13 Case Studies of Land Confiscations in Three Townships of Central Myanmar

With the onset of the market economy in 1988, after the SLORC government announced that Myanmar was going to be a market-economy, assumed that agriculture productivity was low and concluded that existing land resources were not fully utilized by farmers who were lacking investment. In 1993, the government created a new policy of promoting private investment in agriculture production, called the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Land Instructions, or ‘Wasteland Instructions’. If the land was developed, more land could be granted up to a maximum of 50,000 acres. Since the introduction of contract-farming into Myanmar, no systematic efforts have been made by relevant government agencies review or assess their performance. Government policy to allocate land to private companies was based on an untested assumption that private companies would make better use of this land than small holders. According to the Department of Agricultural Planning, a total of 1.9 million acres have been granted to 204 companies by 2011, with half of that in Tanintharyi and Kachin State, a huge jump from 225,242 acres since 1999; the land actually developed and cultivated by the companies are only 35.6 % and 20 % of total respectively. There is a clear danger for smallholder farmers in Myanmar, whose tenure rights are not secure and whose high debt levels put them at continual risk of stress sales leading to loss of access to land for sustainable livelihoods. Instead of creating institutions to support these farmers to become more productive in a free-exchange market, where farmers are supported by choice, information and affordable inputs, the new laws place a number of restrictions on farmers so that it will be even harder for them to retain their land. For example, most farmers do not even know how to register their land with the new Land Central Management Committee. Upland farmers that have been governed by customary land tenure, with no knowledge of statutory laws until now are facing the greatest threats of land confiscation. To better understand the experiences faced by farmers in this transitional context, farming communities that are involved in land confiscation cases were documented from 13 villages across three townships in June and July 2012. Objectives: The objectives of the study are to: (a) Share farmers’ voices to decision-makers to help decision-makers reform policies that will meet the needs of their constituents (b) Inform the design of policies that will strengthen land tenure security for farmers in Myanmar Methodology

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