Burma farmers fret over harvest

Storm aftermath delays normal planting season

A worker in Bago, Burma loaded a cart drawn by water buffalo. The animals were a useful farming tool before the cyclone. Tilling machines replaced many that were killed in the storm. (Associated Press)

KYUNG GWIN, Burma - Farmer Zaw Naing was puzzled as he stared at the brand new, unassembled tilling machine, equipment not seen in most of Burma's rice belt before the deadly cyclone.

Thousands of the tillers, donated by international and private aid donors, have been brought in to replace the water buffalo that once plowed the rice paddies but were killed by Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3.

The plan is for farmers in the devastated Irrawaddy delta to rebuild their livelihoods and begin producing the rice that feeds this impoverished country.

But time is running out.

The rice planting season should have started by early June, when farmers typically plow their fields with water buffalo and prepare to plant new seeds for the October harvest. The delta produces most of Burma's rice, and without immediate help, food security will be seriously threatened, international specialists have warned.

The Agriculture Ministry has said 13,600 power tillers are needed to replace more than 280,000 cattle that died in the storm.

Some farmers say they have been lucky enough to receive the new machines but need to reassemble them since the tillers were shipped in several pieces.

"We don't know how to put it together. We have to wait for a mechanic to come," Zaw Naing said on a recent afternoon in the delta village of Kyaung Gwin as he unwrapped the plastic cover of the Chinese-made machine's red engine.

Most farmers in the delta have not managed to get a mechanical tiller. But once they do, they face further challenges: Farmers can't afford the diesel fuel to power the machines and don't know how to operate them.

"I don't know how to use this machine. We only used buffalo in the past," said Zaw Naing, who lost his home in the cyclone as well as the 10 water buffalo that plowed his fields.

He has been told by local authorities to share the tiller with five other farmers in his village, which is south of the town of Labutta in one of the hardest hit areas.

The US Department of Agriculture said in an assessment last week that the delta normally produces about 60 percent of Burma's rice and the outlook for this year's crop is "very uncertain" after the storm flooded paddy fields with sea water, damaged irrigation systems, and destroyed seed supplies.

Burma's Agriculture Ministry says it is sending specialists to train farmers and will send 140,000 baskets of salt-resistant rice seed - the equivalent of 2,900 tons - to the delta, a fraction of what is needed.

Once the world's top producer, Burma has seen rice exports drop from nearly 4 million tons to about 40,000 tons last year, after four decades of military rule and disastrous economic policies.

UN undersecretary general Noeleen Heyzer issued an urgent plea Friday for donations of 1 million gallons of diesel fuel to help farmers run the tillers.

Burma's agriculture minister, Major General Htay Oo, told Heyzer that the fuel is needed to run some 5,000 tillers donated by Thailand, China, and other countries.

Private donors and aid agencies have contributed additional machines.