Burma (Myanmar)

The strategy has been to develop a small number of collaborative research projects that can have impact on improving nutrition and food security, either directly or through an increase in farmers' cash income. This approach is in recognition that over one-third of young children in Burma are moderately or severely under-weight. Even though the nation is self-sufficient in food on an overall basis, many families spend 70% of their income on food, and prices are rising. There is general agreement that millions of people are currently enduring substantial hardship, and the situation is urgent enough to require humanitarian action. In the absence of changes in the country's policy settings and institutional  rrangements, providing the most disadvantaged farmers with the means of increasing agricultural productivity will remain one of the few options in the short term to alleviate this humanitarian crisis.

After exploratory visits in 2002 to determine the feasibility of collaborative research activities, ACIAR developed a small program with Burma, with the first projects commencing in 2003. In light of the current international situation, development of new projects is on hold. There have been limited opportunities for new activities to be pursued through multilateral organisations, and currently there is one International Crop Reproach Institute for the Semi and Arid tropics (ICRISAT)-led project on improving productivity of legumes.

Although there has been rather limited international development cooperation in agriculture with Burma since 1988, several trained researchers and basic facilities are present to allow effective cooperation. Burma has already benefited through the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) from the spillover of other ACIAR projects in the region, most notably vaccines against Newcastle disease in chickens, and improved legume varieties and their inoculation with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.