Abstract
This chapter traces the changes in agricultural policies during Myanmar’s complex regime transitions. The timeline is divided into the post-independence civilian period, the Burmese socialist period, the military regime period, and the democratisation period. Rather than surveying all possible agricultural policies, I focus on three policies that characterise Myanmar’s agricultural policy from independence in 1948 to the present: the State Farmland system, the Product Procurement system, and the Planned Cultivation system. This chapter describes in detail the historical evolution of these three policies. In relation to agriculture, the regime transitions and the policies related to rural villages are also discussed. These considerations help us understand how Myanmar’s agricultural and rural policies have affected farmers and the population at large.
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Notes
- 1.
This period ended at the end of January 2021. This publication covers the period until 2019.
- 2.
1 acre = 4047 m2 = 0.4047 ha.
- 3.
In this book, “ownership” and “holding” are used interchangeably as follows. Namely, “ownership” means possessing something while reserving the right to use, profit from, and dispose of it freely, while “holding” means having something under one’s de facto control, regardless of having or not having the above rights. According to this definition, “holding” encompasses “ownership.”
- 4.
Speech of Thakin Tin, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, inserted in the first page of the Act.
- 5.
The Burmese version of the act lists specific land utilisation, such as paddy field (
), upland field (
), kâin (
), cûn (
) etc. (Kâin is an alluvial land that appears on the banks of a river during periods of reduced water flow; when it appears in the middle of a river, it is called cûn. However, in some regions, both are called kâin, or both are called cûn. According to the classification by the Agricultural Administration, both are called kâincûn (
).) - 6.
The Law’s Burmese-language version refers to farmers as “taundhu ledhamâ (
)”, and the English version as “agriculturists”. For the detailed meaning of taundhu ledhamâ, see Takahashi (1992: 63–64). - 7.
The Act’s Burmese-language version calls a farm household “taundhu ledhamâ eindaundâzù” or “household of farmer(s)” and the English version calls it an “agriculturist family”. In Japan, the definitions consider that there are farm households first and then there are farmers, whereas in Myanmar, the definitions are the opposite: first there are farmers and then there are farm households (Takahashi, 2012: 65–66). Burmese language has no word that can be directly translated as “farm household”, but for the sake of convenience, I will use the term “farm household” for “taundhu ledhamâ eindaundâzù”. Families living together but feeding separately shall be regarded as separate families.
- 8.
The acreage allocated was based on dadounghton (dadôunhton)—the area that a nuclear family could cultivate with its own labour and a yoke of draught cattle, and earn a living. For details of dadounghton, see Takahashi (1992: 73–74).
- 9.
For example, in the case of a self-farming farmer who cultivates paddy fields, some 50 acres or less was exempted from expropriation. We call such cases “exempted farmers”. In contrast, the farmers who received farmland through the agrarian reform are called “allocated farmers”.
- 10.
In the English version, tenants and agricultural labourers are included in the category of agriculturist (farmer), and no supervisor clause is found. Post-independence Myanmar laws were written in the Burmese language, and the English versions were merely translations. In other words, the actual implementation of the legislation was carried out according to the Burmese version. Therefore, in this book, I give priority to the laws written in Burmese.
- 11.
For this definition as well, the 1953 Land Nationalisation Act’s English-language version had different nuances from the Burmese version, so I translated it here according to the Burmese version.
- 12.
It is almost equal to the total acreage of agricultural land which is the sum of the net sown area and current fallow area.
- 13.
In legal terms, such a farmer is one who le’shìle’gou’ lou’kainneshì = continues to cultivate at present” (BaMaKa, 1964: 5).
- 14.
Directive of the Central Agricultural Land Committee dated 13 February 1964 (1/64).
- 15.
In reality, in both those villages where agrarian reform was implemented and those where it was not, the village agricultural land committees recognised cultivators on the basis of le’shile’gou’ (BaLaKa, 1973: 8; Takahashi, 1991: 158–159; 1992: 97–102).
- 16.
Working People’s Daily, Editorial, 8 July 1965.
- 17.
As for the private inheritance of farmland, the revolutionary government admitted the right to inherit farmland (which is thought to mean the aforementioned ûpainpau’kwìn) but annotated that the cultivation right was not automatically inheritable (BaMaKa, 1973: 9–11). This shows that the state was trying to thoroughly control the “right to cultivate”. However, if a parent’s farmland was cultivated together with his or her children or grandchildren before his or her death, it seems that “le’shile’gou’” was allowed.
- 18.
In reality, Article 17 of the 1894 Land Acquisition Act only states that there should be no encumbrances, not that there should be no compensation. Here, too, there is a deliberate misreading of the law.
- 19.
Irrawaddy, 1 July 2016.
- 20.
Agricultural land that is flooded during the rainy season and then emerges after the water has receded, with the quality and shape of the land varying each year.
- 21.
Under the Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Law enacted in August 2019, when agricultural land as well as other land are expropriated, not only compensation (yojê) is paid for the land and the houses and trees on it, but also damage (ni ‘najê) is paid for the income lost due to confiscation and various expenses for resettlement. Compensation and damage are paid not only to landholders but also to tenants and labourers. This law finally led to the repeal of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894.
- 22.
Ba Maw, who was Prime Minister during the Japanese occupation, stated that “the Burmese were cut off and pushed aside from most of the occupations that should rightfully belong to us” (Ba Maw, 1973: 18).
- 23.
In addition to rice, SAMB also exported beans, oilseeds, corn, and so on, but these were not important (Sato, 1962: 66–67). The State Agricultural Marketing Board Act was enacted in 1950, after the Independence in 1948 and the establishment of SAMB in 1946.
- 24.
The procurement system was abolished on September 1, 1987, when I lived in Myanmar. The order to abolish high-denomination banknotes was issued four days later. During these days, merchants and citizens withdrew their deposits from the banks for speculation and hoarding in anticipation of rising prices, and they suffered enormous losses. Since the failure of the procurement system was evident long before 1987, it is possible that the government used the abolition of the system to demonetise currency four days later. In any case, this series of measures became a fuse for the democratisation movement of the following year (Takahashi, 1992: 3–4).
- 25.
UBAMB was repeatedly renamed: to the Trade Corporation No. 1 (kounthweyêi kopouyêishîn ahma’ thi’) in December 1964, the Agricultural and Farm Produce Trading Corporation (AFPTC), leyakâincûn hnìn ûyinhcanmyei htwe’kounpi’ sî kounthweyêi kopouyêishîn in Burmese) in April 1976, and finally, Myanmar Agricultural Produce Trading (myanmà leya htwe’ kounpi’sî yâunweyêi) in April 1989. However, its character as a state institution for trading agricultural products had remained unchanged up to 2003 (Takahashi, 1992:109).
- 26.
The Burmese word “tâin” and the English word “Division” were renamed as “tâindeithàjî” and “Region” respectively in the 2008 Constitution (Article 9).
- 27.
The following is an extract from the Act, not verbatim.
- 28.
When I asked the villagers about this term in 1987, they said that this “people’s ownership (pyidhùbain)” was completely synonymous with “state ownership (nainnganbain)”.
- 29.
The ten-household group is a group of households mentioned in the 1907 Village Act. Ten households form a group based on the neighbourhood. The head of the group, hseeingâun (also known as hseeinghmù), is supposed to play an assistant role to the village committee. In some cases, the number of households is less than 10, and in other cases, the number of households is 20 or 30.
), upland field (
), kâin (
), cûn (
) etc. (Kâin is an alluvial land that appears on the banks of a river during periods of reduced water flow; when it appears in the middle of a river, it is called cûn. However, in some regions, both are called kâin, or both are called cûn. According to the classification by the Agricultural Administration, both are called kâincûn (
).)
)”, and the English version as “agriculturists”. For the detailed meaning of taundhu ledhamâ, see Takahashi (1992: 63–64).Author information
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Takahashi, A. (2023). Agricultural and Rural Policies Amid Regime Changes. In: Regime Changes and Socio-economic History of Rural Myanmar, 1986-2019. Studies in Economic History. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3272-6_2
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