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This report is from Kyaw Soe - owner of Arcadia Travels in Rangoon

Received July 5th

Dear One & All,

Our last trip was a very successful one for our project to introduce proper technique of rice cultivation. The coorporation and the motivation of the farmers are phnomenal. Hope you enjoy my article written without much time.

Best regards,

Report #13
My day with two staff from the joint relief effort group among ASEAN, UN and the regime was not fruitful. They said they had been assessing all data about Kun-gyan-gon Township for two weeks in the hotel I picked them up. What a waste of time! They pointed me out the area on the map they brought. It is a different area from where we are based. They said this area suffered a lot and they needed help. Frankly speaking I haven't been to that area but I could lead them there. So we went out there with a very nice hired Toyota Land cruiser which cost them at least $200 per day. Remember the date of their visit to the area is on 27 June which is almost two months after the cyclone. On the way I tried to explain our effort of providing the tillers and diesel for rice cultivation but they were only keen to go into area which they think will need urgent help for the shelter. They were expecting the scene of destruction but everyone on the delta somehow manage to rebuild their houses and those who can't just live together with their relatives. After asking various questions they asked me where they can find a place to help build houses since they are on the house building projects. I said even if they go to Bogalay and Labutta where the most destruction is, they cannot find the houses that are not built yet because many International and Local NGOs are based there for various projects. Three most and urgent needs for the village folks right now are rice seed, machine and diesel to farm their paddy fields. After checking a couple of local schools one of which needs a new building after one is collapsed they said they will report to the superiors about it and they will think of that. Even if they don't come back they promised they will pass the data to other NGOs. In the end of the day when we got back they passed me an envelope which I refused to accept for this is my volunteer work but they insisted me to as contribution for our effort. I contributed that $50 to Audrey's nephew who just phoned me for the contribution to replenish some medicine they needed in Bogalay town where they opened a clinic with the other fellow medical doctors. He finished medical school last year and is helping the seniors there. On the same day my friend received 45 portable radios with batteries from a well-wisher so he delivered it to the village. Some of those were given to the village authorities, the school principal and the monks first. So that we will not get any pressure from anyone and we can freely distribute more of those in the future. The villagers need those for listening to the news from foreign broadcasting stations in Burmese so that they know exactly what is happening out there and around here. Most importantly, God's forbidden, to listen to the weather report for any storm news, heavy rainfall or flood warning in the future. Very few people have radio in the villages. The one we distributed are one of the best brands imported from China.

We could purchase one two-wheel power tiller (22 H/P) on 28 June with funds raised in Singapore and delivered it to the village. Our medical team went out of Yangon at 6 a.m. on 29 June to Mae-za-li village which is located further inland than Kyaung-zu village where we have our base. The boat ride to the village took 75 minutes. We arrive at the village monastery around 10 a.m. and set our stuff for the clinic. The monk announced on P.A which could be heard from miles around about our arrival and invited those who are not feeling well or sick to come and get treatment. At first there were only several people. So we thought we could manage it well here. Normally we have 3 doctors but today one is not coming and we have only two. We started around 11 a.m. and could never have taken a break for there were more and more people arriving from nearby villages. We couldn't even feel the heavy rain pouring outside the monastery. Our space got narrower and narrower with more people queuing for the medicine other two assistants and I was giving out. The final tally was 186 patients when we finished at 5:30 p.m. We were generously insisted by village folks to have our late lunch in the monastery with sumptuous meals even though we refused to have it because it was pretty late to boat back to town and drive back to Yangon. We got back to town at 7 p.m. and I got back at home at 10:30 p.m. after I dropped our medical stuff at the meeting point and everyone.

The rice expert and his wife welcomed the farmer from Mandalay and his assistant on the morning of 02 July 08. We were in contact everyday about what should be purchased and what will be needed for our visit to the village to go convince and motivate the farmers to use the method for high-yield production. While they were organizing some personal needs for the trip my friend and I loaded some contribution (6 sacs of hand-me-down clothes and 17 gallons of diesel) we collected from various contacts at 8 a.m. Another batch of 50 radios is on the way to the rendezvous teashop to load. The rice expert gave us the addresses of a cargo truck terminal to go pick up 10 sacs of well-maintained rice seeds sent down from Mandalay. 5 sacs (69 lbs apiece) of long-life rice Aye-yar-min (135 to 150 days counted from sowing till harvesting) and 5 sacs of short-life Shwe-thwe-yin (115 days) were loaded on the truck. The head of office of the fertilizer company Bio Supreme is located in the same area on our way out to the delta. Thanks to the rice expert we get 25 sacs of organic fertilizer (108 lbs apiece) and we were told to purchase 50 sacs. I am so happy to purchase it with our funds after the tillers which really make sense to be involved in every step of the project of this rice cultivation and thank you guys in mind while requesting the girl who prepared the invoice for us to write the name of the donors. The rice expert arrived Kun-gyan-gon at 2 p.m. just after we finished loading 75 sacs of fertilizer. So they were transferred to the village by boat first to the village. We have to couple together with the truck on our way out to go through several check points where policemen extort truckers with our absence. We have to show our faces with our wagon and explained them we are carrying our supplies to our project place for the relief work.

Our arrival there was around 4 p.m. 85 sacs of rice seed and fertilizer are transferred from truck to the boat. I had to go to a nearby electric store for purchasing some lamps to install at the new bamboo hut for the rice expert and his company and store these sacs. The max load the boat can carry was only 50 and the boat was gone when I came back. So I waited until the boat came back for 1.5 hours. At 6 p.m. the boat came back and we loaded the rest of the sacs. When we arrive at Kya-khat it was 6:50 already and almost dark. I had to take a quick shower afterwards at the village well close to our camp. Water level is just 10-12 feel below. Food was prepared and we had dinner together. After dinner there were several farmers who came to talk to the rice expert in advance to listen what they have to say.

The actual meeting we had announced would be the next day morning. The expert asked questions he wanted know about the way the farmers cultivate, the type of seed and fertilizer they use, how the seed was selected after harvest and kept, the weather, the depth of the water when rained on the fields and the flooding in the fields located along some streams and creeks.

1 sac of rice seed (69 lbs) normally covers 1 acre of land to sow in this area and yields 40 tins (40x46 lbs=1840 lbs). They use 1 to 1.5 sacs of Tisuper (phosophate) in-organic fertilizer per acre which cost them about 50000 Kyats more or less. The pumping of the water for plants during the period of 135 days (min) before harvest will cost 10 gallons of diesel per acre. Poor farmers have to hire pump and generator from others. The fuel alone cost 55000 Kyats at current diesel price. Forget other minor expenditure hiring labor to harvest rice, porter and transport charges. They sell their rice 100 tins (4600 lbs) at about 350000 Kyats. For the farmers who own 5 acres you cans see the calculation below.

Unhusked rice 1 Tin (Burmese basket measurement for grains) = 70 ~ 80 lbs
Rice 1 Tin = 108 lbs

The input
Fertilizer Tisuper (phosphate) 30000 Kyats per sac = 30000 Kyats
Fertilizer Urea 30000 Kyats per sac = 30000 Kyats
Plowing & tumbling the land = 20000 Kyats
Harvesting = 30000 Kyats

Total = 1100000 Kyats

Output
Market price 4000 x 40 Tins = 160000 Kyats
The profit (160000 - 110000) = 50000 Kyats
Profit per month per acre (4 months time) = 12500 Kyats (USD 11)

The main agenda of the seminar was to make the input cost less and the output yield grow. Two most important facts to reach our goal are the type of seed and fertilizer we use. The land is happy with natural fertilizers such as cow or chicken dung, burnt husk, rice bran, leaves, chick-pea husks and so forth should be used on soil. The farmers are not suggested to change up side down suddenly but to start reducing the use of in-organic fertilizer by mixing with the mentioned natural fertilizer and bio-fertilizer sacs. Normally the seeds are dried at the plant stage and collected for the next season by packing in sacs. They just leave the sac until they open it when the next monsoon comes. The suggested way is to pick before the plant turns yellow and ripen, cut the selective stalk at green stage, sun-dry it for three days and hang it in the barn until the next season. They dip the seed in water normally for picking the waste among the rice seeds. What the expert recommends is to have a saturated salt solution in water. 20 lbs of salt with 10 gallons of water can make water saturated. To know the saturation an egg is dipped in the water, add salt and stir water slowly. When the egg slowly floats up on the surface of the water it is saturated. When Rice seed are submerged the good ones get sunk while the waste and the infertile floats in the salt water. About 1/6 of the rice seeds are the infertile even among the best-kept rice we brought. The farmers were awestruck by that technique. Most of them want to get involve by giving up their lands to us but they are not 100% sure. So we suggested them to test it by providing us 1 or 2 acres of their land. Finally we ended up having 46 acres of land from 5 people from 4 villages (Kya-khat, Taw-kyaung, Ma-yan, Man-ga-leik). So far we have plowed 154 acres of land in three different villages (Kya-khat, Kyaung-zu and Taw-kyaung) with our tillers.

The rice expert also invited and brought a forestry expert who works with a Japanese NGO called JAICA. He and I went to the school on 3 Jul and requested the headmaster to assemble students from Kindergarten to 4th grade for telling them a story about a boy who is writing a letter of thank to a friend who gives him a house. A bird, a fish, boy's grand parents also tried to request the boy to thank his friend on their behalf for giving them food and others. At the end of the story they were told to answer a question for each grade to win the prize a radio. We gave out one radio to five students who successfully answered our questions about the friend which is a tree. They were motivated to grow more trees in their environment. At the end of the day the principle approached the forest expert to create a small vegetation and plantation in the school yard. Today we are contributed by a friend of forest expert to give us 200 seedlings of shady and fast growing plants from his nursery. We are going to the village tomorrow for one night trip. This time we are going to have fertilizer expert who will demonstrate how to create bio fertilizer with Effective Micro-organisms and others in front of farmers the next day. We will need to buy three sacs of bio-fertilizer per acre and another different one at different times. The cost the expert has estimated to spend per acre is about 150,000 Kyats ($128).

Good night!

This is page 11. To read earlier emails, click here.
There are now multiple pages of reports from Burma.
Click below to go to other pages.Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10.
Return to Home Page

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