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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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Development Strategies and Governance

Zin Wai Aung

Research Analyst

Bio

Zin Wai Aung is a Research Analyst with the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, and is based at IFPRI-Yangon.

Development Strategies and Governance

Publications

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Journal Article

Endogenous technologies and productivity in rice production: Roles of social instability in Myanmar since 2021

2024Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Aung, Zin Wai; Masias, Ian; Minten, Bart
Details

Endogenous technologies and productivity in rice production: Roles of social instability in Myanmar since 2021

Despite technologies’ critical roles in agricultural productivity, evidence is scarce on how conflict affects technology adoption and consequent agricultural productivity, often due to a lack of data in fragile states. Our study contributes to filling this knowledge gap by using unique large-scale data on rice producers before and after a military coup in Myanmar in 2021 that led to a significant increase in conflicts in the country. We find that the increase in violent events including those in adjacent townships significantly changed the rice production function in both factor-neutral and non-neutral ways. Specifically, increased violent events have been generally associated with downward factor-neutral shift in production function, and more importantly, increased output elasticity to agricultural capital (equipment) owned (in other words, reduced output resilience against capital ownership shocks). Our evidence also suggests that this has been led partly through reduced access to agricultural extension services, which would otherwise help farmers maintain productivity even with limited capital ownership by substituting it with human capital and skills. Our results consistently hold for both panel and cross-sectional production functions across various specifications and particularly in Lower Myanmar. Results also indicate that lower mechanization service fees partly mitigate these effects.

Year published

2024

Authors

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Aung, Zin Wai; Masias, Ian; Minten, Bart

Citation

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Aung, Zin Wai; Masias, Ian; and Minten, Bart. Endogenous technologies and productivity in rice production: Roles of social instability in Myanmar since 2021. Agricultural Economics 55(6): 925-942. https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12855

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Agricultural Technology; Crop Production; Productivity; Rice

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12855 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Book Chapter

Vulnerability and welfare during multiple crises

2024van Asselt, Joanna; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Aung, Zin Wai
Details

Vulnerability and welfare during multiple crises

The triple transition that took place between 2011 and 2019 in Myanmar—from a planned to an open market economy, from military to civilian rule, from conflict to peace—was not without its limitations. As discussed in Chapter 1, poverty reduction was modest relative to economic growth, a fully democratic system was not established, and ethnic conflict continued in many areas. In this mixed context of social welfare improvements and unfulfilled reforms, COVID-19 hit—the first in a series of crises. The pandemic had an immediate adverse impact on Myanmar’s economy and pushed many households into poverty. Then, while the country remained under threat from the pandemic, in February 2021, the military took over in a coup, and Myanmar fell into a political crisis. Declines in welfare accelerated for many. One year later, the Myanmar economy faced sharp rises in prices for food, fuel, and fertilizer as a result of a global economic crisis triggered by the start of the conflict in Ukraine. This triple crisis—pandemic, political, economic— has had enormous impacts on welfare and livelihoods in Myanmar. (Chapter 1 summarizes how the triple crisis unfolded; refer to that chapter for details on the causes, levels, and apparent consequences of the sequence of shocks.)

Year published

2024

Authors

van Asselt, Joanna; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; Aung, Zin Wai

Citation

van Asselt, Joanna; Lambrecht, Isabel B.; and Aung, Zin Wai. 2024. Vulnerability and welfare during multiple crises. In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities, Duncan Boughton, Ben Belton, Isabel Lambrecht, and Bart Minten, eds. Chapter 5, Pp. 121-148. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155152

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Agrifood Systems; Development; Economic Shock; Governance; Vulnerability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Book Chapter

Farm commercialization: A transformation on hold or in reverse?

2024Minten, Bart; Fang, Peixun; Naing, Phyo Thandar; Aung, Zin Wai; Win, Hnin Ei
Details

Farm commercialization: A transformation on hold or in reverse?

When food systems transform, farmers’ interactions with markets change dramatically. With changes from traditional to transitional to modern systems—as defined by Reardon and Minten (2021)— farmers move from mostly subsistence-oriented agriculture with few market interactions toward heavy reliance on spot markets for inputs, outputs, and services, and ultimately to contract farming. Such reliance on markets during these transformation processes has been shown to lead to significant improvements in farm performance and in agricultural households’ welfare. However, in a number of low- and middle-income countries, there is often a lack of clarity regarding which stage of transformation farms have reached and how to expedite such transformations. There is limited understanding of agricultural markets and farm commercialization in Myanmar in particular because of a lack of nationally representative and updated data on the farm sector. Moreover, over the past decade, the country has undergone substantial changes in its economic and agricultural market policies, as well as major COVID-19 and military coup shocks. This has all had significant impacts on the farm commercialization situation. To understand farm commercialization and its evolution, then, we first need an overview of these policy changes and shocks.

Year published

2024

Authors

Minten, Bart; Fang, Peixun; Naing, Phyo Thandar; Aung, Zin Wai; Win, Hnin Ei

Citation

Minten, Bart; Fang, Peixun; Naing, Phyo Thandar; Aung, Zin Wai; and Win, Hnin Ei. 2024. Farm commercialization: A transformation on hold or in reverse? In Myanmar’s agrifood system: Historical development, recent shocks, future opportunities, Duncan Boughton, Ben Belton, Isabel Lambrecht, and Bart Minten, eds. Chapter 10, Pp. 245-277. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155182

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

Asia; South-eastern Asia; Agrifood Systems; Commercialization; Development; Economic Shock; Farms; Governance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter