Agricultural Land
Individual Documents
Topic:
Land grab; resistance; agrarian climate justice; Myanmar; Burma; democracy
Topic:
Land grab; resistance; agrarian climate justice; Myanmar; Burma; democracy
Description:
"ABSTRACT: The intersection between land grabs and climate change mitigation politics in Myanmar has created new political opportunities for
scaling up, expanding and deepening struggles toward ‘agrarian
climate justice’. Building on the concepts of ‘political
opportunities’ and ‘rural democratization’ to understand how
rural politics is relevant to national regime changes in the process
of deepening democracy, this paper argues that scaling up
beyond the local level becomes necessary to counter the
concentration of power at higher levels. At the same time, this
vertical process is inextricable from building horizontal networks
and rooting struggles in communities. By looking at national-level
land policy advocacy for more just land laws, accountability
politics in mining at a regional level in the southern Tanintharyi
region, and the bottom-up establishment of local indigenous
territories, this paper illustrates how expanding these struggles
becomes necessary, but is also accompanied by potential faultlines. These fault-lines include divergent political tendencies
within the network and challenges to working in areas contested
by the Burmese state and ethnic armed organizations.....Introduction: Political reactions ‘from below’ to what has been termed ‘the global land grab’ following the 2007/2008 financial crisis have been diverse, ranging from resistance to grabs and mobilizations across local, regional, national and transnational levels, to negotiations to
improve compensation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals (Hall et al. 2015; Borras and Franco 2013). Attention has been given to the importance of ‘convergence’ across struggles, around common demands for system change, food sovereignty
or climate justice as a strategy to strengthen demands against powerful actors (Tramel 2018; Mills 2018; Claeys and Delgado Pugley 2017). However, linking local and national struggles with transnational movements also brings accompanying tensions, as these
have their own histories (Edelman and Borras 2016; Peluso, Afiff, and Rachman 2008). While studies have looked at different ways in which mobilizations have engaged with the state, this contribution looks specifically at the context of a national regime transition
in Myanmar, namely from authoritarian militarism to nominal democracy, and how agrarian resistance shapes and is shaped by these changes at national level. Reforms in 2011/2012 in Myanmar under President Thein Sein intensified entry of capital into infrastructure, land and extractive industries, deepening liberalization policies that began in 1988 under the SLORC/SPDC governments. Open conflict still continues between the Burmese military and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in some areas. In others, ceasefires have created a situation of ‘neither war nor peace economy’, building
on earlier rounds of ceasefires in the 1990s, in which the Burmese military steered EAOs toward businesses, granting them concessions as part of a strategy of political neutralization (Kramer forthcoming). The term ‘ceasefire capitalism’, has similarly been used
to describe the entry of foreign and domestic capital into infrastructure development, large-scale land concessions, mining licenses and forest demarcation in previous conflict areas (Woods 2011). National elites linked to the military are consolidating a new form of crony capitalism, building on the historic concentration of power in
businesses and conglomerates in what has sometimes been considered an emerging oligarchy (Jones 2014; Ford, Gillan, and Thein 2016). While these changes have created threats, they have also opened political opportunities for mobilizations ‘from below’, in the context of increased formal civil and political rights even as targeted repression through jailing and threatening of farmers and journalists still persists. New land laws, such as the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Law (2012) and the Farmland Law (2012), facilitate the acquisition of land by powerful actors, but discussions around the National Land Use Policy (NLUP) have also created
openings for actors ‘from below’ to influence policy-making and attempt to shift this balance of power (Franco and Ju 2016). Similarly, multi-stakeholder platforms such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) have created new frameworks for
investment that can threaten existing livelihoods, but have also allowed civil society actors to push for greater participation. ‘Green grabs’, interconnected with land grabs (Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones 2012; Borras and Franco 2020), have threatened the livelihoods of forest users but have prompted grassroots to mobilize around indigenous rights (CAT 2018, 2020; Morton 2017).
Prior to the recent political liberalization, there was a systematic weakness of social forces that could challenge the model of state-facilitated crony capitalism, such as labor organizations, the middle class or radical food-sovereignty or peasant movement
(Jones 2014; Malseed 2008). However, recently there has been emerging ground level resistance by farmers through ploughing protests, collective judicial action against land
grabs, regional CSOs helping farmers through networking and training, and other tactics such as letter writing, negotiations and protest (TNI 2015a; LIOH 2015). There have also been campaigns against large-scale dams and mining and palm oil concessions
(ALARM et al. 2018; Tarkapaw et al. 2015; Suhardiman, Rutherford, and Bright 2017; Park 2019) and demands for the recognition of customary tenure systems in the ethnic borderland areas (CAT 2018, 2020; ECDF 2016). In this context, activists in Myanmar have found
opportunities and challenges in strengthening local community-building while at the same time strengthening national-level mobilizing and advocacy. As this paper will argue, they are both necessary in the struggle toward ‘agrarian climate justice’ and in the wider process of deepening democracy. National-level advocacy can create ‘openings’..."
Source/publisher:
The Journal of Peasant Studies via Routledge (London)
Date of publication:
2021-01-14
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-27
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Land research including land grabbing - global and regional, Law and policy on land in Burma/Myanmar, Land research including land grabbing - global and regional, Agriculture in Burma/Myanmar: general and research, Agricultural land confiscation/grabbing, Agricultural Land
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
2.54 MB
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Topic:
Agriculture, Recovery and Reconstruction
Sub-title:
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of Myanmar's Department of Agriculture (DoA) recently conducted a series of training sessions to support the capacity development of farmers and technical experts. The training aimed to support and restore the agricultural production and livelihoods of communities affected by the heavy monsoon rains in southern Myanmar.
Topic:
Agriculture, Recovery and Reconstruction
Description:
"A total of 214 farmers from communities in Mon and Kayin States and Tanintharyi Region participated in face-to-face training sessions in the following topics.
Good Agricultural Practices: The topics covered in this session included farming practices such as vegetable production, soil fertility management and the proper use of fertilizers to help farmers improve their yields. Participating farmers gained knowledge on practices aimed towards enhancing the production of safe, high quality food, promoting environmentally friendly agricultural practices, and ensuring the welfare of farm workers.
Climate-Smart Agriculture: The training session was designed to help farmers understand how climate-induced shocks affect the agricultural sector and share climate-smart agricultural practices that enable families to improve production in a sustainable manner.
Nutrition: The session covered topics related to basic nutrition including a balanced diet, meal planning, food hygiene, and the special feeding needs of children, women and men.
Improving Knowledge: Post-Monsoon Forums
In relation to strengthening early warning early action systems, FAO and the Myanmar Department of Meteorology and Hydrology organized virtual Post-Monsoon Forums in December 2020 for technical officers from relevant line ministries and agencies to share experiences, challenges and lessons learned during the 2020 southwest monsoon season. Some 200 technical officers participated in the discussions which aimed to review the southwest monsoon seasonal forecasts and seasonal climate and water level forecasts in Mon and Kayin States and Tanintharyi Region. Furthermore, the forums also aimed to solicit feedback from end users on the usability of the forecasts and recommendations to enhance the early warning system in order to respond to potential disasters through early action.
Participants raised recommendations, gaps and challenges such as the need for meteorological information technology training for DoA staff, dissemination of real-time meteorological information, capacity development on collection and storage of meteorological records, installation of weather sensors in townships (where there are no meteorological centers in the region) and strengthened coordination and sharing of meteorological information and forecast reports with the DoA..."
Source/publisher:
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (Rome) via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of publication:
2021-01-06
Date of entry/update:
2021-01-07
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Agriculture in Burma/Myanmar: general and research, Agricultural Land, Commodities - agricultural products, Adaptation to climate change, Sustainable agriculture - Burma/Myanmar, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Food Security and nutrition in Burma/Myanmar, Sustainable/alternative development in and for Burma, Urban development
Language:
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Sub-title:
Under a land reformation act, millions of farmers across Myanmar could be forced from land they have tilled for generations. Many are unaware of the danger they face. Peter Yeung and Carlotta Dotto report from Yangon.
Description:
"It took less than a day for Daw Oo Naing's entire banana plantation to be destroyed. A group of 21 men carrying long knives arrived quietly in the morning and made quick work of hacking down her 600 trees, which were still young with tender trunks.
Oo Naing said she tried to drive them away; using a slingshot to defend her ancestral land. "I will protect my plantation with my life," she said. "It will be the legacy of my children." But her effort was futile. Her livelihood was demolished.
Under Myanmar's Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Act (VFV), introduced in 2012 as part of a slew of measures to bring in large-scale investment and development to rural areas, Oo Naing's land ownership was not legally binding.
Read more: Thailand's war on drugs targets meth from Myanmar
Although Oo Naing's family had reared the land for generations, their ownership was not officially documented. This is a common situation among Myanmar's 134 ethnic minorities, who constitute a third of the country' population of 51 million. Their land was considered vacant by the authorities. In effect, anyone could claim it.
For example, Chinese businesses have taken over banana plantations for mass-export in Kachin. And in Rakhine state land has been taken over to build oil and gas pipelines..."
Source/publisher:
"DW News" (Germany)
Date of publication:
2019-03-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-07
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Agricultural Land, Agricultural land confiscation/grabbing, Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) - Myanmar
Language:
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Sub-title:
The Myanmar government has tightened a law on so-called 'vacant, fallow and virgin' land, and farmers are at risk.
Description:
"Han Win Naung is besieged on his own land.
Last September, local administrators in Myanmar's southern Tanintharyi region put up a sign at the edge of his 5.7-hectare farm that read "Under Management Ownership - Do Not Trespass".
They felled the trees and started building a drug rehabilitation facility and an agriculture training school on opposite ends of his plot.
He was eventually informed that the administrators were challenging his claim to the land and had filed charges against him under a controversial law that could see him jailed for three years.
"I didn't know what this law was," the 37-year-old farmer told Al Jazeera. "I didn't understand what was happening to us. They also asked us to move. We don't have anywhere else to go."
Han Win Naung is accused of violating the Vacant, Fellow and Virgin (VFV) Lands Management Law which requires anyone living on land categorised as "vacant, fallow, and virgin" to apply for a permit to continue using it for the next 30 years..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication:
2019-04-04
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-02
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Smallholder farming and farmers in Burma/Myanmar, Agricultural Land, Agricultural land confiscation/grabbing, Tenure insecurity in Burma (including land grabbing)
Language:
more
Description:
"A 5,000-acre tract of farmland confiscated by the government has sat unused in Tanintharyi Region for almost 15 years. More than 1,000 farmers were evicted from the land in 2004 to make room for urban development, but although the project was never completed, local farmers are still not allowed to return to their fields.
This week Doh Athan partners with Dawei Watch to report on an old battle to win back the confiscated land..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" via Dohathan
Date of publication:
2019-09-03
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-04
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Tenure insecurity in Burma (including land grabbing), Agricultural Land, International resources on land rights and tenure
Language:
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Sub-title:
A quick introduction to the past, present and future of Myanmar’s most important industry.
Description:
"The most common crops are rice, beans and pulses, and maize, in that order.
In general, farmers grow rice and maize during the monsoon season and beans and pulses during the dry season, although farmers in the temperate highlands often try for a second harvest of rice and maize if there is enough water left after the rains.
Likewise, in the water-rich Ayeyarwady Delta, farmers often eschew dry season beans for another paddy harvest.
Rice (including Myanmar’s most famous variety, paw san) and beans and pulses (especially chickpeas, green gram and black gram) are grown basically everywhere. Indeed, 80 percent of all Myanmar farmers grow rice and most plant beans and pulses after the paddy growing season, according to a survey published in 2016 by the World Bank Group.
That said, the rice production peaks around the Ayeyarwady Delta, while more beans and pulses (which can tolerate hotter, dryer conditions) are grown in the central dry zone.
Maize comes a distant third in terms of area cultivated. Unlike beans and rice, maize thrives in the temperate highlands, especially in Shan State, Sagaing Region and Chin State..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar"
Date of publication:
2018-03-26
Date of entry/update:
2019-08-31
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Smallholder farming and farmers in Burma/Myanmar, Agriculture in Burma/Myanmar: general and research, Agricultural Land, Rice
Language:
more
Sub-title:
Jim Taylor, CEO and co-founder of Proximity Designs, is on a mission to help Myanmar farmers gain access to finance. The funds will help them pay for seeds to plant crops, labour to till the land, and basic infrastructure, such as irrigation equipment and
Description:
"“If you want to help the people of Myanmar, farming is a pretty good place to start. Despite the country’s rapid urbanisation in recent years, the population remains overwhelmingly rural, with 70 percent of people relying on the land for their livelihoods,” said a recent blog post by Proximity Designs.
This came after the US government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) committed US$8 million to Proximity Finance on April 3 to support expanded micro lending to rural Myanmar borrowers, primarily smallholder farmers. The Skoll Foundation, a long-term supporter of Proximity Finance, committed an additional US$2 million of subordinated debt as part of the co-financing package.
“By expanding their access to affordable credit, OPIC’s partnership with Proximity Designs will equip smallholder farmers to improve their yields, expand their enterprises, and help their communities thrive,” said OPIC’s acting President and CEO David Bohigian.
Proximity Finance, which designs its loans to meet the needs of smallholder farmers, is the microfinance arm of Proximity Designs, a social enterprise that serves the needs of over 100,000 households in 2000 villages, primarily in farming..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Times"
Date of publication:
2019-05-13
Date of entry/update:
2019-08-12
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Agriculture in Burma/Myanmar: general and research, Smallholder farming and farmers in Burma/Myanmar, Rice, Agricultural Land
Language:
more
Description:
"Ecopoint has teamed up with the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP), and John D. Liu, Founder & Director of EEMP, is proud to bring you this film. In 2005, the Chinese government, in cooperation with the World Bank, completed the world's largest watershed restoration on the upper banks of the Yellow River. Woefully under-publicized, the $500 million enterprise transformed an area of 35,000 square kilometers on the Loess Plateau — roughly the area of Belgium — from dusty wasteland to a verdant agricultural center..."
Source/publisher:
EcopointAsia TV, World Bank Group
Date of publication:
2012-06-26
Date of entry/update:
2019-07-31
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
more
Topic:
land degradation, land-use management practices
Topic:
land degradation, land-use management practices
Description:
"The United Nations Development Programme is seeking a Integrated Land and Seascape Management (ILSM) Specialist.This post is opened for Myanmar Nationals only..."
Source/publisher:
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) via United Nations Development Programme
Date of publication:
2018-02-16
Date of entry/update:
2019-07-30
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
more
Topic:
agricultural land, agricultural practices, agricultural productivity, agriculture, agroforestry, capacity building, crop management, drought tolerant crops, land-use management practices, sustainability sustainable agriculture, sustainable land management
Topic:
agricultural land, agricultural practices, agricultural productivity, agriculture, agroforestry, capacity building, crop management, drought tolerant crops, land-use management practices, sustainability sustainable agriculture, sustainable land management
Description:
"The International Fertilizer Development Center IFDC is accepting qualified applications for the five-year USAID-Funded Myanmar Agri-Food Systems Activity, which will facilitate the transformation of agriculture and food systems through increasing the productivity, inclusiveness, and competitiveness of key value chains.
The Senior Agricultural Specialist in Crop Agronomy and Soils will provide leadership in identifying appropriate good agricultural practices and farming technologies for various agricultural extension systems. They will manage and support sectors and sub-sectors of agricultural, agribusiness, and value chain development project interventions..."
Source/publisher:
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) via International Fertilizer Development Center IFDC
Date of publication:
2019-04-23
Date of entry/update:
2019-07-30
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Sustainable agriculture - Burma/Myanmar, Agriculture in Burma/Myanmar: general and research, Agricultural Land
Language:
more
Description:
"Agriculture accounts for 26 per cent of Myanmar’s GDP and employs almost half of the
country’s workforce.1 It is the primary source of
livelihood for most people living in rural areas.2
Migration for work is also common in Myanmar and growing even more so: the country’s
rapid growth in recent years has coincided
with a marked increase in both internal and
international migration. Migration is tightly
linked to agricultural work: many migrants
move from rural to urban areas and from agriculture to other employment sectors. This
trend is coinciding with a general transition in
Myanmar’s economy away from agriculture
and towards industry and services.
This briefing paper draws on findings from
the CHIME research project to look at how
agricultural work drives migration, and how
migration affects the agricultural sector. It
identifies opportunities for policymakers to
help make agriculture and migration
promote sustainable, equitable development..."
Source/publisher:
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Date of publication:
2017-01-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-06-21
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
IOM Burma/Myanmar, Labour migration: global and regional studies, Agriculture in Burma/Myanmar: general and research, Smallholder farming and farmers in Burma/Myanmar, Agricultural Land, Burmese migrant workers
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
2.16 MB
Local URL:
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Description:
"According to the current land utilization, about 11 million hectares or 16% of the total land area is under cultivation. Since a total of about 18 million hectares is estimated as suitable for agricultural purposes, some 7 million hectares of new land can be brought under crop cultivation and livestock farming. In bringing new land under agricultural use, it is important that the use of scientific techniques of land evaluation and land use planning be made mandatory to ensure the suitability and optimum use of land. In agricultural planning, land evaluation sets up a link between the basic survey of resources and the making of decisions on land use. As part of land use planning, the Land Resources Information System is vital to ensure that environmentally valuable lands are not encroached upon and that adverse environmental impacts can be avoided.
To ensure conservation of the resource base, the effective programmes should be designed to address the following constraints in agriculture;
* Low productivity due to agro climatic conditions;
* Low productivity due to water shortage;
* Low productivity due to soil degradation, irrigation induced water logging and salinity in dry zone...
A number of agricultural research stations and centres are presently carried out research on plant varieties, crop patterns, irrigation techniques, water storage techniques and soil analysis. The programmes and activities of those centres should be reviewed to ascertain their effectiveness and to assist in the formulation of new programmes that can address key productivity constraints...
CONTENTS:
1. Topography;
2. Climate;
3. Land Utilization;
4. Soils in Dry Zone;
5. Land cover;
6. Generation of Slope Maps, Erosion Susceptibility Maps;
7. Regenaration Mapping;
8. Land Degradation, Environmental Conditions And Socio-Economic Impacts;
9. Conclusions.
Source/publisher:
FAO
Date of publication:
2003-12-15
Date of entry/update:
2010-08-17
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Agricultural Land
Language:
English
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