Smartphone apps ring changes in Myanmar countryside
December 25, 2017
Telecoms revolution transforms farmers' access to information and markets
By DENIS D. GRAY | NIKKEI ASIAN REVIEW
HTANTABIN, Myanmar -- When disease or insect infestation struck his rice plants in years past, farmer Kyaw Shwe could only guess at causes and remedies. Recently, however, he simply clicked on an app on his smartphone and discovered that his crop was being ravaged by Scirpophaga incertulas, the yellow stem borer. He also found the specific pesticide he needed to kill it.
Kyaw Shwe is among millions of farmers in Myanmar who have benefited from one of the world's most rapid proliferations of mobile phones, and with them, apps that provide once-isolated and impoverished rural communities with everything from weather reports to crop prices at the nearest market -- or even in another continent.
While they are still being refined and expanded, these agri-mobile apps to boost production and farm income are likely to have wide-ranging impact in Myanmar, where agriculture forms the backbone of the economy, employing more than 60% of the workforce and accounting for nearly 40% of gross domestic product, according to the World Bank.
Despite their recent launch, the agri-apps have already spread into almost every corner of the country, even to villages lacking mains electricity, where phone users rely on solar power connections for charging.
Kyaw Shwe demonstrates how agri-mobile apps have helped in farming his rice fields. (Photo by Denis D. Gray)
Erwin Sikma, a Dutch national who lives in Myanmar, developed Golden Paddy, an online platform providing services to smallholder farmers though an app, website and Facebook. Sikma said the platform reaches nearly 3 million farmers a month, with about 1,500 registering for the app every week. Users are asked to give their locations, details of the crops they grow and other information to help Impact Terra, Sikma's social enterprise, to customize the service.
"This shows the farmers are connected and engaged, but there is still a long way to go to make the services more useful, so they are empowered to act on the information effectively,'' Sikma said. ''The first signs are very positive.''
Like children everywhere, this Burmese boy can't get enough of his parents' mobile telephone. (Photo by Denis D. Gray)
Kyaw Shwe, who owns extensive rice fields nearby, said checking his smartphone several times a day has yielded multiple benefits -- from the best prices for his rice and agricultural equipment to real time weather forecasts. "If I find there is a storm coming I will stop seeding until it passes,'' he said.
Using agricultural applications, YouTube, Google search and Facebook, the 57-year-old father of four has also found details of available bank loans, information on pesticides law, and -- perhaps most vital of all -- optimal techniques for the delicate balance between seeds, fertilizers and pesticides that ensures bountiful harvests. Recently, he learned about research at a Myanmar university into a new rice variety that could double summer crop yields.
Myo Han explains how he helps farmers in his neighborhood in the use of smartphones to better their livelihoods.
The second graduate, Myo Han, said he offers free advice, based on his online research, to neighboring farmers, helping them to boost their incomes by tracking rice prices on the Yangon market. The former civil servant and banana plantation owner said the price of a 49kg bag of nonorganic, high quality rice can vary from $15 to more than $22 in the course of a year. In addition to recommending when farmers should sell or hold back their rice, he also charts labor and transport costs.
Myo Han and other farmers said this information helps them to bargain over prices or sell directly to the market, freeing them from the grip of middlemen, who are frequently regarded as rapacious. ''As farmers become more educated, and if the current trend continues, in another five years we farmers will gain more power,'' said Myo Han, referring to what could prove a transformation of a traditional relationship between buyers and farmers that has invariably favored the former.
"We don't believe in telling farmers what to do. We give them the information and let them decide, thus empowering them in their work,'' Sikma said.
The rise of the digital farmer has been underpinned by a revolution in communications technology in Myanmar, one of the world's least developed countries. Innovative use of mobile telephones is becoming rooted in rural areas of Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, but has proceeded at breakneck speed in Myanmar, which has the world's fourth fastest growing mobile market, according to Ericsson, a telecommunications equipment supplier.
When the government ended a monopoly on telephone services in 2013, mobile phone penetration stood at less than 10% of the population. Today, almost 90% of people have access, including 32 million farmers -- about 80% of whom use smartphones. As it opened the market, the government insisted that licensed telecoms companies must offer nationwide coverage; cell towers sprouted like mushrooms. Prices have plummeted, with the cheapest mobile phone that can take an agri-app priced at about $45.
No one expects digital technology to whisk away agricultural woes, given decades of disastrous policy by Myanmar's former military regime. Farmers said that data on market prices has limited value to many country people, who are perpetually in debt and must sell at harvest time rather than waiting for higher prices later. Many also lack storage facilities.
But word of mouth, the sometimes-dubious advice of local government officials and often-ineffective traditional practices are being rapidly replaced by the new apps. More sophisticated input, including data on climate change and image recognition software, is on its ways via drones, satellites and other leading-edge technology.
At the government information center, Myo Han, vigorous and active at 71, listened keenly to a visiting Frenchman's reports of European farmers directing tractors with smartphones and selling their wheat with a single click the moment they think the price is right.
"One day all the farmers in Myanmar will learn to use these apps well,'' he said. ''Then we will become like the French.'
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