THE Department of Agricultural Research under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation will ramp up soybean production in Ayeyawady Region, Bago Region and Shan State.
Under the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Special Fund (2025), an inception workshop for conducting research and development activities for the soybean crushing project to ensure self-sufficiency of cooking oil and soybean meal was held on 12 November at Nawarat Hall in Zeyathiri Township, Nay Pyi Taw.
The Director General of the department emphasized that this project is planned to cover two townships each in Ayeyawady Region, Bago Region and Shan State. The first project is the soybean incorporation in rice crop rotation project to enhance agricultural productivity, and the second project is boosting soybean output to implement the research and development project for the soybean crushing project to ensure self-sufficiency of cooking oil and soybean meal.
Furthermore, he urged building a Public Private Partnership (PPP) for farming research activities for high-grade and high-yielding soybean varieties, seed multiplication and distribution efforts to accelerate the soybean cultivation process, conducting awareness campaigns for farming and irrigation methods and applied research on soybean meal in the livestock sector. Commencing on-farm trials of soybean cultivation starting from the second week of November, after harvesting the rice crop, ensuring farmers get access to soybean farming good practices, technical and management know-how, and carrying out PPP in seed production and trading in the soybean value chain were also highlighted.
The project in charge also revealed plans and responded to the queries of the attendees and experts.
The director-general of the department, the deputy director, officials concerned from the Agriculture Department, the head of the Agriculture Department from each project area (Ayeyawady, Bago), were present at the workshop, and Shan State’s officials concerned joined it virtually. — NN/KK
