Yangon—In a bid to prevent losses in the farming industry due to COVID-19 and ensure the availability of capitals, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation plans to carry out multiple crop production and the contract-farming system on 400,000 acres of land.

The ministry is working to help farmers avoid a decline in the production of crops and them in cultivation, the availability of paddy strains and inputs. In doing so, the ministry will carry out the cultivation of multiple crops on 400,000 acres of land—200,000 acres with the assistance of overseas loans and government budgets and 200,000 acres through the contract farming system of Myanmar Rice Federation.

The farm-to-fork process will require many workers create more employment opportunities.

Myanmar grows around 17.8 million acres of paddy annually and produces around 27 million tons of rice. In 2018-19 fiscal year, the total rice production exceeded 27.5 million tons of rice, the maximum rice production in five years.

In 2014-15 FY, the paddy growing area exceeded 17,722,355 acres and the paddy production, 26,423,319 tons.

In 2015-16 FY, Myanmar had a total paddy growing area of 17,820,586 acres and produced 26,210,319 tons of rice.

In 2016-17 FY, the paddy growing area exceeded 17,695,525 acres and the paddy production hit 25,672,833 tons.