Conflict and Agricultural Performance: Evidence From Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Following the February 2021 military coup, armed conflict in Myanmar surged by more than 2000%. Against this backdrop, this study contributes to the literature by investigating how the association between conflict and agricultural performance varies by cropping period—planting, mid‐season or harvest—during two subsequent 2021 and 2022 monsoon seasons. Overall, each additional conflict incident in a township is associated with declines of 0.8% in output and 0.7% in yield, with marginal associations about twice as large in the main rice‐growing Delta region. Given that there were, on average, 20 conflict incidents per township nationwide and 8 in the Delta, these estimates imply annual cumulative declines of roughly 16% in output and 14% in yield nationally and 11% and 9%, respectively, in the Delta. The negative correlation between armed conflict and rice production varies across cropping stages, with mid‐season conflicts, when most input application activities occur, linked to the largest reductions in monsoon rice production, both nationally and in the Delta. Our results suggest that conflict‐related disruptions may operate through different adjustment margins across regions, with reductions in fertiliser use and extension access in the Delta and lower overall farm expenditure at the national level; however, our data cannot fully disentangle these channels, and further work with more granular price and expenditure data is needed to pin down and quantify the importance of each margin. These findings underscore the need for policies that enhance resilience and safeguard production in conflict‐affected agricultural systems.