By Helen Regan, and Su Chay, CNN
(CNN) — Maung Nu Sein needs fuel to plow, and fertilizer to nourish his rice as planting season approaches. But the ships carrying his crucial cargo are trapped 2,000 miles away by Iran’s stranglehold of one of the world’s most important waterways.
Now, the farmer is running the calculations. Can he survive when the costs of fuel and farming come to more than he earns from selling rice?
“There are many farmers who are abandoning their land as they have been struggling with everything,” the 72-year-old told CNN from his home in western Myanmar.
A civil war in his country, sparked by a military coup in 2021, had been raging for five years before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran. The war in Myanmar has displaced millions, divided the country into military- and non-military-controlled areas, and gutted the economy and healthcare system.
Farmers like Maung Nu Sein were already grappling with low rice prices as well as soaring fuel and food costs due to the civil war and the military’s blockade of their coastal state. But the added impact of the Middle East conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is pushing others in his community in Rakhine state to the extreme, he said.
“Some still hold on to working on some parts of their land because they need to eat,” he said. “If we entirely abandon it, the whole community and society will fail because rice is a primary source of food here in our country.”
Myanmar relies on imports for 90% of its fuel and almost all of its fertilizer, from China, the Middle East and around the region to power its agricultural economic backbone.
But the war with Iran has disrupted the supply of those crucial ingredients. Fuel shortages mean transporting goods is more expensive, so prices for energy, food, medicine and other basic items have also risen as supplies begin to dwindle.
“The consequences of the Middle East war are having a huge impact here to people already being affected by civil war. This is far worse,” Maung Nu Sein said.
‘This war is choking us’
A third of all seaborne fertilizer travels through the Strait of Hormuz, according to UN figures, snaking its way from the hot, sand deserts of the Middle East to the flooded, fertile fields of Asia.
Without it, fewer crops will grow. Combined with soaring transport and fuel costs, which are essential for everything from running pumps and irrigation to harvesting rice and getting it to market, farmers may not be able to afford to plant the next season’s crop.
Rice is the main food staple for much of the population and most of Myanmar’s rice cultivation is for domestic use. But its exports – which generated $861 million last year – are also a major source of revenue and foreign currency.
A reduction in crop yield “is absolutely critical, not just for the farmers but the general food supply within the country,” said World Food Programme (WFP) regional director for Asia Pacific, Samir Wanmali.
“And we’re approaching the farming season, we’re approaching the time when fertilizer is at its highest demand, rice is being produced, water is required, so really the timing cannot be worse for the people of Myanmar, in particular the people in Rakhine.”
Maung Nu Sein says he has had to reduce the area of land he farms by half since last year, due to rising costs.
“Plowing a field used to cost only $24 worth of fuel before, and then it increased to $240 and then to $476. It has gone beyond our capability to continue farming,” he said.
“The rice we sell does not even cover the cost of fuel, let alone workers’ costs.”
As a result, Maung