Cyclone has devastated Myanmar's rice region, experts say
Pastor Dale Morgan
Cyclone has devastated Myanmar's rice region, experts say*
By MICHAEL CASEY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 7, 2008; 10:17 AM
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar's rice-growing heartland has been
devastated by Cyclone Nargis, posing worries of long-term food shortages
for the impoverished country and political problems for its military
regime, experts said Wednesday.
The Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that
five states hit hardest by Saturday's cyclone produce 65 percent of the
Southeast Asian country's rice. The region also is home to 80 percent of
its aquaculture, 50 percent of its poultry and 40 percent of its pork
production, the FAO said.
Since Myanmar _ also known as Burma _ has produced enough rice to feed
itself until now, it has managed to avert potentially dangerous
shortages as well as rice price increases, which have tripled recently
on the global market.
"There is likely going to be incredible shortages in the next 18 to 24
months," said Sean Turnell, an economist specializing in Myanmar at
Australia's Macquarie University. "Things will be tough."
Once the world's top rice producers, Myanmar has in the past four
decades seen its rice exports drop from nearly 4 million tons to only
about 40,000 tons last year.
Myanmar's exports are so small these days that few expect the cyclone
will have any impact on world rice prices, because its own people
consume most of the rice it produces.
"I don't think the cyclone in (Myanmar) is sufficient to spark another
bout of hoarding and panic buying by consumers around the world that was
the cause of the recent spike in prices," said Frederic Neumann, an
economist at HSBC Global Research in Hong Kong, adding he felt the
prices would continue falling.
Irrigation canals and rice storage facilities have fallen into
disrepair, mostly due to mismanagement by Myanmar's ruling generals.
Fertilizer and credit for farmers are almost nonexistent.
The U.N. World Food Program said there are concerns about salvaging
harvested rice in the flooded Irrawaddy delta, known as the country's
rice bowl.
It also warned that the rice harvest in the Bago district could be lost
since it was still in the ground, and that future plantings in the delta
could be threatened due to "salinity and decrease of nutrients" from the
storm's tidal surges.
"Over the next three to six months, there will likely be a need for
family food rations in this region," said WFP spokesman Paul Risley.
"Families lost their homes and lost what private food stocks they had."
The cyclone, which battered the country last weekend with winds of 120
mph and nearly 12-foot storm water surges, caused at least 22,000 deaths
and more than 41,000 people are missing.
Bangladesh offers a good indication of what Myanmar may endure. In
November, the country's southern coast was devastated by Cyclone Sidr,
which killed more than 3,300 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
"Eight months after the cyclone, areas most affected still have high
malnutrition rates and families impoverished by cyclone are still trying
to get their lives back," Risley said. "It generally takes a harvest or
two before you get back."
The challenges will be rebuilding the roads, bridges and irrigation
canals that were destroyed by the cyclone and are crucial to producing
and transporting rice. Subsidence farmers that predominate in places
like Irrawaddy will need cash to rebuild their homes and buy seed and
fertilizer to replant their fields.
"In order to recover, it (Myanmar) will require massive reconstruction,"
said Turnell, the economist. "The regime is ill-equipped to deal with
this sort of thing. It doesn't have a development mind-set. It's whole
mind-set is staying in control."
Another concern is the cyclone's storm surge, which may have covered the
Irrawaddy rice fields with sediment and salt water. Similar conditions
impacted some rice fields after the 2004 tsunami, resulting in yields
dropping in some fields of Indonesia's Aceh province by up to 40 percent.
All that could spell trouble for the regime, which is already seeing
prices of basic necessities like bottled water double in the wake of the
cyclone. Price hikes sparked massive demonstrations in September which
were followed by a bloody crackdown by the junta that left at least 31 dead.
"Commodity prices are significantly higher now than they were in the
last quarter of 2007 and this further crisis will only add to the rage
and despair of the embattled population of (Yangon) and the delta," said
Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert and professor at Australian National
University.