Myanmars watermelon exports to China: impacts of unofficial investment by Chinese on the diffusion of a horticultural crop

Abstract

This chapter examines the impacts of unofficial investment from China on the diffusion of watermelon cultivation in Myanmar. The transition to horticulture from conventional crops involves three challenges for local growers: large working capital required for intensive cultivation, lack of cultivation skills, and lack of distribution channels for perishable fruit. Since the late 1990s, Chinese investments have generated knowledge spillover, and their large-volume exports have attracted buyers from mainland China to the Myanmar–China borderland. These external effects of Chinese investments, combined with the high profitability of watermelon, have mitigated the obstacles and prompted Burmese farmers' adoption of watermelon cultivation. Land rental practices and the wholesale system emerged spontaneously, accelerating the production and export of watermelon.