The junta’s Ministry of Commerce has proposed to set the price floor for unhusked rice at MMK560,000 per 100 tins for the rice grown in the rainy season and summer of 2021-2022, at the Work Committee meeting held in the last week of August.
U Nyunt Aung, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Commerce, cautioned that the proposed price needs to be matched with the commodity price, salaries, and wages.
The price floor for rice was initiated in 2018 to create a reasonable price and market per the probations of the Law of Protection of the Farmer Rights and Enhancement of Their Benefits. The price floor was set at MMK500,000 per 100 tins in 2018 and 2019 and MMK520,000 in 2020-2021.
“The increase in price floor for rice is good. But I don’t think MMK560,000 will cover the cost sicne the fertilizer prices have gone up a lot doubling the original price,” U Than Win, a famer from Twante Township, told Myanmar Business Today.
According to the statistic from the Department of Agriculture, more than 70,000 of over 16.5 million acres of monsoon crop plantations in Myanmar were hit by flood in July while many villages in the rice growing areas were unable to grow rice in time due to less rain fall and conflicts sending farmers to flee their villages.
Moreover, the agricultural input prices this year have skyrocketed forcing farmers to use less fertilizers while the fertilizer dealers are not offering fretilizers on credit unlike previous years.
