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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Ruth Meinzen-Dick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit. She has extensive transdisciplinary research experience in using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her work focuses on two broad (and sometimes interrelated) areas: how institutions affect how people manage natural resources, and the role of gender in development processes. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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Development Strategies and Governance

Ben Belton

Research Fellow

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Ben Belton

Bio

Ben Belton is a Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Dhaka. He is an applied interdisciplinary social scientist with more than 15 years’ field experience living and working in South and Southeast Asia, in countries including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam, India, Cambodia, and Malaysia. Ben is a leading global scholar on aquaculture and fisheries development. His research interests are broad, spanning value chains, food systems, livelihoods, rural transformation, agrarian change, and their links to food and nutrition security, poverty, well-being, and the environment. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles on these subjects, using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to develop an evidence base for effective policy actions. In addition to his role at IFPRI, Ben holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor, International Development at the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University.

Publications

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Publications

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Book Chapter

Introduction [in Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities]

2024Boughton, Duncan; Belton, Ben; Lambrecht, Isabel; Minten, Bart
Details

Introduction [in Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities]

A decade of rapid, albeit uneven, progress in Myanmar’s economic development was thrown into reverse by a series of shocks that began with the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The pandemic was followed by the military coup of February 2021 and the global food, fuel, and fertilizer supply crisis spurred by the armed conflict in Ukraine that began a year later. The coup led to a surge in conflict around the country, hampering and often devastating the livelihoods of the population at large while also causing the internal displacement of about 2.3 million people by the end of 2023, adding to those displaced during prior conflicts. The sharp depreciation of Myanmar’s currency since the coup multiplied the inflationary impact of international price increases for fuel, fertilizer, and imported vegetable oils, causing inflation to spiral upward even as employment opportunities withered. By late 2023, over 70 percent of the population was estimated to be in poverty, more than double the 2017 poverty rate of 25 percent. Though Myanmar’s agrifood system was not left unscathed by these shocks, it has proved resilient. Agriculture and the rural economy are essential to Myanmar’s development, as 70 percent of the population and 87 percent of the country’s poor live in rural areas (MOPF and World Bank 2017a). Agriculture and its associated agro-industries form a key sector of the national economy, employing half of the total labor force and contributing one-third of national GDP—about 23 percent directly in farm incomes and another 11 percent in agro-processing, distribution, marketing, exports, and food retailing (Chapter 2). Ekanayake, Ambrosio, and Jaffee (2019) estimate that nearly half of Myanmar’s poverty reduction between 2005 and 2015 was attributable directly to progress in agriculture. Therefore, a well-functioning agrifood system is crucial to the welfare and food security of Myanmar’s residents.

Year published

2024

Authors

Boughton, Duncan; Belton, Ben; Lambrecht, Isabel; Minten, Bart

Citation

Boughton, Duncan; Belton, Ben; Lambrecht, Isabel; and Minten, Bart. 2024. Introduction [in Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities]. In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities, Duncan Boughton, Ben Belton, Isabel Lambrecht, and Bart Minten, eds. Chapter 1, Pp.1-18. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155119

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Agrifood Systems; Development; Economic Shock; Governance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Book Chapter

Agricultural land: Inequality and insecurity

2024Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Belton, Ben; Fang, Peixun; Minten, Bart; Naing, Phyo Thandar
Details

Agricultural land: Inequality and insecurity

Land is indispensable to agricultural production and, thus, a critical resource in sustaining agriculture-based livelihoods. Moreover, land as property may facilitate access to credit when used as collateral, further facilitating productive activities. Land ownership also constitutes a buffer against shocks, as it can often be rented out, mortgaged, or sold when cash needs are high.

Year published

2024

Authors

Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Belton, Ben; Fang, Peixun; Minten, Bart; Naing, Phyo Thandar

Citation

Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Belton, Ben; Fang, Peixun; Minten, Bart; and Naing, Phyo Thandar. 2024. Agricultural land: Inequality and insecurity. In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities. Boughton, Duncan; Belton, Ben; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Masias, Ian; and Minten, Bart (Eds.). Chapter 6, pp. 149-170. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155256

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Farmland; Equality; Tenure Insecurity; Livelihoods

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Book Chapter

Livestock, capture fisheries, and aquaculture: status and recent trends

2024Belton, Ben; Fang, Peixun
Details

Livestock, capture fisheries, and aquaculture: status and recent trends

Livestock rearing and fishing have been central components of rural livelihoods in Myanmar for centuries and remain so today. More capital-intensive forms of marine fishing, aquaculture, and poultry farming began to expand during the early 1990s and have grown briskly since then. Poultry and aquaculture commoditization accelerated between 2011 and 2019, stimulated by the demand-side pull of rapid income growth and by foreign and domestic investment in areas such as feed milling and food retail (for example, businesses such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, which opened in Myanmar in 2015). However, despite recent growth, both sectors lag behind those in more developed countries in the region in technological sophistication, scale, and regulation. This chapter summarizes the status of the supply side of livestock, capture fisheries, and aquaculture based on an analysis of nationally representative data extracted from the Myanmar Living Conditions Survey (MLCS) 2017 (CSO 2019) and a review of trends in these sectors using information drawn from other recent surveys and secondary sources. We analyze MLCS to sketch a picture of the contributions of livestock, capture fisheries, and aquaculture to household incomes in the four agroecological zones (AEZs—Delta, Dry Zone, Coastal Zone, and Hills and Mountains) into which MLCS results are categorized (CSO, UNDP, and World Bank 2019). The MLCS livestock and fishery modules asked questions about each household’s ownership, production, sales, and consumption of livestock and livestock byproducts, as well as aquaculture and capture fisheries products in the previous 12 months. Respondents were asked to estimate the quantity or value of these variables, making it possible to calculate the value of livestock and fish income, expenditure, and consumption for each household.

Year published

2024

Authors

Belton, Ben; Fang, Peixun

Citation

Belton, Ben; and Fang, Peixun. 2024. Livestock, capture fisheries, and aquaculture: status and recent trends. In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities, Duncan Boughton, Ben Belton, Isabel Lambrecht, and Bart Minten, eds. Chapter 9, Pp. 221-244. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155185

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Agrifood Systems; Aquaculture; Capture Fisheries; Development; Economic Shock; Governance; Livestock

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter