"Inadequate land laws have opened rural Myanmar to rampant land grabbing by unscrupulous, well-connected businessmen who anticipate a boom in agricultural and property investment. If unchecked, the gathering trend has the potential to undermine the country’s broad reform process and impede long-term economic progress. Under the former military regime, land grabbing became a common and largely uncontested practice. Government bodies, particularly military units, were able to seize large tracts of farmland, usually without compensation. While some of the land was used for the expansion of military bases, new government offices or infrastructure projects, much of it was used either by military units for their own commercial purposes or sold to private companies. The threat of military force meant there was little grass roots opposition to these land seizures and few avenues to secure adequate compensation. That’s changed under the new democratic order as local communities band together to fight back against seizure of their lands. Many of the current land disputes date to the period before the 2010 general elections that ushered in President Thein Sein’s reformist quasi-civilian government. The Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation’s Department of Agricultural Planning reported in January 2010 that 216 companies had received a total of 1.75 million acres (708,200 hectares) of farmland in the form of state concessions. Many of the disputes now being contested are related to land taken in the mid- to late-1990s. A significant proportion of the land grabbing during this period took place in ethnic-majority states in the country’s peripheral regions. This was especially the case in areas along the border with China in Kachin and Shan States and along the border with Thailand in the Karen and Mon States. The army has maintained a strong presence in these areas to battle ethnic insurgencies and uphold tenuous ceasefires with other insurgent organizations. Much of the land was taken for military camps and military access roads, but also for commercial projects either run by the military or companies with ties to the military. Significant land grabbing also took place in the Sagaing and Irrawaddy Divisions. The confiscation of land has been repeatedly documented since the 1990s by human-rights groups such as the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF), the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), and Earth Rights International (ERI), as well as numerous smaller grassroots organizations. With new hope for an economic revival and rising property prices sparked by Thein Sein’s reformist government, land grabbing has continued in many of these areas and has also increased in central Myanmar and in Rakhine State in the west of the country. Current land grabbing is forcing farmers off their land for commercial agri-business ventures, infrastructure projects, tourism development, industrial facilities and gas pipelines. Political and economic reforms, together with relaxed sanctions and a better relationship with the West, have raised expectations of a foreign investment-led economic boom. The government has actively encouraged more investment in agriculture, one of the country’s more laggard economic sectors, by promoting the country’s former role as the « rice bowl of Asia » and highlighting its potential for commercial agriculture..."