Social firm boosts Myanmar farmers with loans and technology

Improving access: Farmers walk in their farm outside Yebu village in Myanmar. Proximity is looking to aid smallholders increase yield. — Reuters

A SOCIAL venture in Myanmar is boosting farm outputs with customised technologies and giving loans for seasonal migration to raise incomes in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Proximity Designs, which was set up in 2004 in the country’s commercial hub Yangon, focuses on farming, on which more than two-thirds of the population relies to make a living.