Key Trends from the 2007 country brief

• The number of agricultural research staff rose steadily in Myanmar from 1996 to 2003, but the country’s spending on agricultural R&D, adjusted for inflation, trended downward.
• The principal agricultural research agencies in Myanmar are the Department of Agriculture (DAR) and the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (LBVD). In 2003, DAR was the largest in terms of research staff (40 percent of total), while LBVD was the largest in terms of spending (35 percent of total).
• Myanmar has one of Asia’s lowest shares of researchers trained to the postgraduate level. In 2003, only 18 percent of all research staff held MSc degrees and only 2 percent held PhD degrees.
• Very low civil service salaries and benefits make attracting, motivating, and retaining highly qualified agricultural researchers in the public sector extremely difficult.
• Private sector involvement in agricultural R&D in Myanmar is minimal.

Myanmar