Rice is an extremely important product for farmers’ livelihoods and for food security in Myanmar. Rice is the main staple, accounting for 51 and 62 percent of urban and rural calories consumed, respectively, making it crucial for food security in the country. Large international changes in commodity markets and twin local crises – COVID-19 and political problems due to the military take-over – have raised doubts on the performance of the agricultural sector overall and the rice sector in particular. The assessment on farmers’ rice productivity during the dry season – typically representing less than 20 percent of annual production of paddy – of 2023 presented in this note is based on data from the Myanmar Agriculture Performance Survey (MAPS) that was conducted with 659 rice producers, spread over all states/regions of the country, over the period June 2023 – July 2023. Detailed questions were asked to farmers about their background, input use and input prices, farm management practices, rice output and output prices, and natural and other shocks during the dry season of 2022 and 2023.
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Key findings
- Prices of inputs used in paddy production – fertilizer, labor, mechanization – increased between these two growing seasons by between 13 and 21 percent, on average. On the other hand, paddy prices at the farm increased by 68 percent.
- Real profits, with nominal prices corrected by the change in the cost of an average food basket, from paddy rice farming during the dry season of 2023 increased by 41 percent compared to the dry season of 2022. While nominal profits for paddy rice farmers increased by 70 percent over the last two seasons, price inflation has been high in the country and real profit increased therefore much less.
- Rice farmers increased input expenditures on paddy production by 50 percent compared to last year. However, larger farmers invested more and doubled input expenditures, likely attracted by the increased profits in paddy farming.
- Rice productivity at the national level during the dry season of 2023 on farmers’ largest rice plot was slightly larger (+1.2 percent) than in the previous dry season. But substantial declines are noted in the coastal areas (-29 percent) and the Dry Zone (-5 percent), seemingly due to impacts of cyclone Mocha.
- Thirteen percent of all crop farmers reported to have been affected by the cyclone Mocha and 3 percent of the crop farmers indicated that they lost their whole dry season harvest. Almost half of the affected farmers reported that the next monsoon season would not proceed as normal, likely affecting the production of rice – and other crops – in those areas during the next monsoon season.
Recommended actions
- As paddy prices have gone up significantly, rice prices have gone up substantially as well, making the costs of Myanmar’s staple food unaffordable for some consumers, especially for the most vulnerable ones. Expansion of safety nets, targeted or self-targeted to the poorest, would therefore be beneficial.
- The cyclone Mocha has destroyed harvests of farmers in Rakhine and part of the Dry Zone. As effects of the devastation of the cyclone will continue to be felt during the monsoon of 2023, further assistance for farmers in these areas is needed.
