“We lost all our shrimp and paddy farms because of Giri. After the storm we had nothing left – it was all under water. Our business has suffered ever since,” said one villager in Kyee Gaung Taung village in Myebon township.
U Ba Thein, who works 70 acres of shrimp farms, said, “Our farms and pools were destroyed by the storm. We can’t rebuild the banks around the pools, which flood every rainy season.
“We started the shrimp business just before the storm. Now we do eight months of shrimp breeding and four months of paddy farming a year,” he said.
Before Giri, shrimp farmers could earn high prices from the shrimp, enough to build high protective banks around their pools. But since then, they have had to borrow money from the shrimp trading centre, which buys their product.
“We have to sell all our shrimp to the centre, but they don’t give us a good price,” said Daw Oo Sein Nu, owner of 20 acres of shrimp pools in Kyee Gaung Taung.
The price for shrimp of up to 4 inches (10 centimetres) long is K30,000 a viss (one viss equals 1.6 kilograms or 3.6 pounds) in the open market but the villagers receive only K23,000, they said.
Paddy farmers face a similar problem, said U Kyaw Aung, the owner of 8 acres of paddy.
“Our paddy lands are located beside the river, so we have to build banks. When the tide is up, it floods our fields. Sometimes we lose everything,” he said.
Since Giri struck, shrimp production has fallen 60 percent for lack of capital, say villagers in Taung Gyi Yinn.
“We used to catch 60 viss of shrimp in 80 acres twice a month. Now we can catch only about 20 viss,” said U Hla Htun, who owns 80 acres of shrimp pools. Farmers have received no government or NGO support, he added.
source: The Myanmar Times
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