Farmers in Mon State are in Trouble

Generally, in many countries, when the farmers are facing troubles – problems in crop production, traders’ business monopolies, crop price reductions, etc –  the government intervenes and helps it’s nation’s farmers to overcome these problems.  In many countries, the government is even required to help farmers in various ways.

The farmers in Mon State faced many problems this year, due to a series of insect attacks and dramatic crop reduction in the whole of Mon State.  The insects infested rice plants in the paddy fields, and all paddy grains became weightless.

In some rice fields, the farmers lost parts of their crops, while some farmers said they have lost their whole fields.  In general, it is estimated that farmers affected by insect attacks could get only 30-50% of their expected harvests this year.

In such a situation, the Burmese military government should go and help the farmers with some subsidies in order to aid their families. Instead, now the government is planning to pressure the farmers in Mon State to sell some amounts of their crops to the government.

In Mudon Township, the government authorities have pressured Mon farmers to grow more dry season crops in order to replace the crop harvests lost during 2009’s rainy season.   In growing dry season crops, Mon State’s farmers again have to spend a lot of money to buy gasoline to bring water by engine pumps to their farms, and to buy chemical fertilizer to increase paddy crop production.  The Burmese government authorities in Mon State have ordered that the acres of rice growing lands be increased from the 700 acres grown last year, to 2,500 acres for this year.

Some farmers who have less experience in dry season rice cultivation are facing many difficulties.

The plight of Mon State’s farmers is that their suffering has doubled, not only through natural disasters, but also through human-made disasters.