As Rural Myanmar Adapts to the Covid-19 Crisis, Understanding Farmers’ Needs is Vital
Why tomato growers are harder hit than rice farmers, and social distancing can be more difficult in the Dry Zone.
As the Covid-19 pandemic began to make itself felt in Myanmar last month, people in rural areas sprung into action. With scarce resources, and often far from the country’s commercial and political hubs, farming communities are often resilient and proactive in a crisis.
U Tun Lwin, the administrator of Thee Lone village in Sagaing Region, has assembled a team of residents to track people’s movements in and out of the village and check for fever using temperature guns that he bought in Mandalay.
He has had to improvise to keep his volunteers safe. They have built tents out of blue PVC piping and see-through plastic sheets, which have a hole cut at head height where the temperature guns slot in.
Villagers are also making their own masks and have developed a recipe for hand sanitizer that involves mixing alcoholic spirits or methanol with water, jasmine, and fruit extracts.
In Pauk Tone, locals describe a different picture. One paddy farmer there said quarantine areas aren’t well-prepared yet, and social distancing is tough.
“People are avoiding celebrations and gatherings but they still have to go to work every day,” he said. He is working in construction because water shortages mean he can’t plant this summer, he added.
These men are among thousands of people that Proximity has been in touch with across the country since the crisis started, drawing on our trusted network of staff and customers to maintain a constant dialogue with farming communities. Responses have been uneven, and some are more prepared than others.
Gaining a deep understanding of farmers and their needs has always been central to what Proximity does. Our research-based approach has helped us design life-changing products and services that have saved untold hours of labor, boosted yields and provided access to timely information on everything from soil composition to pest problems.
As Myanmar faces this unprecedented moment, that deep understanding is more important than ever; the situation is changing rapidly, and so are farmers’ needs.
We’ve conducted an online survey to get a picture of farmers’ understanding of the pandemic, and the impact it’s having on their businesses, families and communities.
From that we’ve found, growers of perishable horticulture products like tomatoes, dragon fruit and watermelon — which can’t be stored to sell later — are among those hardest hit so far.
Prices for their goods are plummeting because exports to China have slowed and domestic markets have been disrupted, with brokers unable to travel to villages.
Rice paddy farmers have been less hard hit because they do not need to sell their harvests yet, or they’re still in the growing season.
Of those surveyed, 47% said the crisis was having a big or very big impact on their business, mostly because of falling demand as large markets close and falling crop prices due to border closures.
Worryingly, only about 36% said they had enough money to get by for the next few months.
As with all survey data, there are caveats to keep in mind. It was collected online, so it captures a subset of farmers who are generally younger, have better access to information and are male. We are supplementing this with phone surveys to capture the full story.
While conducting this research, we’ve also been putting our team to use to create Myanmar-language public health messages in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.
So far our advice for migrant workers returning to their villages has been viewed 4.2 million times, while our advice on general prevention has 3.1 million views.
We’ve repurposed our popular chatbot service, which we developed to teach agronomy techniques and give pest and disease advice, to give users tips on how to quarantine properly, a list of useful phone numbers, a myth-busting section and details about Covid-19 symptoms.
Now we want to use our research to tailor public health messages to the specific needs of different farmers. That’s important, says Elisabeth Chin, Senior Service Designer at Proximity Labs, because Myanmar’s rural landscape is so diverse.
Social distancing in the Dry Zone, for example, where people may “have households right next to each other,” calls for a different approach than in villages in the Delta where “you have to ride a boat to get from household to household,” she says.
Two key times when farmers are at risk of contracting or spreading the virus are when they go to the market and when they hire laborers.
So sellers have brought in closed door policies, where they will only conduct business through a window. And farmers are cutting back on labor wherever possible.
“We heard from one village head that farmers who had previously hired about 20 or 25 laborers have narrowed it down to four or five,” says Elisabeth.
Our interactions with farmers so far show a culture change is underway in some places, even as other areas carry on largely as usual. Households that once left their doors open all day have banned neighbors from visiting.
Monks and other religious leaders are playing a key role in preventing large gatherings and keeping people away from monasteries. Locals are following their lead and turning down invitations to attend small religious ceremonies, even if it’s rude.
“It’s a new world with this crisis and people are developing new mindsets and new behaviors,” says Elisabeth, “so we really need to reassess what their needs are.”
Dispatches: Covid-19
Underserved for decades, rural families are uniquely exposed to global issues. This series brings the experiences of Myanmar’s farmers, both stories of adversity and resilience, to the forefront, as they navigate the Covid-19 crisis in their own backyards.
