In the past two decades, the system of centrally planned agricultural policies that were introduced under the “Burmese Way to Socialism” and that had existed since 1962 has been progressively dismantled, although slowly and incompletely. It would be fair to state that over the two decades since 1988, following the introduction of policy oriented towards the development of a market economy, government control over agricultural cropping decisions has been substantially relaxed, but this happened only gradually and only through ad hoc mechanisms. Economic transformation proceeded, but with frequent reversals of the deregulation process, in response to changes in the global and, in particular, in the domestic economic and political situation.

Although farmers are now freer to make their own cropping decisions, there are still restrictions on the cultivation of rice on paddy land, particularly in relation to the double cropping of rice as summer paddy production on irrigated paddy land. The dominant theme of government policy has been the pursuit of increased production of rice and of another nine cash crops through targeted yields. The government has set specific sector objectives — first, to generate surplus rice; second, for Myanmar to become self-sufficient in edible oil; and third, to increase the production and export of pulses and industrial raw material crops.

One important step was the ending of state procurement of all crop output, including rice but with the exception of some industrial raw material crops (namely, sugarcane, cotton, and jute), by state-owned economic enterprises (SEEs) at prices fixed by the government. This has increased the amount of rice and other major agricultural commodities available in the market, and has induced more private entrepreneurs to enter the trading business. Government subsidies on agricultural inputs, particularly agricultural chemicals, were abolished, and provision of agricultural inputs and machineries by the private sector is now allowed.

Private exports of agricultural produce, with rice and oilseed crops most recently included, has also been permitted, although with certain interventions and controls being made by the government from time to time. However, the liberalization of rice exports that was initiated in 2003 can be viewed as an ad hoc attempt to transform the marketing system (Okamoto 2009).