Resumen de Foreign Agricultural Investments in Myanmar: Toward Successful and Sustainable Contract Farming Relationships

Jeff Shim

• This Note examines how the Myanmar government can create an appropriate legal and regulatory framework to promote contract farming. While the viability of contract farming in Myanmar has attracted some academic interest, this Note contributes to existing literature in two ways. First, it utilizes the pre- and post-establishment framework in foreign investment literature in order to analyze the government’s role at different stages of the contract farming relationship. Second, it draws from the experiences of Myanmar’s closest analogue, Laos, which adopted contracting farming as a mode of agricultural foreign investment. This Note finds that while Myanmar’s weak legal system poses challenges, its ongoing reform of the investment, land, and tax laws also presents opportunities for a successful adoption of contract farming.