Farm loans for monsoon crops soon

by Huai Pi

Thursday, 12 June 2008 00:00

New Delhi – Farm loans for monsoon crops in the cyclone-hit delta region in Irrawaddy Division at Kyat 8,000 per acre is being given by the Myanmar Agricultural Development Bank. The bank has handed over loan forms for 2008 monsoon crops to Chairmen of Loan Scrutiny Board of villages in these townships.  Farmers who wish to borrow money from the bank must be members of the bank and must submit loan application forms to the bank with supporting documents of land use right and a recommendation of the Chairman of their village Loan Scrutiny Board. The loan will be issued at Ks. 8,000 per acre up to 10 acres and carries 17 per cent interest per annum, an assistant supervisor from Myanmar Agricultural Development Bank, Bogale branch said.  After Cyclone Nargis lashed the region disputes with the bank over previous summer crop loan has surfaced.  The bank in Pyapon issued a notice that the new monsoon crop loan can be issued only after the farmers can produce the farm loan repayment receipt with no arrears on their previous loans.  "The bank said it had lost all documents in the cyclone so farmers must produce their receipts to the bank to get the new loan. There are many farmers who have lost all the documents in the cyclone too. The bank refuses to issue new loans if the farmers cannot produce their loan repayment receipts," a farmer from Pyapon said.  "We are finding it difficult to continue farming. It is very difficult even to find a place to lie down," a farmer from Myinkakone village rued.  The farmers also said that the loan amount by the government bank is too low.  "The quantum of farm loan we are getting from the bank is very low, and will cover just a fraction of the actual costs of farming. We had to borrow money from private lenders," a farmer in Myinkakone who lost 2,000 baskets (1 basket=46 lbs) of paddy in the cyclone and owns 30 acres of farmland said.  The average cost entailed for paddy farming is Kyat 180,000 per acre including cost of fertilizers. The farmers had to borrow money from private money lenders at high interest rates.  The bank rate for summer paddy farm loan is Kyat 7,000 per acre and a farmer can borrow money for a maximum of 10 acres.  The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said that over 500,000 acres of paddy fields were damaged in the cyclone.  But the government has claimed that the damaged paddy fields which cannot be sown this monsoon season is less than 1 per cent of the total sown acreage of paddy. < Prev   Next >