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use of water by avoiding seedbed preparation for rice seedlings. Generally, farmerspracticing summer rice cultivation planted high-yielding varieties and applied higherrates of fertilizers; hence, summer rice yields were often higher than those of themonsoon rice (3.6 vs 3.0 t ha –1 ) if the water supply was adequate.Large-scale promotion of summer rice cropping, which started in 1992, wasconsidered as one of the biggest achievements of the government in boosting riceproduction in the country. With an initial area of 0.32 million hectares and total productionof 0.93 million metric tons, summer rice production had peaked at 4.0 milliontons in 1995, covering a total area of 1.2 million hectares (Table 1). In 1997, totalsown area declined to 0.89 million hectares, thereby reducing total production to 3.2million tons. The current target area for summer rice production is 1.6 million hectareswith a total production of 5.0 million tons. To achieve this target, present irrigationfacilities were being expanded since summer rice can only be planted whereirrigation water is available. As an incentive for farmers to grow summer rice, thegovernment waived the production quota (12 baskets acre –1 or 593 kg ha –1 ) that theyneeded to sell to the government’s cooperative for this season.Two rice crops during the monsoon seasonAnother innovation for increasing rice production in Myanmar was the introductionof two rice crops during the wet season, which was implemented in 1992. Rice grownfrom May to September was considered the first monsoon crop, whereas rice grownfrom September to January was considered the second monsoon crop. This productionsystem allowed farmers to achieve three rice crops per year, that is, one summerrice and two monsoon rice crops. Growing two monsoon rice crops, however, wasonly possible under good water control and drainage in the field, especially duringthe height of the monsoon rains when flooding normally occurred.The common method of crop establishment in the first monsoon crop was transplantingrice seedlings in rows. For the second monsoon rice crop, planting was normallydone immediately after harvesting the first rice crop. Because of time constraints,farmers either practiced direct seeding or purchased rice seedlings for transplantingsince they had no time to grow their own seedlings.Harvesting the first monsoon rice crop was normally done between Septemberand October, which often coincided with heavy rainfall such that farmers commonlyexperienced problems in threshing and grain drying. These postproduction problemsresulted in low yield and poor grain quality. Higher grain yields, on the other hand,were normally reported during the second monsoon rice crop.Labor shortage, a common problem of rice farmers in Myanmar, was furtheraggravated under this technology since harvesting and other postproduction activitiesin the first monsoon crop coincided with land preparation for the second monsooncrop. Peak harvesting for the second rice crop was done in early December, whichalso overlapped with land preparation for the summer rice crop. Because of time andlabor constraints, few farmers adopted triple cropping of rice.412 Garcia et al