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Written by Wen-Hao Wang,Photoed by Yu-Jong Peng and Wen-Hao Wang,Translated by Christine Hsiang

Myanmar Food Security Working Group (FSWG) Coordinator Chairman Dr. Ohmar Khaing criticized the current Myanmar paradoxical agricultural policy- “Myanmar is trying to be the largest rice export country in the world while nearly 40% of peasants are starving and live under poverty bottom line. Is it ironical?”

Myanmar just got rid of the totalitarian system. Since 2012, the economy has been growing fast. According to the estimation of Asian Development Bank (ADB), the economy growth rate was 7.5% until March 2013. We rarely see this growth rate in this world. The World Bank and ADB suggest that Myanmar should increase the agricultural competitiveness and rice export volume in order to keep the high economic growth at this moment.

The international organizations are positive about Myanmar’s economy growth. The powerful economic countries such as China, USA, EU, Japan and Korea also sign up the economic cooperation agreement with Myanmar. Myanmar is ASEAN chairman state on-duty this (2014) year. In terms of strategic geography, it controls the gate for China to get into India Ocean. USA and Japan are trying hard to get Myanmar as the alliance partner for the purpose of containment.

China provides Myanmar the financial aids for a long time and invests in the development of water resources, energy and mine. Japan Prime Minister ABE Shinzō went to Myanmar with the Japanese economic and trading mission group. Apart from writing off Myanmar debt, Japan helped develop Thilawa Special Economic Zone near Yangon, promised Myanmar to provide the necessary funding to develop the village and education and started the rice import from Myanmar, which has been interrupted for forty years. According to the statistics, the amount of debt exemption and financial aid is up to NT$70 billion in total.

People said that the foreign investment and financial aid offer the job opportunity and improve the life to the local farmers. But in reality, the local rich and powerful people work with the foreigners to get the land and thus increase the disparity between the rich and poor. In general, the farmers might not be able to enjoy the outcome of rice export increase and economic development. They might even get poorer and poorer.

The Kingdom of Rice Export in the Past

It is hard to imagine that before 1960s, Myanmar used to be the largest rice export country. As the foreign countries take the economy boycott against the military totalitarian rule, Myanmar has been isolated for a long time. The cultivation technology and material processing are still in the standard of World War II. After fifty years, the export volume has been lagged far behind Thailand, Vietnam and even Cambodia.

Dr. U Myint’s 《Reducing Poverty in Myanmar: The Way Forward》mentioned that in 2008-2009, the rice production volume was 35.8 million tons but export volume was only 1 million tons. The production volume was 35 million tons but export volume was up to 8.7 million tons.

According to the World Bank, thanks to the market open policy and lifting the export control, the export volume has been reached the highest level since 48 years while the export volume in 2013/14 still keeps the same level. It shows that the systematic problem still exists in Myanmar agriculture and thus the production volume increases rarely.

According to Myanmar Rice Federation, the rice export volume is between 1.7 million to 2.2 million tons and they rely on sea freight and the across-border trade for export. Even this statistic is higher than the World Bank estimation but lower than the rice export volume from Thailand. It points out the structure problem of rice production in Myanmar and the difficulty to increase the production volume.

ADB concludes that the development of rice production in Myanmar faces the below challenge: 1. The agricultural price is too low. 2. The agricultural material (such as the fertilizer) price is too high. 3. The government invests less in the traffic infrastructure such as the road and bridge. 4. Lack of credit mortgage channel for farmers. 5. Lack of irrigation facilities. 6. Farmers only have the cultivation right but do not actually possess the land. 7. The trading system is not transparent. 8. The agricultural research has not been developed. The training and education service have not been fully developed. 9. Lack of the electricity supply in the village. 10. Inflation.

We can summarize the above ten challenges into- 1. The controversial argument about the land. 2. Need to improve the farmer’s cultivation and material processing skill. 3. The lack of basic infrastructure in the village.

The sad story of agricultural land in Myanmar

Aung San Suu Kyi is the General Secretary of the biggest opposition party National League for Democracy of Burma (NLD). On April 2013, more than one hundred farmers seek for the assistance in front of Aung San Suu Kyi’s residence. Their land has been confiscated owing to the development of Thilawa Special Economic Zone.

The farmers seek for Aung San Suu Kyi’s help mainly because she is the winner of Nobel Peace Prize. She is the member of Parliament House, the Chairman of Rule of Law, Peace and Stability Committee, and very potential to become the country President in the future.

The farmerss said that they were forced to be moved out under the military totalitarian control. The land has been sold to a land development company with very low compensation. It makes the farmers feel very unfair and asked the company to increase the compensation. But that company refused to negotiate with the farmers.

The farmers tried to seek for the assistance through the legal action but their voices have been ignored. The government does not care about the farmers, which forces them to take the resistance.

On the other hand, the land development company said that they paid the compensation. Among two hundred and ninety three families, there are only five families that refused to get the compensation. The company had the approval from the court to tear down the houses and move out all the landlords legally.

Thilawa Special Economic Zone, located in the suburb of Yangon, is one part of the government projects to attract the foreign investment and stimulate the economic growth. The Economic Zone takes 2,400 hectare and the coastline is up to 20 km. Burmese and Japanese government work together for this project. The first stage has been done by Japanese famous corporates such as Mitsubushi, Sumitomo, and Marubeni to develop the area up to 400 hectares. Besides building up the industrial area to get the business, they also create the city, build up the infrastructure such as the port, hospital and school to provide the job opportunity and disperse the overcrowded population in the city center of Yangon.

Behind this investment development project, there is the local farmers’ resistance story against the fact that they are forced to be evicted. Forty-eight farmers were forced to take the unfair compensation condition under the military government’s threat. Until the political openness, the farmers start to stand up to defend their right by legal action or protest. However, under the pressure of economic development and the tricky political status, the farmers are hopeless.

Even if the farmers expect a lot that the winner of Nobel Peace Prize and the potential 2015 President candidate Aung San Suu Kyi might help them, she did not make any comment on the farmer’s appeal and only promised them to help get the legal assistance.

According to Burmese magazine 《The Irrawaddy》, the argument about Thilawa Special Economic Zone development started since 1990s when the military government plundered the farmer’s land under the name of developing the industrial area. The farmers got very little compensation. The development plan had some problems and the farmers got the chance for cultivation again.

The development of Thilawa Special Economic Zone has been kicked off again until Myanmar receives the financial resources from Japan. The nightmare of land pillage comes back again and the evicted farmers form “Thilawa Social Development Group” to defend their right.

An evicted rice farmer said that the original cultivation area is around 0.6 acre. According to the compensation standard US$30,000 per acre, the farmer should get the compensation around US$18,000. They are forced to agree with the tough condition made by the government to get the compensation for 6-year financial lost and the land of 60 square meters.

The rice farmer said that he only got the compensation around US$2,500 for 6-year cultivation lost, the extra US$800 to remove the fruit tree and corps and a piece of land 60 square meters. The price of confiscated land for the industrial area has been increased more than ten times. In order to keep the economic relations with Japan, both Myanmar President U Thein Sein or the most powerful opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi do not take seriously about the farmer’s voices.

Burmese farmers protest against the Japanese investment in the development case in Myanmar and the Chinese investment in the coal mine development project owing to the unfair confiscation process and the pollution. The farmers seek for Aung San Suu Kyi’s help but they found that her attitude was too passive, which made her supports unhappy. Compared to the government official and politicians’ tricky attitude about Thilawa Special Economic Zone, the Japanese NGO group stands by the side of Burmese farmers.

“Mekong Watch” looks after Burmese farmers

 

Japanese NGO Mekong Watch located in Tokyo argues that the process that Burmese government and financial group confiscate Thilawa Special Economic Zone land and evict the farmers is against the guideline of JICA to resolve the environmental and social problem while implementing the foreign aid.

Mekong Watch monitors Japanese government investment in Southeast Asia and checks if it brings out any negative influence. They point out that the way how Burmese government compensates the peasants, provides the professional training to get a new job and allocates the residents are unacceptable in the development of Thilawa Special Economic Zone.

Another farmer said that the Burmese government promised to build the temporary house and the infrastructure such as road to allocate them and provide the education, medical service and daily care service for 2-3 years until they settle down and get the new job in another location. However, the government does not keep the promise. Where they live now does not have any clean water resources and the well is full of mod. They can only rely on the bottle water. Thirteen kids discontinue the study because they cannot afford the transportation cost US$30 to travel between home and school.
Around 4,500 peasants and fishermen live in the area of Thilawa Special Economic Zone whose surface is around 2,400 hectares. Mekong Watch said that the Burmese government did not follow JICA standard to help the evicted farmers in the initial development stage and asked JICA to ask Myanmar to provide a complete settle plan for the new development project.

Burmese farmers face the risk of losing the land owing to the resources pillage during the industrial zone development. Myanmar Rice Federation specialist Zaw Ye Tun points out that the land law in Myanmar has not been comprehensive and the farmers cannot register the land where they cultivate, which makes them unable to resist against the land pillage from the government official and private financial group.

He said that though the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs in Myanmar set up the special department, Settlement and Land Records Department (SLRD), to handle the usage, registration and settlement of cultivated land, but the way how they handle the land issues is not fair and transparent enough. That is why the farmers cannot be treated fairly and the land has been lost. Though Burmese government set up a series of new law to protect the farmers’ right to trade the land, there are still a lot of disputes about the land trading.

The cultivation technique still stays in the level of the World War II

The law does not protect the farmers’ cultivation right; furthermore, the Burmese peasants’ cultivation skill and rice industry do not move forward owing to the close environment and conservative attitude of the military government. Former President of Taiwan Riceplant Association Liang-Tsai Wong has been to Myanmar to investigate the rice industry. He said that all the working process such as dry and storage the crop and rice milling has been systematic and computerized in Taiwan while the Burmese peasants still rely on the sun to dry the crop and use the steam machine as the rice milling equipment.

We do have some independent farmers in Taiwan prefer organic cultivation method and highlight “sun-dried” crop as the product feature. However, from the perspective of rice industrialization, the sun-dried method that Burmese peasants rely on will have the uneven drying affect and make more cracking fragments. In the commercial market, once the rice has too many cracking fragments, it can only be used for further processing or as the animal feed. The price is low and the quality cannot compete with the rice from Thailand and Vietnam in the export market.

In Myanmar, the rice cultivation surface is up to 12.4 million hectare, around 3.44 times of Taiwan and the agricultural population occupies 70% of the total Burmese population (60 million), twice of the total population in Taiwan. But Burmese agriculture still faces the challenge of losing the agricultural labour in the village and inadequate mechanization.

ADB points out that 30% of Burmese peasants do not possess any land or have any income resources. Around 37% of agricultural land is less than 2 hectare, higher than Taiwan where the farmers possess the land 1.1 hectare in average. As they cannot earn the life by cultivation, many farmers cannot afford the agricultural machine for cultivation. Most families send the children to the city for better job opportunities.

As we can see the tea houses everywhere in Hong Kong, there are many Burmese tea houses in the major cities such as Yangon, Mandalay or Bassein. While the client sits down at the tea house, look at the waiters and make “hsiu-hsiu”sound, the kids will come over to take order. These kids are mostly 7-12 years old and come from the rural area. As the family is poor, they come to the city to earn their life and support the family.
As the male are sent to the city, the female becomes the major part of agricultural labour. Some families cannot afford raising the children and send the kids into the orphanage where the female is much more than male.

Even if the Burmese farmers possess the land, they are too poor to afford the cost for soil preparation and the agricultural machine. Even if they get cheap second-hand made-in-China machine, it becomes useless in the rain season when the land becomes very muddy owing to poor drainage system.

A Rice farmer Hsu-Yang Lin from Yuan-Chang Township of Yun-Lin County was invited by Taiwanese businessmen to Myanmar and helped the local peasants develop rice seedling technique. He said that there are some excellent rice varieties in Myanmar but unlike Taiwan, they do not have the excellent research and development institution and the education organization. Therefore, the farmers do not have good cultivation knowledge and technique.

For example, Taiwanese farmers only grow one variety in one land because growing different varieties in one land might affect the quality. Burmese farmers do not have the variety purification idea and tend to grow any variety once they get. They might mix different varieties during the harvest and affects the harvest quality a lot. The other example is that the Burmese farmers plant the rice at the end of tillering stage, which is too late to stimulate the panicle initiation and produce less ears of grain.

Hsu-Yang Lin said that based on variety difference, the production volume is 6-10 tons per hectare in Taiwan while Burmese can only produce 4-5 tons per hectare. This statistic shows that they still have a lot to improve.

The inadequate infrastructure construction and management in the Burmese village

Unlike the comprehensive irrigation channel, irrigation pond and straight ridge and path in Taiwan village, the rice field in Myanmar is still lack of irrigation construction. The production volume relies on the weather condition. The field becomes too muddy to walk through in the rain season.

There are three seasons in Myanmar- hot season (March-April), rain season (May-October) and cool season (November to February). The rice growth depends a lot on the rain fall in the rain season. Though it is fine to grow the rice in other seasons in Myanmar, the rice harvest still depends on the weather condition as the irrigation system construction has not yet been comprehensive and adequate. The rainfall is amazing in the rain season.

Hsu-Yang Lin said that it rains a lot but stop shortly in Taiwan while in the rain season, the rainfall will flood the rice field and destroy the embankment in Myanmar. The inadequate irrigation system cannot storage the water for the effective usage in other seasons. Therefore, in the hot season, the rice field is too dry to be cultivated.

Former President of Taiwan Riceplant Association Liang-Tsai Wong said that the climate in Myanmar is very good for the rice growth. If they can have good irrigation system or make the simple storage system, three harvests annually should not be an issue. It is a pity that the Burmese government does not invest in the irrigation system in the rural area and the farmers are too poor to do any soil preparation for the mechanized cultivation. On the other hand, the electrical supply in not very stable in Myanmar. It is very common to have a black out. If the Burmese farmers would like to introduce the computerized system for crops drying, storage and milling, they need to face the challenge of the electricity supply.

Apart from inadequate infrastructure, the light industry has not been developed well in Myanmar. Myanmar relies on China for chemical fertilizer and pesticide supply. As the Burmese government is not capable to monitor the quality of agricultural materials, many fake pesticides have been imported into the villages along the border. Some Chinese businessmen even rent the land in the central region such as Mandalay for watermelon growth and export into China during the winter time. The bad agricultural chemicals and machinery imported by the Chinese have the negative impacts on the environment in Myanmar.

The Burmese-Chinese youngster Yang Han graduated from the department of Horticulture, National Chiayi University, Taiwan (NCYU) said that some local farmers take back the land where the Chinese businessmen grow the watermelon and try to grow the rice or grain crops. But they fail to grow anything. The land needs to be lied fallow for several months before the next cultivation. Yang Han, born in 1975, comes from Mandalay and went to Taiwan for study when he was 18 years old. After gradate from NCYU, he worked in many farms in Taiwan for 18 years. After the political and economic reform in Myanmar, he came back Myanmar before 3 years.

As what Yang Han’s academic and professional experience is related to the agriculture, once he came back Myanmar, he still works in the agricultural business and cares about the agricultural affairs. Once he knows that the Burmese farmers have the bad experience after renting the land to the Chinese for watermelon growth, he recalls the information that Taiwan custom seized the bad agricultural chemicals smuggling from China.

Yang Han said that many Burmese farmers do not rent the land anymore to the Chinese businessmen for watermelon growth because they do not know the chemicals that the Chinese use. It really hurts the land.

How does the Kingdom of Rice in the past get back the good reputation in the agriculture? What can we do to benefit the farmer when the government is trying to rebuild the agriculture? For the Burmese, even if they have great challenge, they do not need to do everything cautiously simply owing to lack of experience. The agricultural development relies on the independent farmers in Taiwan and this experience might be able to help the agricultural development and farmers in Myanmar.

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