25 May 2026 By Foe Aww Yaw
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — Myanmar’s military junta leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has unveiled plans to establish computerized greenhouse networks to boost agricultural exports, a move independent experts have swiftly dismissed as a hollow fantasy due to the country’s collapsed electrical grid and crippled banking system.
During a highly publicized inspection of a commercial crop-freezing facility in Pyinmana Township, the junta chief asserted that Myanmar must adopt modern greenhouse structures to scale up high-value produce for international markets. He also urged regional administrators to streamline the production supply chain.
However, agricultural scientists and economic analysts noted that automated greenhouse farming is logistically impossible under current military rule, given that the country’s industrial zones currently experience severe, daily power blackouts.
“Greenhouse technology relies heavily on an automated climate, constant irrigation, and ventilation systems that require an uninterrupted 24-hour electricity supply,” an agricultural expert told MPA. “In a country where even major factories are left entirely in the dark, trying to run a greenhouse on diesel generators is financially suicidal due to skyrocketing fuel costs. Under this regime, high-tech farming is a fantasy that only exists on paper.”
The expert added that the sophisticated inputs required for modern greenhouses—such as premium imported seeds, specialized fertilizers, and advanced chemical treatments—have become prohibitively expensive due to the historic depreciation of the Myanmar Kyat against the US dollar.
While Min Aung Hlaing spoke of an optimized supply chain, rural farmers face an entirely different reality on the ground. Domestic transport veins are choked by thousands of heavily armed military checkpoints, where soldiers routinely levy arbitrary tolls on agricultural shipments.
“Getting our produce from the fields to the processing plants has become a financial nightmare,” a Pyinmana-based vegetable farmer explained. “The bribes we are forced to pay at each military checkpoint, combined with soaring diesel prices, mean the freight cost is often higher than the actual value of the crop. We aren’t looking to expand; we are barely surviving.”
International trading blockades further doom the regime’s agricultural blueprint. Following Western sanctions targeting state financial institutions, international banks refuse to process transactions originating from junta-controlled entities, while major European and Asian consumer markets systematically reject products tied to the military council.
Furthermore, entrepreneurs who manage to export goods are subject to severe Central Bank directives, which forcibly convert hard foreign currency (USD) earnings into local Kyat at an artificially low, state-mandated exchange rate.
Faced with a shrinking domestic market caused by low consumer purchasing power and a severe brain drain of skilled technicians fleeing the civil war, Myanmar’s private agro-sector remains trapped under an administration that global financial observers warn is completely detached from reality.
