Farmers in Myanmar’s second-largest rice-growing region, Bago, are seeing massive losses in yields due to the worst flooding to hit the region in six decades, raising concerns about mounting food security and dwindling export earnings in the coming months, rice traders and farmers say.
“All the paddy we grew rotted or was damaged,” a farmer in Bago Township says.
Bago Region produces about 2.5 million tons of rice a year on average, about the total that Myanmar annually exports, according to the figures from the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), MRF, and farmers.
Myanmar exported 2.261 million tons of rice and broken rice in the fiscal year to March with an estimated value of US$ 853 million. China, Belgium, Bangladesh, and the Philippines have been the main export markets for Myanmar rice.
This year’s flooding in Bago Region has compounded a post-coup decline in rice cultivation and yields, according to the ADPC.
Rice production in Myanmar fell 6% to about 2.4 million tons last year from 2021.
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