Agriculture continues to play a veryimportant role in Myanmar’s economy. For many years,understanding the dynamics and performance of Myanmar’sagriculture has been difficult due to the absence ofreliable, up-to-date data, at sectoral, sub-sectoral, ormicroeconomic level. During the past five years, significantchanges have occurred in Myanmar’s demographics, economy,and public spending and in its integration into world andregional markets for agro-food products. While Myanmar’sagriculture has experienced some considerablediversification over the past decade, rice, and bean orpulses remain core elements of the sector. Rice remains animportant crop and commodity for the economy and welfare ofMyanmar. Myanmar’s paddy production has realized modestgains, yet it continues to under-perform, relative to peersand to its potential. One positive development at theproduction level has been a significant increase in laborproductivity. One potentially disturbing trend has been asignificant increase in agro-chemicals use in paddyproduction. Elsewhere in the rice value chain, manyfunctions are characterized by low levels of operationalefficiency and/or inadequate quality management. Myanmar isthe world’s third largest producer of pulses, after Indiaand Canada. Myanmar is also a major exporter of pulsesglobally and the largest in the ASEAN region. After severalyears of promising trade results, the pulses sub-sectorexperienced major problems in 2017 following India’simposition of import restrictions on back gram, chick peasand other commodities. While the trade restrictions haveexposed the vulnerability of the pulses sector due to itsheavy reliance on a single market for some products, thereare additional challenges faced by the sector. Elsewhere inthe pulses value chain, there has been limited investment orvalue addition.
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