The Union of Myanmar is a large country situated in mainland Southeast Asia, west
of the Indochina Peninsula. Myanmar is an agricultural country. The agricultural sector
contributes 40.2 per cent of GDP; 12.14 per cent of total export earnings (2005-2006) and
employs 61 per cent of the labour force. The total population of the country is 55.4 million
(2005), with 82.6 per cent living in rural regions and 17.4 per cent living in urban areas.
Most of the rural population depends on agriculture, partially on livestock and fishery sectors
and related activities for their livelihood. In recent years general living standards have risen
in both urban and rural areas but the majority of the rural population is still poor. The
government has invested in rural development and poverty alleviation programmes since
1989 especially in border areas where the ethnic groups are very poor. In some border
regions no development programmes could be undertaken due to insurgencies. The
government puts poverty reduction through agricultural development as a top priority in its
socio-economic development programmes.
As we all know, the basic needs of people are food, clothing and shelter. These
needs are served by the agricultural sector, and food production ranks first in terms of
importance to people in less-developed countries who still draw their living from agriculture.
Most countries in the world seek to increase food production to keep up with population
growth, but such production has not kept pace with population in many less-developed
countries. Consequently, millions of people suffer from hunger and malnutrition due to food
shortages. Food security is one of the big issues of United Nations agencies. The biggest
challenge in world agriculture is to increase food production to feed the world’s increasing
population. There are some indications that there is an urgent need to increase the productivity of rural small farmers who comprise the largest portion of the poor of the world.
World poverty stems largely from the problems and constraints faced by these millions of
small farmers and landless rural labourers. According to a World Bank report (2001), 1.3
billion people worldwide live on less than one US dollar a day. They are under the poverty
line according to the internationally accepted definition.