Paper Title
Socio-Economic Technique Changes In Myanmar (1953- 1960)

Abstract
One of the factors of increased production in prewar years was the distribution of pure seed of improved varieties offering greater resistance to climatic conditions and disease. There also suggested that all repurchased land should be organized on the basis of large collective farms under the management of officers of the Agriculture Department until trained and educated men were available from the ranks of the farmers themselves. There had touched on only a few aspects of the transformation of British Burma between 1861 and 1885 as a result of the opening of the Suez Canal. In the documents from which there is a vast mass of other interesting and instructive information. It was during this period that the whole machinery of administration took on its modern character. It was also then that there were the first experiments in so-called self-government in municipalities, which throw much light on the development of local government after 1923, and are still instructive with reference to local administration at the present day. Burma is an overwhelmingly agricultural country. About 35 percent of the people live in the rural areas. The main farming areas are concentrated in the alluvial lands of the delta and in the valley lands of the prominent rivers, particularly the Irrawaddy, Chindwin and Sittang. The data examined by the Soviet soil scientists between 1957 and 1960 convinced them of the enormous potential development of agriculture in Burma. At present only about a third of the land suitable for agriculture is farmed and future expansion of agriculture on new lands will be envisaged. In the dry section of the country, sesamum was grown as a cash crop to exchange for surplus paddy from the lowlands as a part of the subsistence pattern. There was hardly any interest in making money, getting rich or acquiring imported goods. Money was not a means to create wealth, and accumulation of interest was frowned upon by the rural society. The industrial policy of the Government was made known in a resolution of the Economic Council which was subsequently laid on the tables of Parliament on 28th September 1949. Apart from the execution of development projects there is a wide range of social and economic functions which a Socialist Government must perform. The Government has, of course, gone ahead with or is contemplating a number of reforms. Devolution of power, democratization of the administrative machinery etc., which were recently announced at the Welfare State Conference in Rangoon, are certainly very commendable and necessary reforms. When social, economic and technical ministries and departments have sprung up, as they have done in Burma lately, and especially when they have to be built up from the very foundation, expert professional and technical knowledge has become indispensable. . The Dry Zone is the most important area where agricultural fortunes hinge on irrigation and there is an interesting relationship between irrigation facilities and crop production. Keywords: postwar agriculture, administrative affairs, agricultural technique changes, social technique changes, irrigation technique changes