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 insecurity in the country 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 2024 presented in this research note is based on data from the Myanmar Agriculture Performance Survey (MAPS) that was conducted with 825 rice producers, spread over all states/regions of the country, over the period July 2024 – September 2024. 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 2023 and 2024.
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Key findings
We analyze paddy rice productivity and profitability data for the dry seasons of 2023 and 2024, based on the Myanmar Agriculture Performance Survey (MAPS) fielded in the period of July 29th to September 16th, 2024. The survey covered plots of 825 rice paddy producers. It is found that:
- Prices of inputs used in paddy production – labor and mechanization – increased significantly between these two growing seasons by between 36-38 and 59 percent respectively, on average. On the other hand, urea prices declined by 1 percent. Paddy prices at the farm increased by 14 percent.
- Nominal profits for paddy rice farmers increased over the last two seasons. At the same time, price inflation has been high in the country. Therefore, real profits from paddy rice farming, which are nominal prices corrected by the change in the cost of an average food basket, decreased by 15 percent during the dry season of 2024 compared to the dry season of 2023. However, real profits were still higher than two and three years ago.
- Rice productivity at the national level during the dry season of 2024 on farmers’ largest rice plot was slightly higher (+6.9 percent) than in the previous dry season.
- Six percent of the rice farmers reported to have been affected by flooding during the dry season, even before cyclone Yagi affected many farmers in the beginning of September 2024.
Recommended actions
- As paddy prices have gone up compared to last year, 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 Yagi has affected a significant share of monsoon producers. Assistance for farmers in these areas to recover from floods in time for the post-/pre-monsoon is called for.
