Mizzima

Myanmar Rice Federation (MRF) said the country needed to carefully consider rice export as weather patterns are changing.

Currently, weather patterns are frequently changing and many countries including Myanmar faced huge impacts from climate change resulting in heavy rainfall and severe floods. The country needs to consider more self-sufficiency and price stability in the domestic market.

Natural disasters and changing weather patterns have a huge impact on the agriculture sector in many countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and India.

Myanmar will continue to export rice at the pre-planned target of 200,000 tonnes per month, but some people point out that the country needs to carefully consider rice export because of the changing weather patterns.

Myanmar has enough rice stock in reserve which is more than sufficient for domestic consumption so there is no need for concern yet.

An official from MRF said that people do not need to worry about a rice shortage due to floods as there was nearly four million tonnes of rice in the buffer stock.

The floods brought by the remnants of Typhoon Yagi damaged over 780,000 acres of paddy farmland and 176,426 animals perished in these floods, according to data collected up to 27 September.

Myanmar has nearly 15 million acres of monsoon paddy acreage and yearly production is about 1,088 million baskets of paddy [1 basket is 46 lbs].

The junta put the rice export target at nearly two million tonnes in the 2024-25 fiscal year. They expect export earnings from rice exports at US$1 billion.

Some countries have experienced low rice production because of the El Niño weather pattern that occurred in 2023 and faced rising rice prices in their countries.

Published Date: October 4, 2024