This series of reports focuses on farming inputs and services, including mechanization service providers offering land preparation and retailers supplying key agricultural inputs. It tracks availability, pricing, and constraints faced by these actors during the monsoon planting season.
Latest Findings from the 2025 Monsoon Season
Agricultural Input Retailers
- Input sales declined sharply in the 2025 monsoon relative to 2024. Fewer retailers sold inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, and aggregate sales for those who did sell declined by 31 percent for inorganic fertilizer and 10 percent for pesticides.
- The decline is not solely due to supply shortages: smaller areas planted, weaker farm profits, and conflict have dampened demand, while climate change and the 2025 earthquake add to input market stress. Two-thirds of retailers cite lower input demand from climate change in the past three years, and earthquake impacts – while more localized – disrupted market access and areas planted.
- Transport remains the dominant business disruption. Even with a slight drop in overall reported disruptions compared to 2024, transport problems – higher costs, checkpoints and roadblocks – still dominate. Long input supply chains dependent on imports and flowing through Yangon mean that checkpoints and higher costs compound as inputs reach rural farmers.
- Farmer finances are stressed, especially in rice-dominant areas. Farmers are asking for and taking more credit from input retailers. This likely reflects tighter liquidity following the recent global rice price decline, which has reduced incentives and profitability for monsoon paddy.
- Credit provision is expanding but adding risk. More retailers are providing credit to farmers and sourcing their inputs on credit from suppliers. Yet, two-thirds of retailers that provided credit in 2024 still have unpaid debts from farmers, raising the risks of cascading financial stress.
- Measures to ease transport constraints, stabilize access to imported fertilizers and pesticides, and expand formal credit options for both farmers and retailers would help sustain this essential link in the agrifood system.
Tractor Service Providers (TSPs)
- Acres prepared by TSPs declined by 12 percent compared to the previous year (11 percent in the Dry Zone, 17 percent in the Delta), largely reflecting weaker rice price incentives in the Delta and insecurity in the Dry Zone.
- Lower demand for services was reported by 55 percent of TSPs compared to the previous year, and 40 percent faced operating restrictions, mainly due to securityrelated movement constraints – including new restrictions in Ayeyarwady.
- Nominal service charges rose by an average of 16 percent from the previous year, driven by rising costs of fuel, repairs, and operators, along with reduced availability of these inputs. • Most TSPs (87 percent) extended credit to their clients, usually without interest, making them an important source of informal credit for farmers.
- Cash flow problems affected 31 percent of TSPs, driven by declining revenues (50 percent) and rising operating costs (65 percent). Many coped by borrowing or selling assets. With high inflation, service charges likely failed to rise in real terms, adding to the financial pressures they faced.
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Season |
Actor |
Link to Report |
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2025 Monsoon Season |
Tractor Service Providers (July 2025) |
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Agricultural Input Retailers (August 2025) |
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2024 Monsoon Season |
Mechanization Service Providers (July 2024) |
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Agricultural Input Retailers (August 2024) |
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2023 Monsoon Season |
Mechanization Service Providers (July 2023) |
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Agricultural Input Retailers (August 2023) |
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2022 Monsoon Season |
Mechanization Service Providers (July 2022) |
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Agricultural Input Retailers (July 2022) |
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2021 Monsoon Season |
Mechanization Service Providers (July 2021) |
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Agricultural Input Retailers (September 2021) |