The weakness of agricultural credit in Myanmar (5)

This post contains the second and final page of an article on the challenges of weak credit for farmers in Myanmar. It comes from page 30 of 7 Day News, April 28, 2011. The rest of the article will be translated in a subsequent post.

Vocabulary:

အတားအဆီး ။ obstacle; barrier; impediment; obstruction
အထက်ပါ ။ the aforesaid; above-mentioned
ပုဂ္ဂိုလ် ။ person
ထပ်မံ ။ once again
ဝန်းကျင် ။ surroundings
ကပ် ။ time of catastrophe, calamity, disaster.
ရိုက်ခတ် ။ (of objects) strike together, hit against each other
ခေါင်းပုံဖြတ် ။ to exploit
ပေါက်ဈေး ။ current price
ဆပ် ။ to repay
နှိမ် ။ to suppress
နောင် ။ future
အကြွေး ။ credit​, sth owed, sth left outstanding
ငေးမော ။ gape and gawk; look at sth absent-mindedly

Translation:

[Continued] from page 29 - Due to the weakness of loans farm owners are becoming landless

The local interest rate per month is from 10 to 20 per cent of a loan. (For example, [for a loan of] 100 Kyat, 10 [Kyat] of interest per month must be paid.) That is an impediment of Myanmar's agricultural development, said the aforementioned person once again.

Export to foreign markets is very important in the development of the agricultural industry. In the past around 1930, the price of rice was thrust down because of the world economic crisis.

At that time, despite still being under the control of the British government, Myanmar was the country that produced the most rice in Asia. At that time, the impact of the fall in the price of rice forced farmers into landless.

Other than that, in the credit difficulty of present day farmers there is exploitation by some large organisations. Although some organisations say at the time of lending money that they will buy back the [borrower's] rice at the current regional price, at the time of loan repayment they suppress the price and buy [the rice at a lower rate], it is know from many farmers.

Because of these difficulties, the interest of farmers in paddy cultivation has decreased. "This year there is no way that hot [season] paddy can be cultivated," said an old farmer [named] U Shu Kyaing Bin from Pa Nge Gyi Village.

"In the past, we farmers were just this way. And in the future, [it will be] just like this. [Our] life will have to be lived in debt," noted U Htun Htun and while wiping sweat from his face with a handkerchief looked absentmindedly from outside of the school
at paddy fields.