New Delhi (Mizzima) – Due to a price drop for brown rice, the Burmese government will buy brown rice at a “fair price” and store the rice to prevent farmers from suffering losses.
However, the quantity of rice to be bought and the price are still being negotiated, according to the Myanmar Rice Industry Association (MRIA).
The price has gone down because a large number of paddy fields were flooded by heavy rains, and rice exports fell because of the weak dollar.
President Thein Sein said in an economics workshop in Naypyitaw in August that the government would buy rice at a fair price to help the farmers.
“The plan is to assign officials to buy reserve rice in their regions. But, even if the government buys the rice, it could not buy it all at once. It’s still negotiating,” Sein Win Hlaing, the vice chairman of the MRIA, told Mizzima.
Under the plan, the government will buy half of the amount and rice traders will buy the remaining. A proposal to buy the reserve rice in December has been put forward to authorities, andMRIA will hold a central committee meeting this week to set the purchase price and the buying process.
In late August, a number of rice companies bought rice at the price of 400,000 kyat (about US $560) per 1,600 baskets (4,091 liter) of rice. But, they bought rice only from farmers who received agricultural advice and rice seeds from the companies.
“The companies guaranteed the farmers that they would buy at the price of 400,000 kyat. But, there are restrictions. They only bought brown rice from paddy fields planted with the rice seeds given to farmers [by the companies] and who used their techniques,” Sein Win Hlaing said.
This year, rice export dropped dramatically. In 2010, Burma exported 800,000 million tons of rice, but from April 2011 until September, only 350,000 million tons of rice was exported. With falling foreign demand, it’s difficult to fix the price to buy the reserve rice from farmers, rice traders said.
Because of decreasing rice exports, the price of brown rice fell dramatically. The price of “elmahta” rice in Irrawaddy and Pegu regions was280,000 kyat per 1,600 baskets [4,091 Liter] of rice and the price of “sinthwellak” rice was 320,000 kyat. The prices are lower by 50,000 kyat per 1,600 baskets compared to last year’s prices.
“Now, it all depends on the government. They said they would buy rice at the price of 350,000 kyat. But, the plan has not been implemented,” a farmer living in Mawkyun Township in Irrawaddy Region told Mizzima.
A farmer in Thanatpin Township, Pegu Region, said, “During the harvest, paddy fields were flooded and the water level reached the height of my thighs. There was no space to keep the rice in the sun, so I put it [the rice] on a road to keep it in the sun. The rice was spoiled by water, so I sold it at a very low price.”
Meanwhile, farmers have estimated that to compensate for their production costs, they need to get at least 350,000 kyat per 1,600 baskets of rice.
Burma used to produce 17 million tons of rice per year, but this year, paddy fields in Irrawaddy Region, Pegu Region, Mon State, Karen State and Arakan State were spoiled by incessant heavy rains. Rice production is likely to fall by 10 per cent this year, according to MRIA estimates.
