In Good Times and in Bad, in Sickness and in Health: The Continuous Rise in Adoption of Labour-Saving Agricultural Technologies in Myanmar

Bart Minten, Joseph Goeb, Joanna Van Asselt and Zin Wai Aung

Journal of Development Studies, 2025, vol. 61, issue 1, 81-101

Abstract: Agriculture is rapidly transforming in many low- and middle-income countries – most often driven by the adoption of new agricultural technologies – but changes remain poorly understood in fragile and conflict-affected states. We look at the case of Myanmar, a prime example of such a state. After decades of isolationism and economic stagnation, it opened its economy in the beginning of the 2010s, leading to rapid economic growth. But the COVID-19 health crisis and a military coup in the beginning of 2021 – leading to heightened conflicts, forced displacements, and increased migration – dramatically reversed that outlook. Based on large-scale farm surveys, we find that adoption of labour-saving agricultural technologies – measured by the use of mechanization, herbicides, and direct seeding of rice – increased rapidly over the economic growth period and that the increase surprisingly persisted during the crisis years, but at a slower rate. This uptake was lower, however, for households in the most conflict-affected areas, partly due to differential agricultural input availability. Smallholders and more remote farmers also participated less. This finding suggests an increasing labour productivity gap for remote and conflict-affected smallholders, with important implications for their welfare.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2024.2401407 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:61:y:2025:i:1:p:81-101

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2024.2401407

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().