Rice procurement

Rice procurement: Junta reverts to type

Human Rights

Undeterred by its own 23 April announcement that the 40 year old paddy procurement policy: buying up 10% of production at fixed and deflated prices had been scrapped forever, farmers in eastern Shan State are once more facing an almost duplicate situation, according to sources from Kengtung and Tachilek, opposite Chiangrai. 

"The only discernable differences", said a rice trader from Kengtung, "are one, it's the authorized traders instead of government people who are doing the buying and two, the government price is fixed higher than it used to be: 1,500 kyat (roughly 60 baht) per basket instead of 350 (roughly 14 baht)." 

However, as current market prices range between 4,000 - 4,500 kyat (160-180 baht), authorized purchasers who are required to sell back to the military government at 1,500 kyat decided to stall for time, until the cash-trapped farmers become "easy game", they say. 

"The authorities have issued orders that any farmer who is caught trying to smuggle out paddy will be sentenced to 8 year imprisonment," said a businesswoman from Tachilek. 

The Kengtung-based Triangle Region Command has appointed 6 paddy purchasing committees and each is required to sell 10,000 baskets to the military government, according to them. 

Democratic Voice of Burma also reported on 20 November that traders in Moulmein-based South-eastern Region Command were ordered to buy paddy at K 1,500 per basket. The decision was in contrast to revised paddy purchasing policy announced earlier this year, it said. 

One basket is equal to 9 imperial gallons or 40.91 liters, and the standard weight for a basket of rice is 46 pounds (21 kgs), according to Voice of the Hungry Nation: The People's Tribunal on Food Scarcity and Militarization in Burma, October 1999, published by Asian Human Rights Commission.