Junta says NO to new loans to farmers who failed to repay old ones
May 29, 2025
HURFOM: On May 19th, 2025, the Myanma Agricultural Development Bank announced a “rainy paddy” loan program for farmers, with terms of 150,000 MMK per acre at 5% interest. However, the bank stated that farmers who failed to repay any prior loans were not allowed to apply to the new loan program.
“Now, I’m blocked from applying for the “rainy paddy” loan. I suffered a loss during the summer paddy farming. I can cover the loss only if I can farm in the rainy paddy. But I don’t get a new loan and it makes it really difficult,” said a local farmer.
Farmers who cannot get a government loan can turn to private lenders who charge a higher interest rate. Facing such options, farmers are planning to reduce the size of their farms.
“I can’t get a loan from the government so I have to borrow money from the private lenders. Their interest rate is high so I can’t farm all my farmland. The production will significantly decline,” said one farmer.
The government has limited its loan program for farms with a maximum of ten acres and the cap on the loan amount is 1.5 million MMK. With these restrictions farmers are unable to cover high production costs.
Mon State has 730,000 acres of farmland.
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