5th D.L. Umali Award Lecture - Disruptive Innovation for Transformational Agricultural Development in Myanmar: Empowering Smallholder Farmers to become Agribusiness Entrepreneurs

Disruptive innovation is a new approach or model of doing business to target a new group of customers. Myanmar's smallholder farmers today are a new group of customers. They are tired of being viewed by the government and agribusiness simply as "producers" who need to be "educated" on how to grow plants or kill insects. Smallholder farmers  are ready to step up as entrepreneurs. Identifying new approaches to equip and engage Myanmar's smallholders as entrepreneurs is the central challenge that must be confronted in order to realize the potential of Myanmar for transformational agricultural development.