A Japanese study illustrates how farmers created an agricultural market in spite of the military government’s bureaucrats...

"Economic Disparity in Rural Myanmar" by Ikuko Okamoto. National University of Singapore Press, 2008...
"THE devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis and spiraling global food prices have placed even more pressure on the agricultural sector of Burma, once the world’s largest rice exporter and potentially one of Asia’s most prodigious producers of agricultural staples.

Judging by the increase in landing volume, Myanmar fisheries is developing fast. Due to
the amount of export earning fisheries sector have its role as one of the main contributors to
the national GDP. Thus fisheries are recognized as an important economic sector for the
country. The fisheries landing is significantly increasing in recent years. It is more than three
times larger than that of 1990s.
In 1990-91 the earning form fisheries export was only US$ 13 million. It has been

Introduction: "The goal of poverty alleviation is now seen as a high priority project for
Myanmar’s new
government.
In
public statements the new President, Thein Sein, has raised issues of
poverty in
Myanmar
as a problem
facing
the country (as opposed to a previous failure to
acknowledge any such problems.)
Support for this goal
was verbally
reiterated
in a
May
2011
Poverty Alleviation Seminar headed by Dr. U Myint, and again, more broadly, at an

SELECTION OF INFORMATIONAL MATERIAL ON CONTRACT FARMING: Contract farming in general...Contract farming in Asian countries...CAMBODIA...PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA...REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA...JAPAN...LAO
PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC...MALAYSIA...REPUBLIC OF THE UNION OF MYANMAR...REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES...KINGDOM OF THAILAND...SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District. Based on interviews and field reports from KHRG field researchers in this northern Karen district, looks at the phenomenon of 'Peace Villages' under SPDC control and 'Hiding Villages' in the hills; while the 'Hiding Villages' are being systematically destroyed and their villagers hunted and captured, the 'Peace Villages' face so many demands for forced labour and extortion that many ofthem are fleeing to the hills.

Commission on Human Rights
59th Session

Item 10: Economic, social and cultural rights

"...

It is in the remote parts of Myanmar that the worst abuses of the right to food continue. Within recent weeks, the Asian Legal Resource Centre has spoken with persons travelling in some of these areas. They have told of thousands of people displaced from their lands, some for years, starving in the jungle. One who carried an emaciated child to a Thai town just across the border spoke of the utter shock and disbelief among medical staff at the child?s condition...

... Large-scale agricultural investments – in plantations, processing plants or contract farming schemes, for example – have increased in recent years, particularly in developing countries. Investment in the agriculture sector can bring much needed support for rural development, but communities have also witnessed significant negative impacts. Some of the most serious involve local landholders being displaced from their lands and losing access to

This report describes the current situation faced by rural Karen villagers in Toungoo District (known as Taw Oo in Karen). Toungoo District is the northernmost district of Karen State, sharing borders with Karenni (Kayah) State to the east, Pegu (Bago) Division to the west, and Shan State to the north. To the south Toungoo District shares borders with the Karen districts of Nyaunglebin (Kler Lweh Htoo) and Papun (Mutraw).

Looks at CAADP plans in Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Zambia. Found systematic policy neglect of women farmers. Plans pay little attention to their needs and rights. Money for implementation is woefully inadequate.

Contains framework for analysing the gender impacts of foreign investment in agriculture; gender analysis of the certification criteria of voluntary sustainability standards and responsible investment frameworks; do voluntary sustainability standards improve gender equality?; lessons for responsible investment frameworks and recommendations.

Includes ’small-holder’ farmers as potential beneficiaries of agrarian reform in South Africa, a class-analytic approach to small-scale farming, accumulation ’from above’ and ’from below’, policy implications.

The lobby to industrialise food production in Africa is changing seed and land laws across the continent to serve agribusiness corporations. The end goal is to turn what has long been held as a commons into a marketable commodity that the private sector can control and extract profit from at the expense of smallholder farmers and communities. This survey aims to provide an overview of just who is pushing for which specific changes in these areas – looking not at the plans and projects, but at the actual texts that will define the new rules.