Agro-processing, food prices, and COVID-19: the case of rice mills in Myanmar 2021 5 pp最新文献

{"title":"Agro-processing, food prices, and COVID-19: The case of rice mills in Myanmar","authors":"Joseph Goeb, Phoo Pye, Nang Lun Kham Synt, Yulu Tang, B. Minten","doi":"10.2499/p15738coll2.134307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.134307","url":null,"abstract":"This note assesses the impacts of COVID-19 on the processing sector of Myanmar's agri-food system. We focus on the milling of rice, Myanmar's most important staple, which accounts for more than half of calories consumed and serves as one of the country's leading export commodities. Using unique data collected from telephone surveys with more than 400 medium- and large-scale rice mils, we highlight the major disruptions caused by the pandemic. Key findings: The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions for medium- and large-scale rice mills, including lower milling throughput, employee layoffs, and lower credit availability. Despite these issues, we find significant resilience in the sector. COVID-19 has been associated with relatively small changes in processing margins. Any changes in rice prices during the pandemic were mostly transmitted to rice farmers. Modern mills pay higher prices to their suppliers and sell rice more expensively due to extra processing. Modern and traditional mills were similarly affected by the COVID-19 crisis, as seen in similar changes in the prices each paid to buy paddy and the prices they received for their milled rice. Byproducts are very important for milling margins both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Without byproduct sales there would be a need for much higher margins between paddy producer and rice consumer prices to assure the profitability of the mills. Recommended actions: Access to international markets has seemingly contributed to price stability in local markets, indicating the importance of continued trade, albeit in a safe way, during shocks. Monitoring crucial processing nodes in agricultural value chains through high-frequency inexpensive telephone interviews has allowed us to track a large sector of Myanmar's economy that has strong and wide links to producers and consumers. Similar survey set-ups should be pursued in other sectors. Modernization of mills is associated with higher prices for farmers and, therefore, should be encouraged. Further relaxation of restrictions on investments in agro-processing and on international trade in the sector will foster increased modernization.","PeriodicalId":353095,"journal":{"name":"Agro-processing, food prices, and COVID-19: the case of rice mills in Myanmar 2021 5 pp","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116436292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}