After the military coup, the dollar gol, car, patrol, the prices of cooking oil and medicine have risen competitively, and now the prices of rice, Myanmar’s main commodity, have risen. The price of Shwe Bo Por Sansan rice, which used to be only about fifty thousand kyats per bag, has now 1 lakh kyats. Due to the fighting around Shwebo town in Sagaing region, where Shwebo rice is produced, they are no longer able to plant rice. The prices of other types of rice in the Erawati region are also skyrocketing.
The price of rice does not see a way to fall again. In the upper rice-growing areas of Sagaing and Magwe, the army burned the entire area violently and killed people. Locals are fleeing because they can no longer grow rice. In every lower Ayeyarwaddy Region, the price of fertilizers is decreasing due to the increase in dollar prices. In the meantime, we are hearing reports that the military council is buying all the rice produced without distributing it to the market. Domestic rice became scarce, but because the military council needed dollars, the export of foreign rice did not decrease and even increased. So, in the long term, rice prices will only continue to rise.
The increase in the price of rice will have a big impact on many grassroots. When a time comes when they all starve, will people go back to the streets to protest? No one can say for sure whether they will steal or not. Surely that time will come soon.
