Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods Incipient Progress Aborted

• Published in: Myanmar pp. 124 - 138
• Main Authors: Boughton, Duncan, Thawnghmung, Ardeth Maung, San, Cho Cho, Aung, Nilar, Okamoto, Ikuko
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2024
• Edition: 2
• ISBN: 9781032478098; 9781032478104; 1032478098; 1032478101
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003386063-11

The rural economy of Myanmar, as in many late-developing economies, is agriculture based. For farmers, agriculture is often a battle fought on three fronts - unpredictable weather, volatile markets, and fickle government policies. During the half-century of socialist/military rule following independence, Myanmar's agriculture and rural sector was held back by high land inequality and landlessness, poor infrastructure, low productivity, and extractive policies. In response, migration out of rural areas became an increasingly popular livelihood strategy. After 2011, both the USDP and the NLD governments sought to improve the welfare of farmers and rural communities. Widespread availability of mobile phones transformed farmer access to information, farm credit at affordable interest rates expanded, and the rapid growth of farm machinery service providers reduced drudgery and helped to mitigate weather risks. Farmers, and the food system more broadly, proved resilient to the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic as the NLD government adapted quickly to support the sector financially. But a year later the military coup turned transient economic shocks into permanent ones. Soaring global fertilizer and fuel prices, amplified by rapid depreciation of the Myanmar currency, drastically eroded farm profitability within a year of the coup. Rural poverty and food insecurity have doubled, wiping away a decade of hard-won gains. The rural economy of Myanmar, as in many late-developing economies, is agriculture based. For farmers, agriculture is often a battle fought on three fronts - unpredictable weather, volatile markets, and fickle government policies. This chapter examines how the interaction of government policies, agricultural technology, trade, and migration have shaped agriculture and rural livelihoods in Myanmar over the past 60 years. After a long struggle with isolation and economic repression, rural populations were just beginning to see a transformation in their economic circumstances and opportunities when the military coup threw a decade of progress into reverse. Despite limited optimism about prospects for change at the time of inauguration, the Thein Sein mandate saw key drivers of change in agriculture and rural life reach critical inflexion points. Myanmar agriculture and the rural economy were able to ride out the early waves of COVID-19 in the first half of 2020 because business shutdowns and disruptions to transport and movement were temporary.