Day: September 14, 2018

The US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service sees Myanmar beans and pulses 2018-19 output down 14.2% on year at 3.8 mln tn. Output of the pulses in the country is estimated to decline as the Myanmar government has urged the farmers to reduce production of some pulses such as urad and tur and shift to other crops such as seed corn, soybeans, green gram, dry season rice and sesame. About 80-90% of the total tur production and 60-70% of urad is exported to India, and the domestic wholesale prices depends mostly on India’s demand. In March last year, India had imposed a 10% customs duty and in August imposed quantitative restriction of 200,000 tn on tur and 300,000 tn on urad and moong annually, to curb cheaper imports. The restrictive policy by the Indian government has led to a sharp drop in the exports of pulses from Myanmar.

Currently, buffer stocks of pulses are at 1.2-1.3 mln tn and the government has no plan to increase it to the 2.0-mln-tn limit in coming months. Buffer was created around three years back to safeguard consumers from the brunt of sharp spike in prices due to shortage in physical markets. As currently markets are well-supplied due to record production in last couple of years and due to hopes of bumper output this year, the government has no immediate plan to build a buffer to its limit of 2 mln tn in near future. At 1 mln tn, tur accounts for the maximum share in the buffer stock.