No. 03 - 12/2005
03 December 2005

Thai-Burma Relations

Shan farmers: Contract farming no win-win solution

Shan farmers in Tachilek, opposite Chiangrai, are doubtful whether the soon to be signed 7 million hectare contract farming MoU will prove a win-win solution for all as claimed by Agriculture minister Khun Ying Sudarat Keyuraphan, reports Crusader from Maesai.

Khun Ying Sudarat Keyuraphan

"If past experience is anything of value, the prospects are far from encouraging," said a community leader. "I have talked to several farmers, and they are worried."

During 1996-2001, 900 acres of land around the village of Hajamanu, 7 miles north of Tachilek, was assigned to United Wa State Army's authorized agent U Tar Wai by Maj-General Thein Sein, then Commander of Eastern Shan State's Triangle Region Command. He and his officers had reportedly told the villagers that the crop substitution program for the Wa would benefit the people in the surrounding area by bringing new jobs and added incomes for them. "But what happened was no land was left for the villagers to work at and they were not hired by U Tar Wai as he had already acquired newcomers from the Wa areas from the north" said a farmer. "In the end, Hajamanu became an abandoned village."

The same experience was repeated at nearby Maehok and Hwe Lin Lam in 2002-2005 when Maj-Gen Khin Zaw was the regional commander, they said. More than a thousand acres of land were confiscated from the Shan and Akha villagers for rubber plantation, another crop substitution project for the Wa. "It served them right when the project did not turn out well," said a Shan farmer. "Col Sai Nyo, the Wa supervisor, had blamed the Thais for supplying him with low-grade seeds."

Other concerns include:

• The presence of the Army- "Wherever a farming community thrives, the people there live in fear of their fields orchards and plantations being confiscated," said the community leader. "If they still escape being seized by the army units, then they can never escape from being plundered day and night by its troops. In central Burma, the soldiers are known as Bandoola pests (Bandoola was the name of a famed Burmese general during the First Anglo-Burmese War) as pesticides are useless against them. Here they are only known as green pests."
• When farmers can no longer to their farming they come to towns where few of them can earn a decent living. "It was how Upper Burma was taken easily during the Third Anglo-Burmese War," recounted an educated farmer."During the reign of Mindon and Thibaw, there was a lot of deforestation. Farmers, whose lands had become fallow as a result, then moved into towns and inevitably became social problems. The unrest and anarchy that followed naturally left the whole kingdom defenseless against British invasion."

One interviewee openly wondered whether the Thais meant well when she said the project would really benefit all. "I can't help but suspect that the Thai agriculture minister is entertaining a hidden agenda behind her proposals," he said.

According to Thai press reports, contract farming is expected to effectively solve illegal border crossing of migrant workers. Thailand will invest in infrastructure development while Burma will provide land and labor for the project.

The project area will be on Burma's side of the border stretching from north to south covering a total area (70,000 square kilometers) as large as Ireland and more than twice as large as Belgium. "It will be as big as Chin and Arakan states lumped together," said the community leader.

According to a recent report by Nationalities Youth Forum (NY Forum) Our land and Natural Resources in Burma: Ethnic Youth Perspectives "ownership of all natural resources, including land, is vested in the government."