Floods send bean prices up

Heavy flooding in India over the past month has sent the local price of black matpe up 26 percent, exporters said.

Bean prices depend heavily on the Indian market – the destination for more than 70 percent of total production of all kinds of beans – and heavy rains there have cut supply, causing a sharp increase in price to US$630 per tonne, said U Myat Soe, central executive committee member of the Myanmar Pulses, Beans and Sesame Seeds Merchants’ Association.

“The bean fields have been destroyed due to flooding and they are now collecting the beans even at harvest time, so the price will still increase,” he said.

Demand is expected to continue to rise with the approach of the Indian depawali festival as traditional snacks are made with the beans and may continue to increase by Myanmar harvest time in mid-February, said U Myat Soe.

“Merchants are holding between 150,000 and 200,000 tonnes in stock. Last year, we exported more than 790,000 tonnes of beans, but this year we’ve exported nearly 660,000 tonnes as of October 11,” he said.

Despite the increases, current prices are still below June’s record-setting high of $770 per tonne.

Myanmar is the second-largest exporter of beans in the world after Canada, but India prefers Myanmar beans because the logistics are simpler, said U Zin Oo, the head of office staff at the association.

According to commerce ministry statistics, Myanmar earned about $912 million from exporting 1,419,756 tonnes of beans in 2012-2013, to India, Singapore, China, Vietnam and 46 other countries.

The most popular kinds were black matpe, green mung, toor whole and chickpeas. Most beans are grown in Bago, Yangon, Mandalay, Ayeyarwady and Sagaing regions from November to February.

source: The Myanmar Times
http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/business/8604-floods-send-bean-prices-up.html