Myanmar has experienced a sequence of dire crises beginning in 2019 including the unexpected closure of a principal trade route, COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions, and a military coup leading to years of disruptions in the banking and tra

In August 2023, we surveyed 388 active rice millers from 13 states and regions across Myanmar to learn more about the impacts of the current political and COVID-19 crises.

Myanmar initiated economic and political reforms in 2011, ushering in a period of rapid economic transformation. The country experienced strong annual average economic growth of close to 7 percent between 2011 and 2019.

To document changes in the mid-stream of Myanmar’s food value chains, a phone survey of commodity traders was conducted in April 2023 with a sample of 304 traders in 14 states and regions.

Key Findings

Over the last decade, farms in Myanmar have gone through important market transitions.

Southeast Asia’s agricultural landscape is known for rice production in lowland areas, diverse upland areas, and the cultivation of ‘boom crops’ in the borderlands.

2020 was marked by a global recession. Most Asian economies witnessed a major economic downturn or, at the minimum, major decelerations in economic growth of magnitudes not seen since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

Nearly one-quarter of the global population lives in fragile states.

Rural out-migration to both domestic and international destinations counts among the key phenomena that defined a decade of transformation in Myanmar from the 2011 economic reforms until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Smallholder farmers in developing countries face several different constraints limiting their ability to reach their production potential.

Prices of major agricultural products in the two major urban wholesale markets of Mandalay and Yangon were collected during the month of April 2021. Compared to prices from a year earlier in April 2020:

Historically, agriculture was seen as a contribution that helped induce industrial growth and structural transformation of the economy.

The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and the Centre for Economic and Social Development (CESD), together with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Myanmar’s Ministry of

In preparation for the Training-Workshop on Rapid Value Chain Assessment, the Focal Points & Researchers Meeting was held in the afternoon of 31 October 2017, presided by Dr. Bessie M.

Structural transformation in Southeast Asia poses challenges to the regions' food security and inclusive agricultural growth agenda.

This paper reviews the agricultural policy environment in Myanmar up until 2014 with an eye towards identifying policies that can help to accelerate productivity and profitability in the agricultural sector.

Across Southeast Asia, agricultural growth has historically been a major driver of overall economic growth and poverty reduction (Christiaensen, Demery, and Kuhl 2011).1 Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam all enjoyed rapid agricultural grow