Junta chief’s AI agriculture vision collides with realities facing Myanmar farmers

Myanmar’s dictator, Min Aung Hlaing, has a vision. Speaking at a recent national workshop on the country’s key agricultural sector, he unveiled his regime’s plans to usher in a new era in farming, one that embraces all the latest technological advances. In a speech that went on for more than an hour, he spoke of integrating digital technologies and artificial intelligence into the work that Myanmar’s millions of farmers do every day. What he didn’t do, however, was explain how they would access the tools they need to make this great leap into the future. In many rural areas across the country, finding electricity to charge a phone can be a huge challenge. And the lack of reliable internet connections is an even more daunting obstacle to the kind of progress that Min Aung Hlaing envisions. “There’s no electricity here, and the internet isn’t good either,” says one farmer in Ayeyarwady Region who relies on solar power to charge his phone. “He sits in a chair and says, ‘We’ll do this, we’ll do that, this will happen, that will happen.’ But he doesn’t actually know what things are like among our farmers and cultivators,” he adds, dismissing Min Aung Hlaing’s high-tech ambitions. Digital agriculture uses tools such as mobile phones, GPS, satellite imagery, drones, sensors, and internet services to gather information and help farmers make decisions. But those technologies require basic infrastructure that remains all but non-existent in many parts of Myanmar. A 2023 World Bank study found that more than 4 million households in Myanmar still lacked access to electricity. The gap between electricity generation and demand continues to plague efforts to modernise manufacturing in major urban centres; in rural areas, the shortfall is even greater. For farmers, that can make even relatively simple AI applications impractical. A farmer seeking to identify a crop disease from a photograph, for example, needs a working phone, electricity, and a network connection to send the image and receive a response. A farmer reads agricultural information on a mobile phone app (Photo: AFP) The cost of access Even farmers with electricity and a working network must consider the cost of getting online. A female farmer from Bago Region told Myanmar Now that she spends about 10,000 kyat (US$2.50) a month on basic internet access, but says that amount can easily triple or quadruple with heavy use—a huge expense for farmers earning barely enough to meet their basic needs. Affordability is not the only concern. Telecommunications disruptions are another chronic problem in much of Myanmar, particularly in areas affected by conflict. The Myanmar Internet Project, a digital rights group, documented disruptions to telephone and internet services in many parts of Rakhine and Kachin states and Sagaing and Tanintharyi regions between May and July 2026. Access Now, which monitors internet restrictions worldwide, reported 95 internet shutdowns in Myanmar during 2025. For farmers, such disruptions can cut off access to vital information, such weather forecasts, market prices, and agricultural advice. Thit Nyan, a researcher with the Myanmar Internet Project, said the technology being promoted by the military leadership does not match conditions in many agricultural communities. “Digital infrastructure, including the internet, is being destroyed,” he said. “In areas that depend on agriculture, internet access is unavailable. The flow of information has been disrupted.” Another issue is a lack of awareness of AI tools and how to use them. While farmers who spoke to Myanmar Now for this story said they sometimes use social media for news or entertainment, none were familiar with popular chatbots like ChatGPT. “Sometimes I watch TikTok and things like that,” said one farmer from Ayeyarwady Region in her 50s. “When the connection isn’t good, I just read whatever news I can find. How would I know about AI? I’m just praying that we’ll have electricity from one day to the next.” To use AI effectively, farmers also need to know if the information that it provides is accurate and suitable for their purposes. Before spending scarce money on fertiliser or pesticides, they must consider whether they are appropriate for local conditions, such as soil, climate, and crops. Getting the wrong advice could come at a high price. A woman works in a rice field in central Myanmar (Photo: AFP) A sector under pressure Agricultural experts say technology may prove useful, but only as one part of a solution to a much larger crisis. Dr. Tun Win, the former deputy minister of agriculture and livestock under the National League for Democracy government, said AI could provide useful information and support. But he said it cannot easily address other issues affecting the agriculture sector, such as conflict, inadequate infrastructure, misguided government policies, and farmers’ general lack of resources. Those pressures are reflected in data from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). In its Myanmar Agriculture Performance Survey, conducted in early 2026 among 4,553 crop farmers nationwide, the institute found that 23% said the areas where they lived were unsafe. Seven percent said conflict had prevented them from cultivating some of their farmland, while 39% said their income from agricultural sales had declined during the 2025 monsoon season. Access to agricultural credit also fell. The share of farmers using agricultural loans dropped from 47% in 2021 to 38% in 2025, according to IFPRI. For agricultural expert Dr. Saw Oo Ye, those conditions make survival a more immediate concern than modernization. “Under the current circumstances, we first have to proceed more or less in a survival mode,” he said. “It’s also difficult for us to say for certain how long this will continue, or how many more years the conflict will last.” A crop can take three to five months to mature, he noted, meaning farmers need relatively stable conditions and predictable access to land, labour, fuel and markets. “Basically, I understand the situation as meaning that, for now, our first priority has to be simply making sure that we have food to eat,” he said. Farmers in Sagaing Region head to their rice fields at night in an effort to avoid military airstrikes (Photo: AFP) Falling yields, rising costs The economic pressure on farmers is also visible in production figures. An IFPRI study of 2,734 rice farmers found that average national rice yields during the 2025 monsoon season were 8% lower than in 2023. Meanwhile, the cost of production rose sharply. Between 2023 and 2025, urea fertilizer prices increased 23%, tractor costs rose 55%, and labour costs increased by more than 80%. Total input spending per acre increased 63%. Farmers’ profit per acre fell 40% during the same period, reaching its lowest level in six years, according to IFPRI. The pressure continued into 2026. In a July report, IFPRI said diesel prices at the end of June were 34% higher than at the end of February, while gasoline prices had risen 57%. Some farmers responded by reducing the amount of land they cultivated or ploughing less frequently. Fertilizer prices were also higher than a year earlier, while crop prices had not risen at the same pace, reducing the potential return from fertiliser use, IFPRI said. Against that backdrop, Min Aung Hlaing has promoted plans to increase rice exports and used slogans including “A New Era for Myanmar’s Paw San Rice” and “From Agricultural Sector Development to Growth in National Production.” For many farmers, however, the immediate priorities remain more basic: keeping their fields productive, finding affordable inputs, and earning enough to continue farming. Artificial intelligence cannot solve those problems by itself. Farmers also need electricity, reliable telecommunications, affordable data, appropriate devices, and the resources to act on the information they receive. Until those conditions improve, Min Aung Hlaing’s vision of AI-powered agriculture remains far removed from the daily realities of Myanmar’s farmers.

Junta chief’s AI agriculture vision collides with realities facing Myanmar farmers

While Min Aung Hlaing envisions a great leap forward, the people actually working the fields remain bound by more basic concerns

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