This presentation by Swe Set from the Land Core Group Myanmar given at the Forests Asia Summit during the discussion forum "Equitable development: What is the fairest of them all? Assessing aspects of equity in incentive mechanisms for natural resource conservation and management" focuses on: 1) Smallholder farmers as backbone of Myanmar 2) History of Land Grabs 3) Land Tenure Insecurity on the Rise 4) Impact of Recent Reforms 5) Farmland Law & Wasteland Law 6) Growth of Industrial Agribusiness 7) Why Smallholders are Better 8) What Myanmar Needs

1. Land Core Group (LCG)
Food Security Working Group (FSWG)
Myanmar)
The Forest Asia
Summit, Jakarta, Indonesia
5-6 May, 2014
A National Development Model
that Promotes Smallholder
Farmers

2. Outline of Talk
1. Smallholder farmers as backbone of
Myanmar
2. History of Land Grabs
3. Land Tenure Insecurity on the Rise
4. Impact of Recent Reforms
5. Farmland Law & Wasteland Law
6. Growth of Industrial Agribusiness
7. Why Smallholders are Better
8. What Myanmar Needs

3. Smallholder farmers–
Backbone of Myanmar
 About ¾ of the population (about 40 million people)
live in rural areas and rely on farmland and forests
for their daily needs and livelihoods.
 Agriculture (plus livestock and fisheries) contributes
about 1/3 of country‟s GDP and 15 percent of total
export earnings, and employs over 60 percent of the
nation‟s labour force
 So farmers and land is very important to Myanmar –
economic, political, social, and cultural reasons

4. History of Land Grabs
 For decades land has been confiscated for
various reasons by different actors, but farmers
were not able to raise their voices…until now
 In past decade an increase in land grabs
 For infrastructure development (roads, dams)
 Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
 Extractive industries (Oil, Gas, Mining)
 State-sponsored agricultural projects
 Military land use
 and since 1991‟s Wasteland
Instructions…Industrial agriculture

5. Land Tenure Insecurity Rising
 In addition to land grabs, other factors driving
land loss:
 Human (Conflict, Wars) & Natural Disasters
 Poor land governance, especially in upland
areas where communities practice shifting
taungya under customary law
 Weak support system to farmers (debt, lack of
capital, technology, market information)
 Speculation or “hot money” trying to make a
quick profit on unregistered sales of land
 This increases the risk of losing land…and
therefore increasing land tenure insecurity

6. National Rural Discontent
1. Media reports land conflicts on a daily basis
2. Average area of household farm plots have
been decreasing in some areas…under 5
acres (below subsistence)
3. Food insecurity is a major issue, with higher
rates in rural areas of Myanmar
4. Landlessness and land-poor households on
the rise, especially for woman-headed ones
5. Especially a problem in conflict areas near
the border

7. Impact of Recent Reforms
 New laws and policies have been or will be
passed that will increase pressures on
farmers‟ lands and livelihoods
Farmland Law
Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Land Law
Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Law
Foreign Investment Law
 Foreign agricultural investment
(agribusiness) IS the big new threat to
farmers‟ land in Myanmar

8. Laws
1. Legalizes land use titles (right to transfer,
mortgage, inherit, gain from legally-permitted
use)
2. Land titling programme
1. Upland shifting cultivation (shwe pyaung
taungya) not recognized by new law;
thus, can not be titled
2. Many farmers struggle to understand
how to register land they have cultivated
for years for U Paing
3. Buy and sell land use titles on market
1. Along with FIL, companies will be able to

9. Vacant, Fallow & Virgin Land Law
1. Lands without official land use title can
be given to private sector
2. Farmers that have cultivated on & paid
taxes for “wasteland” for years have
never been granted U Paing by SLRD
3. Uplands where communities practice
shifting cultivation under customary law
are most at risk as these are outside
the SLRD‟s land survey

10. Government-Supported Agribusiness
 MoAI‟s goal stated by 30-year Plan (2000-
2030) to convert 10 million acres of
„wasteland‟ for private industrial agriculture
 Targeted industrial crops:
Palm oil in Tanintharyi Region
Jatropha (national target of 8 million
acres)
Rubber for the Chinese export market
(mostly in northern Myanmar)
 Cassava (Yuzana in Hugaung
Valley, Kachin State)

11. Growth of Industrial Agribusiness
 204 Myanmar companies, 2 million acres
(MoAI, 2011)
 2/3rd from Tanintharyi Region & Kachin:
Kachin State: 15 Myanmar
companies, 600,000 acres (mostly
rubber and sugarcane);
Tanintharyi Region: 36 companies.
670,000 acres (palm oil)

12. Area granted for large-scale commercial farming (31 Jan 2011)
State/Region
No. of
companies Area granted (acres)
Kachin 15 596,180
Kayin 1 2,161
Sagaing 18 100,057
Tanintharyi 36 671,594
Bago (East) 9 5,859
Bago (West) 7 13,913
Magwe 38 202,492
Mandalay 16 10,300
Yangon 7 30,978
Shan (South) 12 65,985
Shan (North) 17 51,111
Ayeyarwady 28 193,353
Total 204 1,943,983

13. Biggest recent increases in Kachin
and northern Shan State from
Chinese rubber
As part of China‟s “Opium Drug
Substitution”
Only 20-30% actually cultivated
Creating landlessness, food
insecurity, land-erosion

14. Yunnan companies’ opium crop substitution projects in northern Myanmar
Acres
Tonnes
(quota)
Rubber 47916 18877
Corn 5913 11090
Castor-oil 5270 5000
Rice 4032 9792
All other 28597 44756
TOTAL 91732 89515

15. Land Concessions (March 2012)State/Region No. Company
Govt
Organisation Granted Area (Ha)
Naypyitaw 1 2998
Chin 4 624
Kachin 26 1 565174
Kayin 1 1 1623
Sagaing 13 41 104924
Tanintharyi 42 402212
Bago (East) 26 11 21140
Magwe 33 19 85507
Mandalay 3 2534
Yangon 3 2 12537
Yakhine 8 3167
Shan (South)
64 21 65003
Shan (North)
Ayeyarwady 47 23 115677
Total 267 123 1,383,120

16. Industrial Agriculture Model
Allocate „wasteland‟ to businessman
Farmers, who have been using land for a
long time, lose land
Loss of only livelihoods they know
Become wage laborers, extremely
vulnerable
Often, these farmers are not even hired
to work as laborers on their former land

17. Why Smallholders can be better
 Can be more economically efficient than
industrial farms if provided with affordable
credit, technology, inputs
 Can contribute to national economic
development & food security
 Promotes social stability, helping Myanmar
to uphold recent ceasefires
 Multi-cropping is much better for the soil

18. What Myanmar Needs:
Laws and policies that support
smallholder farmers, land-poor
households, and landless
Affordable capital loans, technology,
extension
Improved market access, including for
export
Freedom of crop choice to allow farmers
to take advantage of market opportunities
Fair legal recourse for land disputes

19. What Myanmar Needs:
Recognise customary land rights in the
uplands, particularly shwe pyaung
taungya as legal land practice
Consultation with communities on land-
use planning that considers actual land-
use on the ground
Fairly negotiated contract farming terms
between company and small holders
Freedom to organize farmer associations,
unions, and collectives (increase
bargaining power and rights)

20. What has been done so far
 National Symposium on Land Tenure with the
lead of Ministry of Environmental Conservation
and Forestry during 2012 and National Economic
and Social Advisory Council was held and it
recommended to formulate national
comprehensive land use policy
 Community Forest Scheme initiated by the
ministry for several years in the country but it
needs to be acknowledged in the forest law so
that community who uses the forest will be
protected
 Foreign Investment Law and National Investment
Law are under review and an improved law will be

21. National Comprehensive
Development Plan
 Regional (spatial plan) and Sectoral Plan
 Spatial plan includes land use plan and it has to
be bottom up and people centered
 So far, no such a comprehensive plan formulated
but attempting towards this is positive
 That planning practices will need people
participation and promote identification of the
needs of poor and small scale farmers that will
then have to be reflected in the plan so as in the
budget accordingly

22. THANK YOU