Authorities in Arakan State are preparing to buy rice from farmers this paddy season by distributing loans to farmers during the cultivation season, said a village clerk.
He said, "The authority in our township told us to inform of who needed loans to cultivate their farms this rainy season. The government will give 130,000 kyat for 100 baskets of paddy to farmers as a loan."
The amount being paid by the government is somewhat lower than the private market rate in Arakan State. At the local market, farmers have received 150,000 kyat as a loan for 100 baskets of rice.
"Some farmers in our village are interested in the government's offer price, and they can get a loan from the government for their farms," he said.
According to the loan system, the farmers will have to repay the loan to the government in paddy after the harvest is complete.
The authorities in Arakan State did not distribute such loans to Arakanese farmers during last year's paddy season, but they are reportedly doing it this year out of fear of a shortage of rice next year.
A source said that this year the paddy production in Burma will decrease because farmers in the Irrawaddy Division have been unable to cultivate on their farms after Cyclone Nargis struck the region.
The clerk said, "It is a plan to secure rice in the county for next year, and the authority is likely to collect rice from farmers in Arakan State somehow."
A source from Maungdaw, a western border town of Burma, said that the township authority invited village chairmen to Maungdaw on Monday to explain the government's plan to distributed loans to farmers and told them to arrange the loans for farmers in Maungdaw Township
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