10 Pyas FAO

Issued as part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization coin program, which ran from the late 1960s through the 1980s and recruited member nations to mint coins bearing agricultural themes as a form of soft propaganda for food security initiatives. Myanmar's participation was politically notable given the country's tight isolationist posture under Ne Win's Burma Socialist Programme Party, which had nationalized the economy and severed most foreign ties after 1962. That the regime would lend its mint to a UN-affiliated program at all reflects the FAO's unusual ability to operate across ideological lines.