their business operations as they suffered losses from their businesses.

Over the two years after the coup the prices of livestock farming inputs such as animal feeds and medicines rose sharply, as did the rising cost of construction of livestock farms, soaring general expenses and labour costs, creating a crisis for these farmers.

Moreover, a poultry farmer said that the livestock they produced from their farms such as poultry, pork and fish could not compete in prices with the products of big companies and imported frozen meat in the market, the result being huge losses for these livestock farmers. 

In these livestock farms in Myanmar many chickens and pigs died of infectious diseases at the end of 2022 and then they encountered sickness of their animals this year as well, compounding the losses. 

A livestock farmer said that the small-scale livestock farmers had to cease their businesses and only a handful of the wealthy farmers with a strong financial background could keep afloat in the livestock farming business.

Moreover, the livestock farmers could run their businesses with government loans and their own capital in the past but now they could not get loans from the government. The livestock farmers said that depreciation of the Myanmar Kyat and unavailability of government loans pushed them to consider stopping their businesses.