The Burmese military forcibly maintains control over the country's various ethnic groups, especially the Shan, who wish to have equal importance in government and commerce. As civil war divides families, many sons have died fighting against the Burmese government or have joined the secessionist Shan State Army. Agriculture is the driving force in the Shan economy. Rice is the major cash and family crop. Other crops include tea, soybeans, peanuts, coffee, and cotton.
People living near larger villages or towns grow vegetables to sell in the market.
Shan farmers grow one other crop it is estimated that as much as fifty percent of the world's illegal opium is produced in the Shan State. Traditionally, rice is grown in irrigated fields, especially along the Salween River. Farmers raise cattle and buffalo, not for meat, but to draw heavy wooden plows since farming is not mechanized. Because many of their sons have lost their lives in the ongoing civil war, farmers are finding it necessary to hire outside labor. Shan farmers live in villages of ten to five hundred or more households clustered or lined among trees along roads or riverbanks.