Reforming Myanmar's agriculture policy (2)

This post presents the second column of an editorial on Myanmar's agricultural policy that was included in The Voice Weekly, May 16-22, p.30.

Vocabulary:

တရားခံ ။ the accused; defendant; culprit
နောက်ခံ ။ background
ရှားပါး ။ rare, scarce, expensive
ရိတ်သိမ်း ။ to reap, harvest
ထုတ်လုပ် ။ to make, produce, manufacture
ဝန်ဆောင်မှု ။ service
တောင့်တင်း ။ to be well supplied
အမြောက်အမြား ။ many, a lot
တွန့် ။ to recoil
အလေ့အထ ။ habit
ကြီးကြပ် ။ supervise
အသိစိတ် ။ consciousness
ကိုက်ညီ ။ agree, equal, correspond
ဖန်တီး ။ improvise, bring about or create (a situation)
ညံ့ ။ inferior
ရေအောင် ။ to have abundant water
ဗီဇ ။ seed

Translation

When [the price of rice fell because of the 1930 world financial depression] most farmers were unable to repay the Chettyars' money and became landless and that issue transformed into an economic problem, a political problem and ethnic problems and the Chettyars became the accused of history. The present land laws are based on that historical background.

The essayist continues, stating "If connecting the agricultural sector with the world market is agreed upon, [and] if the inclusion of inputs, the production of good and pure [crop] varieties, responding to the scarcity of agriculture workers with industrial agriculture, [and] the proper provision of services with intensive harvest methodologies are done, then it is certain that [the agricultural sector] will develop as much as possible and thankful benefits will be had." It is necessary to discuss about this issue.

Regarding the inclusion of inputs, which is the first issue, most farmers are not well supplied with finances so as to be able to carry out agricultural reform. Therefore, if agricultural reform is wanted, then everyone knows that organisations which can lend the necessary money are needed. Presently, there is only one "Myanmar Agriculture Development Bank" upon which farmers depend for the financial costs of agriculture. However, the extent to which that bank can lend money cannot meet all needs. Within a few years, organisations that lend farmers money from paddy specialising companies and bean specialising companies will emerge in some Regions. Although the extent [to which they will be able to] lend money according to the individual [borrower] will be greater than the Myanmar Agricultural Development Bank, [they] will not be able to lend to all farmers. The present law cannot give protection regarding the collection of money lent.

While farmers are of the mindset that their agricultural land is mortgageable property, they are not able to borrow [because of] the legal restriction that makes it impossible to confiscate farmer's agricultural land and tools due to the non-repayment of borrowed money. Therefore, it is natural that companies recoil from the issue of lending all farmers a lot of money. Other than that, there is a question of whether just lending money will solve the issues related to the necessary inputs. Farmers have a habit of not completely investing loans within the agricultural sector. That issue can be known just by going and looking at the surroundings of the area where that money is lent. That issue cannot be achieved just by supervising, but it is an issue that will need to be appropriately taken care of order to reform. If it is not done like that, despite money being lent, the agricultural sector will be [in a situation wherein] "The Golden Land that is hoped for is forever distant."

The second issue that is in need of discussion is the production of good and pure varieties. Whenever a 'good variety' in agricultural work is spoken of, it cannot be imported from a foreign country. Making use by own's self of the varieties that correspond with one's own country, water, land and climate is the centrally important work. Therefore, that work is the central duty that is being taken and carried out from research farms and pure [crop] variety proliferation farms under the former Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. However, before long that will be an issue that companies and people in Yangon Region and Irrawaddy Region, will have to work hard at. With changing agriculture good and pure varieties will have a good yield rate, Although they do not reject good quality, some farmers are attached to the old and inferior varieties that come from their own cultivation. It will be depressing if an example of paddy cultivation is established and stated, [and yet] many kinds of regions in places with abundant water and rain in the main paddy producing regions are still farming like today.