Myanmar has been extending the cultivation of beans and pulses year by year with the crop’s cultivated area reaching 3.4 million hectares in the fiscal year 2004-05 which ended in March, according to a state-run newspaper Thursday.

The sown area of beans and pulses was up from only 729,000 hectares in 1988-89, the New Light of Myanmar said.

With increased sown area of beans and pulses, its production attained 2.5 million tons in 2004-05, up from 250,000 tons 16 years ago.

Meanwhile, the export of the crop reached 650,000 tons in 2004- 05, rising from only 17,000 tons in 1988-89, it said.

Agricultural experts told Xinhua earlier that beans and pulses stand one of the ten major items of crops that Myanmar grow. Of the beans and pulses, gram, lablab bean, pigeon pea, butter bean and soya bean are cultivated most in the country.

The export items of beans and pulses cover green gram, pigeon pea, soya bean, cow pea and Myehtaukpe.

Myanmar remains the biggest exporter of beans and pulses in Southeast Asia. It exports the crop mainly to India, followed by Japan and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Myanmar has also taken measures to extend growing and production of high yield strain beans and pulses, planning to establish special beans and pulses cultivation zones across the country to produce the quality crops for export, according to the state-run Myanmar Agricultural Produce Trading.

The move is aimed at yielding such quality agricultural crops to be exported further to European and Middle-East markets.

Pilot projects for the establishment are being launched in Magway division’s Aung Lan.

As an export market expansion, the government has advised growers to cultivate more marketable items of the crops and transform them into value-added ones.

Myanmar possesses the potential of becoming one of the top six beans and pulses trading countries in the world, according to an estimation for 2005 of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.