Page 2 of
2 Seedlings of evil growing in
Myanmar By Clifford McCoy
seems to be influenced by Chinese
methods, which promote hybrid rice as a cure-all
for raising rice yields in any environment or
location. This is despite statistical evidence
that hybrid rice only brings modest increases in
yields.
According to the January edition
of Seedling, published by an organization
advocating farmer-led agriculture initiatives, the
increased yields fall far short of the additional
costs involved in
growing the hybrid rice. The
article describes the dissatisfaction of many
Chinese farmers with hybrid rice and how little
technological support was provided. Following the
Chinese model of forcing agricultural policies on
its farmers, the SPDC has promoted the cultivation
of hybrid rice from China with a vengeance.
Not only is the rice being used in the New
Destiny crop-substitution program, but farmers who
have never grown opium are also ordered to grow
sinn shweli rice, often under the threat of
having their land confiscated. In addition, the
Myanmar army, national police force and local
government ministries and departments all have
fields for growing the rice. Ceasefire and militia
groups are also active in encouraging the farmers
in their areas to grow the rice. Almost all of the
rice is slated for the export market to China,
even as local communities suffer a declining
standard of living.
Military
gains The SPDC's enthusiasm for the rice is
apparently both a result of a desire to increase
agriculture exports to China and enrich the
personal business interests of the officials and
military officers involved in the trade.
Agriculture contributes 50.1% of Myanmar's
national economy, and rice has been designated a
"principal national crop" by the SPDC. The
military regime has repeatedly said it wants to
raise the output of rice for food
self-sufficiency.
It is also eager to
export more rice to earn foreign currency. In an
article last month in the Myanmar Times,
Lieutenant-General Myint Swe of the Ministry of
Defense's Bureau of Special Operations claimed
that Myanmar produced 30.6 million tonnes of rice
from 8.14 million hectares during the 2006-07
growing year and has a targeted output of 31.5
million tonnes from 8.2 million hectares in
2007-08. Myanmar exported 180,000 tonnes of rice
in 2005-06 and 13,200 from April to September
2006, the latest available statistics.
In
northern Shan state, the importation and sale of
seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and farm machinery
is tightly controlled by Chinese businessmen or
militia and ceasefire group leaders and members
affiliated with the SPDC. Farmers, on the other
hand, have very little choice but to buy from
these local companies, which through virtual
monopoly power control the market price and
distribution of farming inputs.
A case in
point is the fertilizer and pesticides that hybrid
rice requires. The SPDC only permits certain
fertilizers and pesticides to be sold legally in
the country. Prices for fertilizer have increased
hugely in the past 10 years; a 50-kilogram sack of
fertilizer that cost 6,000 kyat is now 30,000
kyat. Many farmers try to get around buying the
high-priced legal fertilizers and pesticides by
buying illegally imported ones, which often cost
half as much.
The catch: the companies
that import the legal fertilizers and pesticides
are the same firms that import the "illegal" ones,
for which they set the prices on both markets. The
three main companies involved in importing
fertilizer in northern Shan state are the
politically connected Awba Co, Diamond Star Co and
Golden Lion Co.
Meanwhile, the main market
for sinn shweli rice is China, with much of
the rice exported through the special economic
zone at Muse, just across the Myanmar border from
the Chinese town of Ruili. Chinese traders are
involved in every step of the production of
sinn shweli rice, apart from the actual
growing of the product. They are also the main
buyers, invariably owning the trucks and
distribution companies that sell the rice to
traders inside China.
According to Hkun
Seng, farmers who cannot afford to pay off their
debts incurred from the now higher costs of
growing sinn shweli rice often end up
selling their land to the same Chinese companies
that sell the farming inputs. The companies then
frequently turn the land into commercial rice
farms. The overt and exploitative involvement of
Chinese traders and the growing loss of land to
Chinese business people is stoking anti-Chinese
friction among certain ethnic-minority groups,
researchers say.
SPDC officials and army
officers in northern Shan state are also getting
their cut from the transactions. The new commander
of the Northeast Command, Major-General Aung Than
Htun, who acts as the military governor of
northern Shan state, is charged with issuing
business permits to Chinese companies involved in
the importation of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides
and farming machinery, as well as for companies
involved in commercial farming and the export of
rice to China.
Chinese companies also
reportedly "donate" 2 hectares of land to the
military or government departments when they
purchase land from indebted local farmers. The
army and the local government then use the
acquired land to grow their own crops of sinn
shweli rice, which is then sold back to the
Chinese merchants.
All in all, it's a
state-sanctioned scheme that in the name of
curbing opium cultivation is simultaneously making
the region's already impoverished ethnic-minority
groups even poorer and accelerating Chinese
economic control over Myanmar's increasingly
Sinified northern territories.
Clifford McCoy is a Chiang
Mai-based freelance journalist.
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