Joint research
Topic
- Analysis of the maize value chain for improving farmers’ income in Myanmar
Partner Agency
- Ministry of Agriculture Livestock and Irrigation, Myanmar Agriculture Network
1st Field Survey
- From August 5 to 8, 2019, the KAPEX Joint Research team visited Naypyitaw and Yangon to conduct the 1st field survey. They discussed the Myanmar Rural Development and Agricultural Technology Transfer Project. To analyze the current situation and the problem regarding current situation of maize production, the team had interviews with Ministry of Agriculture Livestock and Irrigation, Farmers in Thanatpin Village and East Paunggyi Village.
2nd Field Survey
- From October 14 to 15, 2019, the team visited Yangon to conduct interview to share the survey results of the project target village. The team visited the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation and Single Touch Point Company Ltd. to listen to difficulties related to conducting a survey on the target village and share the results. They also conducted a survey of business-related officials. the team gather the opinions of central and local government officials who directly and indirectly participated in the project were investigated in accordance with the five major evaluation criteria of the OECD DAC, and based on this, the results of the project and improvement measures were derived.
Result-sharing Workshop in Myanmar
- On November 28, 2019, KREI held the result-sharing workshop in Naypyitaw to share experience on Korea's experience on Agricultural Policy and Technology and discuss the main results of KAPEX joint research. For inrease the farmer's income, they emphasized the importance of value chain of the corn. In addition, KAPEX team visited KOICA and The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center(CIMMYT) to promise to cooperate with each other for the KAPEX project.
Major Findings
- According to the research, Maize is the second most important cereal crop in Myanmar; 1.2 million acre (485,830 hectare) cultivated across the country and produced over 1.8 million MT in 2018. It is recognized as one of the most high-potential crops for export earnings (1,437,000 MT exported in 2018) and contributes to the development of the domestic livestock sector by supporting feeds that are beneficial for rural development. The domestic animal feed requirement was 3.0 million MT in 2018 and it is projected to increase up to 3.9 million MT in 2020. Throughout the overall maize value chain in Myanmar, the structure tying together each stakeholder and related stakeholders is becoming disaggregated and leading to weak horizontal linkage and vertical linkage. It is also not well connected, and it is necessary to build up trust in each stakeholder and among clusters of stakeholders by enhancing communication through networking. Current constraints include market uncertainties and price volatility, poor rural infrastructure, inadequate access to affordable
finance, quality assurance of inputs, inadequate modernized post-harvest facilities, and inadequate institutional and technical capacity to improve the maize value chain in Myanmar.