It is true that even after 1988 farmers in Myanmar continued to be controlled by the ‘three
internal major agricultural systems’ inherited from the socialist period, namely the procurement
system, the planned cropping system and the state ownership of farmland, a point stressed by
Takahashi (Takahashi 2001). It can even be argued that after 1988, the government tightened these
systems to control farmers. However, at the same time, Myanmar agriculture is being forced to come
to terms with the current wave of internationalization. Given that internationalization is inevitable,
how to make the best use of its merits while at the same time minimizing its demerits is the key to
successful reform of the domestic control systems. In analyzing trends in the agricultural sector after
1988, this paper attempts to emphasize the transition to an open economy, rather than the transition
to a market economy in general. For this very reason, the paper focuses on broader measures rather
than simply domestic factors and it is hoped that by doing so, it will fill a gap in previous research.
We group the major agricultural products of Myanmar into the following four categories: export
crops, crops for import competition, crops for the domestic market and crops for state–owned