Role of fertilizer policy in transforming agriculture of Myanmar

Approximately 70 percent of the population of Myanmar lives in rural areas and 60 percent of the workforce is involved in agriculture. It is estimated that agriculture contributes to 36 percent of the GDP and 20 percent of the foreign exchange earnings for Myanmar. While agriculture is important for growth in Myanmar, it is primarily rain-fed so agricultural growth is erratic. Due to small farm sizes, increasing food production is dependent on improved policies and technologies that can increase output per hectare. One of the main policy objectives of the Government of Myanmar is to increase food security and the quantity, quality, and variety of crops through partnerships and private sector investment. Improving the private sector participation in the trade and distribution of fertilizer has the potential to reduce fertilizer costs and increase their usage and thus improving farm productivity and food security.Non-PRIFPRI1; ReSAKSS AsiaDSG

<論文>How the Landless Households Survive in Myanmar's Central Dry Zone: Focusing on the Role of Interlinked Credit Transaction between Toddy Palm Climbers and Traders

Myanmar has a large number of rural landless households, even in the Central Dry Zone (CDZ) which does not have extensive rice cultivation. A hypothesis which explains it is that the palm sugar (jaggery) production industry has historically absorbed the labor in this zone. Although the industry has been in decline in recent years due to the sluggish demand growth for jaggery and a lack of palm climbers, in some areas the industry is still active. This study, based on the data from a village in the CDZ, shows the high labor absorptive power of the jaggery industry and how the landless palm climbers make a living by renting palm trees from farmers and selling jaggery to traders. Our focus is on the special credit relations between the climbers and jaggery traders. Their interlinked transactions as sellers and buyers of jaggery and as debtors and creditors has continued for generations. The credit is mainly extended during the lean season for consumption purposes and repaid throughout the next production season of jaggery. Money for purchasing foodstuff and other necessities by the climbers is given priority before repayment. The whole system functions to ensure minimum subsistence of the climbers. The estimated implicit interest rate of 3.4% per month is lower than the normal rates charged by local moneylenders. This credit relation has persisted even though there is a microfinance program operated by an international NGO, which covers nearly half of the landless households

Design and Simulation of Down Conversion Mixer for Front-end Portion of Satellite Receiver

In this paper, design and simulation of receiver analogue front-end portion (downconversion mixer) of satellite ground station is presented. The receiver chain is designed to down convert and band pass filtering required for the front-end portion. In this design, the Radio Frequency (RF) and Local Oscillator (LO) frequencies are filtered at 20GHz and 19.5GHz which offers an Intermediate Frequency (IF) of 500MHz. The output IF value can meet the requirements of ultra-wide band receiver analogue front-end portion. The conversion gain for the proposed mixer design is evaluated. The simulation results show input signals and output signal of the mixer