Recommended vs. Practice: smallholder fertilizer decisions in central Myanmar

Abstract

Agriculture in Myanmar has substantial development potential given the abundance of land, water, and labor resources in the country. Despite this, agricultural productivity in Myanmar is low and farm incomes are amongst the lowest in Asia. The underperformance of crops and low yield is widely reported to be due to low fertilizer use by smallholders. This study investigated the perceptions of smallholders about fertilizer use for cereal crops by considering their motives and decision making. We reported results of a 600 smallholders’ survey and tested whether the reportedly low fertilizer use by smallholders is generally true for central Myanmar. We compared the fertilizer application timing against recommended “good management practices”. Among the surveyed rice farmers, the average fertilizer applied was much higher than previously reported national average fertilizer rates while the majority of the surveyed maize farmers were found to be applying less than the national recommended rates. With respect to timing, nearly half of the surveyed smallholders were not applying nitrogen at the estimated panicle initiation stage, which is often crucial to increase yield, and the majority (82%) of smallholders were applying phosphorus throughout the growth stages, when earlier applications are desirable. Smallholders may be able to reduce the cost of labor by reducing the number of P applications and avoiding late applications.