People in western Myanmar struggle with shortages

TAHAM, Myanmar (Reuters) - They may have escaped Cyclone Nargis, but people in western Myanmar are struggling to cope with soaring inflation and food shortages in the wake of the disaster that struck the Irrawaddy Delta food bowl.

Prices for basic foods have more than tripled in western parts of the former Burma, heavily dependent on supplies from the delta where the May 2 storm wrecked rice fields, killed livestock and forced thousands of farmers off the land.

It may get worse.

People have begun hoarding rice, salt and edible oils as they prepare for the arrival of the monsoon sometime next month, which will make roads impassable and supplies even scarcer.

"The situation is very bad here," said Myo, a 60-year-old retired teacher in Taham, a small town about three hours' drive from the Indian border.

"People have no money to buy food, medicine and baby food," she said. "The government seems completely unmoved by the suffering of the people."

A state pension amounts to a cup of tea a month, but a kilogram of rice sells for 1,500 kyats, three times higher than before the cyclone. The price of little more than a litre of edible oil has nearly tripled to 8,000 kyats.

"You can well imagine my difficulty," Myo said.

Many villagers sell firewood, ginger, onions and fish on the Indian side of the border to earn money to buy food and medicine. But Myanmar's weaker currency has made it harder to buy Indian goods, residents said.

HELL

"Life has become hell here," said the owner of a ramshackle roadside tea stall, who asked not to be named because of fears of recrimination from the Myanmar authorities.

"A family needs a minimum of 150,000 kyats to buy food for the whole month. Where will they get the money to survive?"

Shopkeepers say they are running their businesses at a loss.

"We are unable to buy stocks as wholesale market prices have gone up to more than double retail prices," said another grocery shop owner in a village on the way to Kalaymo, around 140 km (90 miles) from the Indian border.

Myanmar's military government has appealed for $243 million in agricultural aid for the delta, the country's main rice- and salt-producing region.

The disaster has triggered fears there will be no harvest next year unless delta farmers can quickly plant a new crop.

"We will face a severe food crisis by September as our stocks from this year's harvest will last for only another three months," said Daw, a middle-aged housewife and mother of three.

"Once the rain starts there will be no supply coming, prices will further increase and there will be an acute food shortage here," she said.