# 4. Farming systems and agricultural income

In both zones, there is a significant relation between owning more than 12 acres and having agriculture as the main source of income. This suggests that with smaller landholdings, households need complementary sources of income or that they invest less in agriculture since they have other sources of income (see **Chapter V.6.4** for an in-depth discussion on multi-activity). There is an obvious and very significant link between the income from agriculture and the area owned: most households farm the land they own and none of the farm categories are subsistence-oriented, despite the fact they also provide much food for self-consumption. In fact, in both areas, farms are clearly market-oriented, even for the smallest landholdings.

## 4.1 The Delta farming systems: high level of specialization in paddy

Delta's agriculture is highly specialized in paddy: 97.8% of cultivated lands are paddy lands and 96.2% of those who have access to agricultural lands (ownership or temporary contracts)<fnref n="90" /> are engaged in paddy cultivation. However, 8.5% of Delta households practice small scale commercial gardening (betel, vegetable, flowers, etc.), without any statistically significant differences according to landownership and landholding size. It is mainly practiced as a secondary source of income. 100% of 'commercial gardeners' who own land have no income from farm wage labor. For the landless commercial growers, these are actually not genuine 'landless' since they cultivate intensively on very small surfaces on their own garden plots around their houses. These do not access lands through temporary land arrangements.

<table><caption>**Table 33: Delta paddy crops: average area per household and frequency of crops**</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Delta</th><th colspan="2">Double cropping areas<br>*267 respondents: paddy cultivators in non-salt water areas</th><th colspan="2">Single cropping areas<br>*12 respondents: paddy cultivators in salt water areas<br>(Pay Chaung village only)</th></tr><tr><th>Average Area / HH (acres)</th><th>% of paddy cultivators from this area</th><th>Average Area / HH (acres)</th><th>% of paddy cultivators from this area</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Monsoon paddy</td><td>7.94/HH<br>(total 1810 acres)</td><td>85.4%</td><td>25.08</td><td>100%</td></tr><tr><td>Summer paddy</td><td>5.87/HH<br>(total 1526 acres)</td><td>97.4%</td><td>0</td><td>0%</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="90">90. 277 over 288 households having access to land: 205 over 215 landowners, 72 over 73 landless cultivators.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_65.png" /></figure>

Credit: Allaverdian

<caption>**Figure 33:** Paddy transplanting represents a peak period for farm labor needs</caption>

In the Delta, the quantitative survey (Table 33) indicates that summer paddy is practiced by a higher rate of paddy cultivators (97.4% of paddy cultivators of areas where summer cultivation is possible) than monsoon paddy. The difference in household count (32) matches with the number of landless that contract in lands exclusively for summer paddy. The average cultivated area per household is considerably smaller than in monsoon season. Even within landowners (putting aside the landless that contract lands exclusively for summer cropping), the same trend is found (9.2 acres in monsoon, against 6.82 acres in summer). Monsoon paddy has much lower requirements in terms of inputs. Currently, the common monsoon varieties (for instance, the varietal *bay gyar lay*) have much higher prices<fnref n="91" /> than the short cycle summer varieties, despite lower yields. Monsoon paddy has higher labor requirements (stick transplanting, hand-transplanting) and higher risks in terms of harvest loss due to climatic and flooding accidents. Summer paddy produces higher yields but generates greater input costs (fertilizers, herbicides). Detailed profit and

<footnote n="91">91. *Bay Gyar Lay* variety is very appreciated by Myanmar consumers. As a consequence, with the stable and growing internal market, farmers have benefited from the steady increase of its price in the last years (in 2016, up to 10,000 MMK/basket), while short cycle summer varieties are often more for export market such as China and have suffered more from market price fluctuations.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 34:** Average paddy yields in Delta different agroecological zones</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Monsoon Paddy</th><th colspan="2">Summer Paddy</th></tr><tr><th>Yield (baskets)/<br>acre</th><th>Respondants</th><th>Yield (baskets)/<br>acre</th><th>Respondants</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Saltwater area</th><td>66.5</td><td>12</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><th>Brackish area</th><td>43.6</td><td>170</td><td>64.4</td><td>199</td></tr><tr><th>Freshwater<br>area</th><td>45.3</td><td>58</td><td>96</td><td>61</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><caption>**Table 35:** Basic data on paddy yields and prices for main varieties in the Delta</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Variety</th><th rowspan="2">Main<br>season</th><th colspan="3">Price(mmK) /bsk in 2014-15</th><th colspan="3">Price (mmK)/bsk in 2015-16</th></tr><tr><th>Dec-14</th><th>May-15</th><th>Jul-15</th><th>Dec-15</th><th>May-16</th><th>Jul-16</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Bar Gyar Lay</td><td>Monsoon</td><td>5,500</td><td>6,790</td><td>7,600</td><td>6,500</td><td></td><td>8,800</td></tr><tr><td>Khun Ni</td><td>Monsoon</td><td>5,200</td><td>5,825</td><td>7,300</td><td>6,200</td><td></td><td>8,500</td></tr><tr><td>Nan Karr</td><td>Monsoon</td><td>3,800</td><td>4,200</td><td>4,150</td><td>3,800</td><td></td><td>4,100</td></tr><tr><td>Htee Htut Yin</td><td>Summer</td><td></td><td>3,880</td><td>4,080</td><td></td><td>4,000</td><td>4,600</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><th>Variety</th><th>Main season</th><th>Average price</th><th>Average yield (baskets) /acre</th><th>Average Productivity/acre in MMK</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Bar Gyar Lay</td><td>Monsoon</td><td>7,038</td><td>55</td><td>387,090</td></tr><tr><td>Khun Ni</td><td>Monsoon</td><td>6,605</td><td>70</td><td>462,350</td></tr><tr><td>Nan Karr</td><td>Monsoon</td><td>4,010</td><td>70</td><td>280,700</td></tr><tr><td>Htee Htut Yin</td><td>Summer</td><td>4,140</td><td>100</td><td>414,000</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: Gret Bogale

See **Annex 4**: Farm gate paddy prices at Bogale-Mawlamyinegyun area – for 4 different varieties (2012-2014) **Annex 5**: Profit and loss statement of paddy production (monsoon and summer) in Delta
loss analysis in 2014 on paddy crops led to the conclusion that monsoon paddy is more profitable than summer paddy cultivators from this area<fnref n="92" />. Moreover, all in all, landowners will prefer to cultivate a greater part of their lands during the monsoon and a smaller surface in summer, the latter tactic enabling temporary access to the uncultivated lands for their landless relatives.

<table><caption>**Table 36:** Key information on average cultivated acreage and yields in Delta brackish and fresh water areas where double cropping is possible</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Double crop areas</th><th colspan="4">Monsoon paddy</th></tr><tr><th>Average cultivated acreage/HH (among those who access lands)</th><th>Average yield (baskets/acre)</th><th>Average yield (ton/acre)</th><th>Nb of respondents</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Landless</td><td>6.50</td><td>43.04</td><td>0.90</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>0.3 &lt; 2.5</td><td>1.88</td><td>54.02</td><td>1.13</td><td>26</td></tr><tr><td>2.5 &lt; 5</td><td>3.68</td><td>45.07</td><td>0.94</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>5 &lt; 10 acres</td><td>6.35</td><td>46.28</td><td>0.97</td><td>58</td></tr><tr><td>10 &lt; 15 acres</td><td>10.89</td><td>42.21</td><td>0.88</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>&gt; = 15 acres</td><td>20.66</td><td>42.83</td><td>0.89</td><td>29</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Double crop areas</th><th colspan="4">Summer paddy</th></tr><tr><th>Average cultivated acreage/HH (among those who access lands)</th><th>Average yield (baskets/acre)</th><th>Average yield (ton/acre)</th><th>Nb of respondents</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Landless</td><td>3.23</td><td>57.56</td><td>1.20</td><td>69</td></tr><tr><td>0.3 &lt; 2.5</td><td>1.89</td><td>72.31</td><td>1.51</td><td>28</td></tr><tr><td>2.5 &lt; 5</td><td>3.48</td><td>70.26</td><td>1.47</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>5 &lt; 10 acres</td><td>5.60</td><td>71.65</td><td>1.49</td><td>59</td></tr><tr><td>10 &lt; 15 acres</td><td>10.17</td><td>70.18</td><td>1.46</td><td>36</td></tr><tr><td>&gt; = 15 acres</td><td>14.88</td><td>80.87</td><td>1.69</td><td>28</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="92">92. Strong links with the chosen paddy variety since there are significant price differences between varieties</footnote>
Land productivity in the Delta

<figure><img src="image_66.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 34:** Average yield per acre (baskets) according to farmland holding classes in Delta areas where double cropping is possible</figcaption></figure>

In the Delta, land productivity is quite simple to assess as farming systems are specialized in paddy. It is thus essentially assessed here through the yields per acre.

**The main factor affecting land productivity in the Delta is linked to agro-ecological conditions and water salinity.** As it can be noted in Table 34, monsoon paddy yields are, surprisingly, highest in salt water areas where farmers can only produce 1 cycle per year. This can be explained by this land's better soil fertility (due to long fallow period where buffaloes graze on lands). It may also be assumed that more care is provided to crops as it is the only paddy production season and labor is available (as there are high landless rates in these areas).

However, in summer, such land produces the opposite outcome. While summer paddy is impossible to cultivate in saltwater areas, yields in brackish areas are considerably lower than in freshwater areas (64.4 baskets/acre against 96 baskets/acre). This can be explained for the most part by the low quality of the irrigation water and the slight salinity, both of which affect paddy yields.

As observed in **Figure 34** and **Table 36**, there are no major differences in productivity and yields in the Delta according to farmland holding size. However, we can observe two different trends for monsoon paddy and summer paddy. For monsoon, yields are quite constant for different landholding classes with higher yields among smaller landholdings, while for summer paddy, there is a trend with highest yields among the largest landholdings (of over 15 acres) and the lowest yields for the landless who access lands. This landless sub-category concerns those who access lands under temporary arrangements.
This is logical as summer paddy requires important input costs that larger farmers can afford more easily. In addition to the investment constraints, the lower yields can be explained by the fact the lands which are 'contracted' out to others are those of least interest (in terms of fertility, proximity to the village, etc.) for the landowners. Finally, almost half of the landless who access land through temporary arrangements cultivate only in the summer season and not year round. As such, these landless invest less in fertilization as they will not benefit from the fertilizers' residue effects over the monsoon season, thus impacting yields.

## 4.2 Dry Zone: a diversified and resilient agriculture

The quantitative survey results indicate a strong link between the increase in sizes of land owned, agricultural incomes, and level of crop diversity. This is to be linked with the households' main source of income being agriculture. This is an interesting finding as it contradicts the trend in the global context towards specialization and larger landholdings. This highlights the specificity of the Dry Zone in terms of farmers' resilience and risk management strategies. 43% of Dry Zone farmers cultivate at least four crops in ya lands, in addition to potential paddy crops. Farmers adopt resilience strategies, with plots combining different crops, at different planting periods, and using crop associations and relay crops<fnref n="93" />.

Irrigation forms part of farmers' strategy to increase resilience and to diversify types of crops and cropping patterns and timing. 52% of surveyed landowning households have access to irrigation. 8.7% cultivate less than one acre<fnref n="94" /> of irrigated lands, 14% cultivate between one to four acres of irrigated land while 8.2% farmers cultivate more than four acres of irrigated lands. Households are not specialized in irrigation. Indeed, among households with irrigation, households tend to have both irrigated lands and rainfed lands, and this in similar proportions.

<table><caption>**Table 37: Acreage and number of cultivating households per season – Dry Zone**</caption><thead><tr><th>Ya land cultivation</th><th>Total cultivated acreage</th><th>Nb of cultivating HH</th><th>Average acreage/ HH</th><th>Main crops grown</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Summer</td><td>253.1</td><td>69</td><td>3.7</td><td>Irrigated sesame. marginal for pigeon pea, sorghum, sunflower</td></tr><tr><td>Winter</td><td>981.2</td><td>197</td><td>5.0</td><td>Onion, chickpea. More marginally: sesame</td></tr><tr><td>Monsoon</td><td>1450.6</td><td>298</td><td>4.9</td><td>Lima beans, pigeon pea, sorghum, sunflower, sesame, tomato</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="93">93. Relay cropping is the fact of cultivated different crops on the same plot of lands. The second crop is planted (eg sorghum) even before the first crop (eg sesame) is harvested.</footnote>

<footnote n="94">94. The mentioned acreage is a sum of acres cultivated for each season in the whole year.</footnote>
In the Dry Zone, the crops that generate the most income appear to be onion, followed by tomato, and far below come pulses such as chickpea and pigeon pea (see **Table 38**). More marginal crops such as wheat and cotton seem also to generate substantial income on good soils. Oil crops such as sesame and sunflower seem, on the contrary, to be much less profitable, due to current low market prices.

<table><caption>**Table 38:** Average income<fnref n="95" /> per acre (for sale) for main Dry Zone crops</caption><thead><tr><td>Crops</td><td>Average income (from sale) per acre (MMK)</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Chickpea</td><td>116,140</td></tr><tr><td>Pigeon pea</td><td>129,314</td></tr><tr><td>Sesame</td><td>64,704</td></tr><tr><td>Sorghum</td><td>34,165</td></tr><tr><td>Sunflower</td><td>23,559</td></tr><tr><td>Lima bean</td><td>88,808</td></tr><tr><td>Onion</td><td>1,315,198</td></tr><tr><td>Tomato</td><td>824,197</td></tr><tr><td>Wheat</td><td>132,575</td></tr><tr><td>Green gram</td><td>106,596</td></tr><tr><td>Cotton</td><td>162,094</td></tr></tbody></table>

High value crops such as onion are much more frequently produced by larger and diversified farmers (owning over nine acres). Tomato cropping is more specific to smaller farmers (owning less than six acres). Those who cultivate one to three crops only are more frequently very small paddy cultivators (less than three acres). Other minor crops include wheat, groundnut, green gram, maize, chilli, etc. Perennial crops such as sugar palm trees (24.7% of households), cotton (around 12% of households, for an average 1.35 acre), and *thanaka* trees<fnref n="96" /> can also be found. Other fast-growing tree species are grown as natural fences around fields and house compounds, and used for fuel wood.

<footnote n="95">⁹⁵. It is to be noted that this is just an indication for 2014. Some crops such as onions and vegetables, and export pulses are particularly prone to high price variations with strong impacts on household incomes.</footnote>

<footnote n="96">⁹⁶. However the actual surfaces cultivated with perennial crops, especially trees such as *thanakha*, are most probably underreported as most farmers are cultivating on lands designated for seasonal crops, a change that theoretically should be approved at the Union Level. In practice, most farmers don't go through this time and money consuming process (see Chapter VII.3.1), hence growing perennial crops 'illegally'.</footnote>
## Land productivity in the Dry Zone

<figure><img src="image_67.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 35:** Dry Zone land productivity (MMK/acre) according to farmland holding classes</figcaption></figure>

The main crops grown in the Dry Zone are cash crops (pigeon pea, chickpea, sesame, sunflower, onion, etc). As the crop diversity in Dry Zone farms is very high, and because self-consumption represents only a limited share of the total yield, land productivity will be calculated here over the value of the sold crops<fnref n="97" />.

<table><caption>**Table 39:** Dry Zone key information on average cultivated acreage and land productivity</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Average cultivated acreage/HH (acres)</th><th>Average income(MMK)/acre</th><th>Nb respondents</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Landless</td><td>1.32</td><td>569,773</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>0.3-&lt;2.5</td><td>1.87</td><td>298,511</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td>2.5-&lt;5</td><td>3.37</td><td>233,158</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td>5-&lt;10 acres</td><td>6.35</td><td>190,590</td><td>130</td></tr><tr><td>10-&lt;15 acres</td><td>10.65</td><td>234,330</td><td>58</td></tr><tr><td>&gt;=15 acres</td><td>21.89</td><td>197,641</td><td>54</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="97">97. For the Dry Zone, land productivity has thus been calculated by dividing total agricultural profit by the number of cultivated acres. The profit has been calculated from the income from sales and by deducting all production costs (labor, inputs, machinery rent). For the quantitative survey, some questions had to be simplified. The depreciation of farming equipment and the costs of agricultural loans (interest rates...) has not been integrated in the costs. Furthermore, it unfortunately does not take into account the value of what has been consumed by the household, but this remains marginal for non-paddy crops.</footnote>
As observed in **Table 39** and **Figure 35**, land productivity in Dry Zone is highest among those who cultivate less than two acres. This corresponds to the landless class which cultivates 1.32 acres in average among those who access land through temporary arrangements – this does not include those landless who do not cultivate and the 0.3-2.5 acres landholding class which cultivate 1.87 acres on average). In such cases, cultivators work their lands more intensively when they can access irrigation. In addition, the particularly high land productivity among landless is here explained by the fact that a significant proportion cultivate high value-added crops such as onion. Land productivity in the Dry Zone varies greatly between villages according to two main factors: access to irrigation and fertility of soils.

### 4.3 Comparing land productivity in Delta and Dry Zone

It is a bit tricky to compare land productivity between the two regions because of significant inter-regional and intra-regional (among villages within the region) variations. In addition, as mentioned above, for the Dry Zone, the majority of crops are cash crops, so land productivity has thus been calculated by dividing total agricultural profit per acre. In the Delta, in order to take into account the significant proportion of agricultural production which is not sold but dedicated to self consumption, land productivity is calculated by assessing average paddy yields per acre. In the Delta, the productivity of paddy lands is overall higher than in Dry Zone, as can be observed in **Table 40**. It is mainly be explained by better water access conditions. Income from paddy cultivation is also higher in Delta due to higher prices of Delta varieties.

<table><caption>**Table 40:** Average paddy yields in Delta and Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Paddy</th><th colspan="2">Delta</th><th colspan="2">Dry Zone</th></tr><tr><th>Yield (baskets)/<br>acre</th><th>Respondents</th><th>Yield (baskets)/<br>acre</th><th>Respondents</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Monsoon</td><td>47.1</td><td>240</td><td>45.2</td><td>107</td></tr><tr><td>Summer/<br>pre-monsoon</td><td>71.6</td><td>261</td><td>55.3</td><td>77</td></tr></tbody></table>
In terms of comparison between the two zones, it is interesting to note that in the Delta, lands with very low productivity rates (under one lakh/acre) account only for 1.5% of households (four out of 259 Delta farming households) while in the Dry Zone, such lands account for almost 36% of households (122 out of 340 Dry Zone farming households). This trend may be even stronger since the land productivity calculation here does not take into account the part of production which is for family self-consumption (higher for the Delta). Yet, such figures should not be misinterpreted – economic conditions are not unequivocally better in the Delta.

<table><caption>**Table 41:** Percentage of households with members engaged in agricultural labor per landholdings categories and per area</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Landholding</th><th colspan="2">Delta HH engaged in farm labor</th><th colspan="2">Dry Zone HH engaged in farm labor</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Landless</td><td>209</td><td>66.1%</td><td>122</td><td>49.8%</td></tr><tr><td>&lt;3 acres</td><td>17</td><td>54.8%</td><td>30</td><td>50.8%</td></tr><tr><td>3-6 acres</td><td>7</td><td>11.1%</td><td>39</td><td>41.1%</td></tr><tr><td>6-9 acres</td><td>4</td><td>9.5%</td><td>26</td><td>34.2%</td></tr><tr><td>9-12 acres</td><td>1</td><td>2.9%</td><td>9</td><td>22.0%</td></tr><tr><td>12-15 acres</td><td>1</td><td>8.3%</td><td>3</td><td>10.7%</td></tr><tr><td>&gt; 15 acres</td><td></td><td>0.0%</td><td>4</td><td>7.4%</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>239</td><td>45%</td><td>233</td><td>39%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=42.3 dof=5 p=0.001 (very significant) Cramer's V=0.282

This is because paddy cultivation necessitates greater investments than do most seasonal crops grown on ya lands: farmers in the Delta generally manage greater amounts of money than in Dry Zone, a situation leading also to more financial risks, especially in relation to loan repayment (see Chapter IX.2.1).

The study has not been able to demonstrate any significant correlation between family labor (meaning the number of household members providing labor on their own farm) and land productivity. This is not necessarily a finding and may be attributed to the survey design issues. In addition, the quality of survey responses concerning agricultural labor is not sufficient for the proper analysis of labor productivity.
# 5. Income diversification

## 5.1 On-farm wage labor

41.8% of Dry Zone and Delta households have at least one member earning some income as an agricultural laborer. This proportion is slightly lower in the Delta (45%) than in the Dry Zone (39%). Among these agricultural laborers, 87.4% are landless in the Delta against 52.4% in the Dry Zone. Table 41 shows that in the Delta, working as a farm laborer is very specific to the landless and very small landowners (less than three acres) while in the Dry Zone this activity is more evenly practiced (see 5.3 below on off-farm activities). Even among households with larger landholdings (6 acres-15 acres), 26.2% of them have family members engaged as agricultural laborers, against 6.7% in the Delta.

This trend is also reflected in the level of specialization of households engaged in agricultural labor: the rate of active members engaged in agricultural labor in households is higher in the Delta than in the Dry Zone (see Table 1 in Annex 6). In the Delta, 43.4% of landless households and 32.3% of very small landowners (under three acres) are specialized with more than 75% of their active members engaged in agricultural labor. In the Dry Zone, though, landless are less specialized in farm labor. Agricultural labor is an additional - but not primary - source of income for many types of households in the Dry Zone, while in the Delta, it is restricted to the lower income categories as part of the most important sources of income. This is due to the fact that a considerable part of Dry Zone 'landless' households are not engaged in farming but in off-farm activities that are more profitable than agricultural labor (see 5.3 below on off-farm activities).

## Labor arrangements

In Delta, by far the most common form of labor arrangements are 'task-specific' arrangements: laborers are paid in cash for specific operations (plowing, transplanting, harvesting) over one area unit (kwat - 1.25 acres) and not per day. Larger farmers (especially in salt-water areas) also take on seasonal labor contracts, mostly with in-kind paddy payments. However, 58.6% of Delta households combine labor arrangements with daily contracts. In the Dry Zone, 97.4% of households that provide agricultural labor are engaged in daily contracts (daily work, for daily payment in cash). In the Delta, only 11.7% of laborers are organized in 'labor groups' for which group leaders make arrangements and negotiate directly with farmers that need labor, against 40.8% in the Dry Zone (see Table 42).

The above figures reflect the two different situations between the Delta and the Dry Zone in terms of labor organization between landowners and laborers as well as in terms of social organization. It underlines the greater horizontal ties
between landowners and land laborers in the Dry Zone, often from the same family, while in the Delta vertical ties dominate landowner-laborer relationships, dividing the social landscape of Delta villages into two quite distinct categories – "lethama"/"baukthama" – i.e. the latter being mainly landless households.

<table><caption>**Table 42: Labor arrangements among households providing agricultural labor**</caption><thead><tr><th>HH with farm labor income</th><th>Daily basis</th><th>Task- basis or seasonal basis</th><th>Details</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Delta</td><td>24.30%</td><td>90.0%</td><td>Monsoon and summer seasons for paddy</td></tr><tr><td>Dry Zone</td><td>97.40%</td><td>0.90%</td><td>Year round for ya land crops, winter season for onion</td></tr></tbody></table>

These vertical ties translate into individual relationships between a landowner and a few laborers, and hence laborers here, contrary to the Dry Zone, tend less often to be organized in groups. In the Dry Zone, farm opportunities are more spread out throughout the year than in the Delta – explained by associated crop diversification strategies – hence the greater need for farm laborers to be organized in groups. The seasonal calendar's variability in the same village also gives more incentives to laborers to ask payments to be done on a daily basis while, in the meantime, they have more bargaining power given the lack of workforce available in villages (due to lower rates of landless households and greater income opportunities in other sectors). In contrast, in Delta, landowners prefer contracting work on a task-basis as laborers have lesser bargaining power. However, labor shortage are recurrent in Delta, driving farmers to propose better conditions for laborers (free meals, advance wage payment...).

<table><caption>**Table 43: Average income per household and per area for farm-work**</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Delta (239 HH)</th><th>Dry Zone (233 HH)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Average income per household that provide agricultural labor (MMK)</td><td>287,667</td><td>385,008</td></tr><tr><td>Average nb of persons engaged in farm labor in the HH</td><td>1.90</td><td>1.52</td></tr><tr><td>Average yearly income per farm laborer (MMK)</td><td>147,961</td><td>260,671</td></tr></tbody></table>
As a result, the average income per household from agricultural labor (see **Table 43**) is 34% higher in the Dry Zone than in the Delta, despite fewer household members engaged in farm labor (1.9 person/household in the Delta against 1.52 person/household in the Dry Zone). This seems to indicate that on average, Dry Zone laborers may work more time as farm laborers than in the Delta. In the Delta, paddy cultivation necessitates a greater labor force concentrated over short periods (land preparation, weeding, harvesting), while in the Dry Zone farm labor tasks are more diversified over the year and require less intensive labor at specific defined periods.

As seen in **Table 42**, 97.4% of farm labor in the Dry Zone is done as daily wage work. The daily salary can vary from 1,500 to 3,000 MMK/day from village to village, depending on specific peak period premiums, different tasks, and with the laborer's sex. Depending on the village, wages can be 30% lower for women than for men.

## 5.2 Fishing: an essential Delta activity

Fishing is pursued by more than 58% of landless and 30% of landowners. Interestingly, this is no significant link between practicing fishing and farm-size (**Table 44**). It is practiced in relatively similar frequency by different land owning categories, from 38% for the smallest category (0.3-3 acres) down to 22% for the largest (over 15 acres). These statistics confirm that fishing is a complementary activity for farming households, enabling them to mobilize their labor force during the slack season. However, there is a very significant link with the age of the household head. Indeed, among landowners, fishing is more frequent among those under age 40. (see **Table 2** in **Annex 6**)

<table><caption>**Table 44:** Relation between practicing fishing and landownership in Delta</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Landholdings (acres)</th><th colspan="3">Fishing</th><th colspan="3">No fishing</th><th colspan="3">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>%R</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>%R</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>%R</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>landless</td><td>183</td><td>73.8</td><td>57.9</td><td>133</td><td>47.0</td><td>42.1</td><td>316</td><td>59.5</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>0.3-2.5</td><td>11</td><td>4.4</td><td>37.9</td><td>18</td><td>6.4</td><td>62.1</td><td>29</td><td>5.5</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>2.5-5</td><td>11</td><td>4.4</td><td>23.9</td><td>35</td><td>12.4</td><td>76.1</td><td>46</td><td>8.7</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>5-10</td><td>23</td><td>9.3</td><td>34.8</td><td>43</td><td>15.2</td><td>65.2</td><td>66</td><td>12.4</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>10-15</td><td>13</td><td>5.2</td><td>31.0</td><td>29</td><td>10.2</td><td>69.0</td><td>42</td><td>7.9</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>&gt;15</td><td>7</td><td>2.8</td><td>21.9</td><td>25</td><td>8.8</td><td>78.1</td><td>32</td><td>6.0</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>248</td><td>100.0</td><td>46.7</td><td>283</td><td>100.0</td><td>53.3</td><td>531</td><td>100.0</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=42.3 dof=5 p=0.001 (very significant) Cramer's V=0.282
BOX 14: ON-FARM LABOR: SUPPLY AND DEMAND IN DELTA

In the Delta, laws of supply and demand for farm labor<fnref n="98" /> can vary greatly from one village to another. To illustrate the different factors impacting supply and demand, let us take the example of two different villages in terms of agro-ecological zoning and labor: Aye Ywar (brackish waters, two seasons of paddy, 55% landless households) and Pay Chaung (salt water, one season paddy only, 80% landless households). In Aye Ywar, almost all farm laborers find employment in the village during the two seasons of paddy, while in Pay Chaung, half of them have to go find work in other villagers.

Different factors impacting supply and demand for farm labor can be identified. In Pay Chaung, harvesting can be performed for a longer period, between December and February. In Aye Ywar, monsoon paddy has to be harvested over a shorter period (November-December), so that in late December land can be used again as soon as possible to launch the summer paddy season. Landowners therefore calculate their labor needs, taking into account the fact that all their lands must be harvested within a very short period, more or less simultaneously. The calculation of labor needs in Aye Ywar is based on the ratio 'one laborer per three acres', while in Pay Chaung the ratio is closer to 'one laborer per six acres'. This calculation also varies with the seasons. While one seasonal worker and five daily workers are enough to work about 20 acres of monsoon paddy, summer paddy will mobilize one seasonal worker and 10 daily workers for the same surface.

In Pay Chaung, landowners can hire a small team of workers over several weeks or months and harvest one plot after the other. The presence of rice stores in most Pay Chaung landowners' houses also facilitates the spread of the harvesting period, while the fear of rains push Aye Ywar's farmers to harvest as soon as possible to avoid losing the paddy in the fields before it is sold. However in Aye Ywar, laborers are only employed for a short time – the average area per farmer being relatively small, daily laborers or those working on a kwat pyat basis may end their assignment within a week or two. They must therefore frequently change employers, in their village or others. By contrast, in Pay Chaung laborers are employed for relatively long periods. The two biggest Pay Chaung's landowners even employ 30 laborers permanently.

<footnote n="98">98. "On-farm labor: supply and demand in Delta" adapted from Laurie Bellevillaire's master thesis, 2014.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_68.png" /><figcaption>A fisher with a push net.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_69.png" /><figcaption>A child after school collects eel traps in paddy field.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_70.png" /><figcaption>A fisher installing crab traps in the river.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_71.png" /><figcaption>Fishing nets of varied sizes are commonly used.</figcaption></figure>

**Figure 36:** The high diversity of technologies used for fishing in Delta, an adaptation to the varied species fished and scale of fishing

As can be observed in **Table 3** in **Annex 6**, 79% of households of the category which generates the highest incomes from fishing (over 3.65 laks) are landless households. As a matter of fact, farmers who lost their land have then turned to fishing or to other non-farm activities to ensure better living conditions to their offspring. In Pay Chaung, Daw TN who lives mainly from fishing (as do all her brothers and sisters) explains: "At the time of our parents, lands were not worth much and there were quotas on harvests for farmers. Our parents preferred to be fishermen but today agriculture is much more profitable than fishing so if I could, I'd be a farmer". Land owning households practice fishing, but for 70% of them the income they earn is in general marginal (less than 70,000 MMK). It is thus mostly for their own consumption. 64.6% of those earning over 350,000 MMK from fishing own a boat.
## 5.3 Off-farm activities

Off-farm activities here exclude all activities of the primary sector<fnref n="99" />: agriculture, farm wage labor, livestock breeding, and fishing activities. The survey has considered three types of off-farm income: 1) self-employed off-farm income, 2) employee/wage off-farm income, 3) other off-farm income such as pension, tool renting, compensations, etc.

<figure><img src="image_72.png" /><figcaption>Self employment through small grocery shops</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_73.png" /><figcaption>Weaving in Dry Zone is an important source of self-employed and employed labor</figcaption></figure>

<caption>**Figure 37:** Off-farm activities</caption>

<table><caption>**Table 45:** Distribution of households in each zone per type of off-farm activity</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Delta</th><th colspan="2">Dry Zone</th></tr><tr><th>Nb of HH</th><th>% of HH over total HH surveyed (531)</th><th>Nb of HH</th><th>% of HH over total HH surveyed (598)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>All off-Farm activities</td><td>188</td><td>35.4%</td><td>298</td><td>49.8%</td></tr><tr><td>Self-employed off farm activities</td><td>126</td><td>23.7%</td><td>148</td><td>24.7%</td></tr><tr><td>Employed off-farm activities</td><td>46</td><td>8.7%</td><td>187</td><td>31.3%</td></tr><tr><td>Other type of income (pension, compensation, etc.)</td><td>29</td><td>5.5%</td><td>10</td><td>1.7%</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="99">99. The primary sector of the economy regroups all activities making direct use of natural resources.</footnote>
Off-farm activities are widely practiced in both areas but more common in the Dry Zone: it concerns half of Dry Zone households, against only one third of Delta households (see **Table 45**). Furthermore, average yearly incomes from off-farm activities in the Dry Zone are 35% higher than in the Delta. (6.4 lakhs in the Delta against 9.9 lakhs in the Dry Zone).

In the Dry Zone, self-employment in off-farm activities essentially concerns weaving (**Table 4** in **Annex 6**), while in the Delta, the most common self-employed off-farm activities are small businesses such as small grocery shops, money-lending, paddy trade, etc.

While self-employed activities have a similar frequency in both the Delta and the Dry Zone (around 24%), employed off-farm activities are three times more common in the Dry Zone (31.3% of all households) than in the Delta (8.7%). Among the main sectors offering employed/wage off-farm work are weaving (especially Khoe Than and Gaw Gyi villages) and construction work for villages closer to Monywa and Yinmabin towns (Gaw Gyi, Zee Phyu Pin). Indeed, almost one quarter (23.7%) of surveyed households in the Dry Zone are engaged in construction wage labor (**Table 5** in **Annex 6**).

In addition, off-farm activities in the Delta are practiced by all income-cATEGORIES in similar proportions, from 28% of households among the lowest income category, up to 39% for the higher income category (see **Table 6** in **Annex 6**). These are engaged mainly for additional income, rather than as 'full time' jobs. This is in line with the fact that average income from off-farm activities in the Delta is 35% less than in Dry Zone (6.4 laks in Delta against 9.9 laks in Dry Zone) and that the rate of households declaring off-farm activities as first source of income is much higher in Dry Zone (123 households, 42% of households declaring having off farm work activities), compared to Delta (27 households, 14% of households declaring off-farm activities). Out of these 123 households individuals from the Dry Zone, the two thirds declare 'off-farm worker' as main source of income (not small business, nor trade) mostly pursue construction and weaving works in villages nearer to towns (where average off-farm income is from 7.5 to 8.5 lakhs MMK). The large majority of these households have no lands and have no agricultural nor animal husbandry activities. In the Dry Zone, off-farm activities are thus more frequently practiced in a specialized manner and as full time jobs. In the Dry Zone, there is a very significant link between the level of income from off-farm activities and the total household income (see **Table 8** in **Annex 6**).

The survey analysis for the Dry Zone shows that every village has its own characteristics regarding off-farm activities. For example weaving dominates
off-farm activities in Khoe Than and Gaw Gyi, while households involved in
construction work are more often found in Zee Phyu Pin and Gaw Gyi, given these
villages' proximity with the towns of Yinmabin and Monywa.

# 6. Discussion: Land distribution, access and livelihood strategies

## 6.1 Categorizing farmers

Following the thorough methodological process described in Annex 8 based on Factorial Analysis of Correspondences (FAC) of the selected quantitative data, land-owning households have been categorized as follows:

- 'capitalized farmers' having direct land use rights on surfaces above 10 acres and characterized by their ownership of all necessary assets for agricultural production (cattle, power-tillers, water-pumps, carts). Their incomes come mainly and often totally from agriculture<fnref n="100" />, exceeding two million Kyats per year.

- 'Agri-specialized small farmers', owning between five and 10 acres. Their incomes come mainly from farm activities, first through the cultivation of their own lands, but also from other primary sector activities (animal husbandry, daily farm-work...). They generally do not own agricultural assets and therefore rely on arrangements with capitalized family farmers for these.

- 'multi-active small farmers', composed of households which have land use rights on small surfaces (less than five acres) and whose incomes come mainly from other activities, whether from daily farm work, animal husbandry or small businesses such as village grocery shops. Those are therefore highly multi-active and their profit from agriculture arrives generally in second position.

Despite the fundamental differences in agricultural practices, environmental conditions (notably access to water), and livelihood opportunities between the Delta and the Dry Zone, it still seemed relevant to operate the same FAC but specifically for each zone, in order to verify if the groups did not hide different strategies related to local conditions. The distinction has been made as well with the idea of reflecting the earlier enunciated hypothesis that the Dry Zone, as a historical settlement, features greater socioeconomic stability and horizontal ties between and among stakeholders (landowners, agricultural workers, for example) than the Delta which, as a recently closed land front, presents most of the features of a 'frontier society' (Boutry 2013) characterized by vertical relationships and greater socioeconomic insecurity for most layers of the society; and explore the consequences of such different socioeconomic conditions on livelihood security.

<footnote n="100">100. Order of income among the following options: agriculture/cultivation, fishing, livestock, farm work, off-farm employed work, off-farm self employed work, remittances.</footnote>
Doing so, the three groups still appear in both Delta and Dry Zone villages, but the livelihood strategies of each type of groups differ quite drastically from one area to the other. Interestingly, those whose strategies don't vary much from one zone to the other are the 'capitalized farmers', despite the very different agricultural practices found between the two zones.

<figure><img src="image_74.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 38:** Distribution of main categories of farmers in Delta and Dry Zone</figcaption></figure>

## Delta farmers' typology

<table><caption>**Table 46:** Summary of key criteria of Delta farm typology</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th rowspan="2">Average landholding size (acres)</th><th rowspan="2">Average age of HH head</th><th rowspan="2">% of HH who own power tiller</th><th colspan="4">Primary source of income (%of HH)</th></tr><tr><th>Cultivation</th><th>Live-stock</th><th>Farm labor/ fishing</th><th>Off farm</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Capitalized farmers</td><td>14.6</td><td>62</td><td>62</td><td>96.7%</td><td>0.0%</td><td>0.0%</td><td>3.3%</td></tr><tr><td>Agri-specialized small farmers</td><td>4.1</td><td>14.8</td><td>14.8</td><td>78.4%</td><td>0.0%</td><td>5.7%</td><td>15.9%</td></tr><tr><td>Multi-active small farmers</td><td>5.8</td><td>19.4</td><td>19.4</td><td>2.8%</td><td>44.4%</td><td>36.2%</td><td>16.6%</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><caption>**Table 47:** Delta distribution of different farmers categories (%) according to land area owned (in acres)</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Average land holding size (acres)</th><th colspan="2">multi-active small farmers</th><th colspan="2">capitalized farmers</th><th colspan="2">Agri-specialized small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Under 2.5</td><td>15</td><td>41.7</td><td>1</td><td>1.1</td><td>13</td><td>14.9</td><td>29</td><td>13.5</td></tr><tr><td>2.5 to &lt; 5</td><td>4</td><td>11.1</td><td>1</td><td>1.1</td><td>41</td><td>47.1</td><td>46</td><td>21.4</td></tr><tr><td>5 to &lt; 10</td><td>8</td><td>22.2</td><td>25</td><td>27.2</td><td>33</td><td>37.9</td><td>66</td><td>30.7</td></tr><tr><td>10 to &lt; 15</td><td>7</td><td>19.4</td><td>35</td><td>38.0</td><td></td><td></td><td>42</td><td>19.5</td></tr><tr><td>15 and over</td><td>2</td><td>5.6</td><td>30</td><td>32.6</td><td></td><td></td><td>32</td><td>14.9</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>36</td><td>100.0</td><td>92</td><td>100.0</td><td>87</td><td>100.0</td><td>215</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=144.7 dof=8 p=0.001 (Val. théoriques < 5 = 1) Cramer's V=0.58

In the Delta, **capitalized farmers** present the following characteristics:

* More than 70% of households cultivate more than 10 acres in monsoon paddy and 58.5% cultivate more than 10 acres of dry-season paddy.

* 92% of this category's households earn more than two million Kyats a year from crops.

* They own agricultural assets (power tiller, thresher, motor pump, etc.).

The **Agri-specialized small farmers** are characterized by:

* 85% owning between 2.5 and 10 acres of arable lands.

* 85% don't own farming assets needed for paddy cultivation.

* However, 83% of households say they rely on cultivation as their main income.

The **multi-active small farmers** main features are that:

* Cultivation incomes come in the 2nd position (in its contribution to total household income). Doing many activities is thus this category's key criterion.

* Over 60% own less than five acres.

* 44.4% of them report getting their main income from animal husbandry (mostly duck and pig breeding and 30.6% of them as farm laborers). 16.6% may also have off-farm activities such as small grocery shop, etc. as their main income.
* The fact that most of them (86.1%) place incomes from crops in second position suggests that land access for agriculture, although not profitable enough to supply all their needs, represents a form of security for their livelihoods – this is confirmed by a clear distinction between landless households who have access to lands and other landless households (see section 7).

Note that in the Delta, none of these categories is correlated to a particular age group.

## Dry Zone farmers' typology

<table><caption>Table 48: Summary of key criteria of Dry Zone farm typology</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th rowspan="2">Average landholding size (acres)</th><th rowspan="2">Average age of HH head</th><th rowspan="2">% of HH who own power tiller</th><th colspan="4">Primary source of income (%of HH)</th></tr><tr><th>Cultivation</th><th>Live-stock</th><th>Farm labor/ fishing</th><th>Off farm</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Capitalised farmers</td><td>55</td><td>15.9</td><td>91.2</td><td>89.5%</td><td>1.8%</td><td>0.0%</td><td>8.7%</td></tr><tr><td>Farm-specialised small farmers</td><td>51</td><td>6.3</td><td>82.8</td><td>87.5%</td><td>2.3%</td><td>1.6%</td><td>8.6%</td></tr><tr><td>Multi-active small farmers</td><td>45</td><td>4.2</td><td>48.6</td><td>11.7%</td><td>17.1%</td><td>27.0%</td><td>44.2%</td></tr></tbody></table>

Like in the Delta, Dry Zone **capitalized farmers** are above all characterized by the following:

* Owning more than 10 acres: 30.7% of households own between 10 and 15 acres and often more than 15 acres (45.6%).

* Owning key agricultural assets (cattle and carts<fnref n="101" />).

* The majority (56.8% in the Dry Zone) earn more than 2,000,000 Kyat per year from cultivation and 32.4% earn between 500,000 and 2,000,000 Kyats per year.

<footnote n="101">101. Only 37% of capitalized farmers report owning a power-tiller. As a matter of fact, the Dry Zone is less mechanized than the Delta, notably because of the nature of ya lands that are more suitable to work with cattle while the power-tiller is mostly used on irrigated paddy lands. 52.6% of them also report owning a motor pump, hence having access to irrigated cultivation, which makes a great difference in the Dry Zone in terms of the productivity and value of crops that can grow.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 49:** Dry Zone distribution of different farmers' categories (%) according to land area owned (in acres)</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Average land holding size (acres)</th><th colspan="2">capitalised farmers</th><th colspan="2">multi-active small farmers</th><th colspan="2">farm-specialised small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Under 2.5</td><td>1</td><td>0.9</td><td>46</td><td>41.4</td><td>4</td><td>3.1</td><td>51</td><td>14.4</td></tr><tr><td>2.5 to &lt; 5</td><td>4</td><td>3.5</td><td>25</td><td>22.5</td><td>31</td><td>24.2</td><td>60</td><td>17.0</td></tr><tr><td>5 to &lt; 10</td><td>22</td><td>19.3</td><td>30</td><td>27.0</td><td>78</td><td>60.9</td><td>130</td><td>36.8</td></tr><tr><td>10 to &lt;15</td><td>35</td><td>30.7</td><td>9</td><td>8.1</td><td>14</td><td>10.9</td><td>58</td><td>16.4</td></tr><tr><td>15 and over</td><td>52</td><td>45.6</td><td>1</td><td>0.9</td><td>1</td><td>0.8</td><td>54</td><td>15.3</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>114</td><td>100.0</td><td>111</td><td>100.0</td><td>128</td><td>100.0</td><td>353</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=254.9 dof=8 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.601

**Agri-specialized small farmers** are characterized by:

* Agriculture as a main source of income for the household.

* Owning less than 10 acres (60% between five and 10 acres and 27.3% below five acres.

* Their income from agriculture is between 500,000 and 2,000,000 Kyat per year for 47.4% of them and between 100,000 and 500,000 Kyats per year for 40.7% of them.

**Multi-active small farmers** in the Dry Zone have similar features as those in Delta:

* Regarding landholding categories they present similar distribution patterns as in the Delta. While most of them own less than five acres (66%), 35% own between five and 10 acres.

* The ranking of profit they get from their different activities is a little different from Delta multi-active small farmers, yet here again most of them don't get their main income from cultivation (88.7%). For 56% of them, cultivation comes in second position, and in 3rd position for 19% of the category's households. Given the more unpredictable nature of Dry Zone agriculture, it seems logical that it brings less security to these households involved in multiple activities than for the multi-active small farmers of the Delta.
* Diversification of activities includes on-farm wage labor as a main source of incomes (for 27% of this category's households), off-farm wage labor (18%), animal husbandry (principally goats) for 17% of them, weaving, and other activities (such as small businesses). The greater off-farm employment opportunities available in the Dry Zone villages studied explains the higher diversity of activities practiced by multi-active small farmers, compared to the Delta. 44.2% of Dry Zone multi-active small farmers have an off-farm activity (excluding farm work and livestock) as their main source of income.

<table><caption>**Table 50:** Distribution of the different farmer categories in age groups (age of the household head) in Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Age of household head</th><th colspan="2">capitalised farmers</th><th colspan="2">multi-active small farmers</th><th colspan="2">farm-specialised small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>&lt; 40</td><td>14</td><td>12.3</td><td>42</td><td>37.8</td><td>29</td><td>22.7</td><td>85</td><td>24.1</td></tr><tr><td>40 ≤ x &lt; 50</td><td>27</td><td>23.7</td><td>35</td><td>31.5</td><td>35</td><td>27.3</td><td>97</td><td>27.5</td></tr><tr><td>50 ≤ x &lt; 60</td><td>34</td><td>29.8</td><td>13</td><td>11.7</td><td>22</td><td>17.2</td><td>69</td><td>19.5</td></tr><tr><td>≥ 60</td><td>39</td><td>34.2</td><td>21</td><td>18.9</td><td>42</td><td>32.8</td><td>102</td><td>28.9</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>114</td><td>100.0</td><td>111</td><td>100.0</td><td>128</td><td>100.0</td><td>353</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=32.3 dof=6 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.214

Finally, contrary to the Delta, there are statistical links between age of household head and these categories (see **Table 50**). There is a positive correlation between being a capitalized farmers household head and being aged more than 50, while multi-active small farmers households are more likely to be headed by a person aged less than 40 years old. Agri-specialized small farmers households are not linked to a particular age group.

## 6.2 Land access

Delta Agri-specialized small farmers inherited more in surfaces (1.2 acres/household) than multi-active small farmers (0.8 acres/household) before 2003, while after 2003 their average inherited land size are quite similar (0.8 against 0.9 acres/household for Agri-specialized small farmers and multi-active small farmers respectively). On the other hand, multi-active small farmers bought significantly more lands over the two periods (in average 2.5 acres/household) than Agri-specialized small farmers (in average 1 acre/household).
<figure><img src="image_75.png" /><figcaption>Dry Zone: Average distribution of inherited and purchased lands from 1988 to 2014 among different types of farmers</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_76.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 39:** Bar chart representing land acquisition modalities (inheritance, purchase) for different types of farmers in Delta and Dry Zone</figcaption></figure>

Agri-specialized small farmers' lands have mainly been inherited (50% of lands owned have been inherited, against 30% for the other categories) – with a slow decrease after 2003. Delta multi-active small farmers and Agri-specialized small farmers inherited and bought land at a lesser rate than average for the whole landowners' population. Capitalized farmers hence 'monopolized' access to resources both in terms of livelihood reproduction through inheritance and in terms of accumulation through the two periods.
<table><caption>**Table 51:** Average area (in acres) acquired through inheritance and purchase for each category of farmers before and after 2003</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th rowspan="2">Owned<br>land</th><th colspan="2">1988-2003</th><th colspan="2">2003-2014</th><th colspan="2">Total 1988-2014</th></tr><tr><th>Inherited<br>88-2008</th><th>Bought<br>88-2003</th><th>Inherited<br>after<br>2003</th><th>Bought<br>after<br>2003</th><th>TOT<br>Inherited</th><th>TOT<br>Bought</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th scope="row">Delta</th><td>Total</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Capitalized<br>F (92)</th><td>14.6</td><td>3.0</td><td>3.4</td><td>1.5</td><td>2.2</td><td>4.5</td><td>5.6</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Specialized<br>SF (88)</th><td>4.1</td><td>1.2</td><td>0.9</td><td>0.8</td><td>0.3</td><td>2.0</td><td>1.2</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Multi<br>active SF<br>(36)</th><td>5.8</td><td>0.8</td><td>1.5</td><td>0.9</td><td>1.0</td><td>1.7</td><td>2.5</td></tr><tr><th scope="row"></th><td>Owned<br>land</td><td>Inherited<br>88-2008</td><td>Bought<br>88-2003</td><td>Inherited<br>after<br>2003</td><td>Bought<br>after<br>2003</td><td>TOT<br>Inherited</td><td>TOT<br>Bought</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Dry Zone</th><td>Total</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td><td>Average<br>/all</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Capitalized<br>F (114)</th><td>15.9</td><td>4.7</td><td>2.5</td><td>1.1</td><td>2.1</td><td>5.7</td><td>4.6</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Specialized<br>SF (126)</th><td>6.3</td><td>1.3</td><td>0.6</td><td>0.5</td><td>0.5</td><td>1.7</td><td>1.1</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Multi<br>active SF<br>(111)</th><td>4.2</td><td>1.3</td><td>0.6</td><td>0.6</td><td>0.4</td><td>1.9</td><td>1.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

In the Dry Zone, multi-active small farmers and Agri-specialized small farmers inherited and purchased lands in similar amounts although multi-active small farmers inherited in greater proportion (57% of households) than the two other categories. Given that Agri-specialized small farmers own overall larger surfaces than multi-active small farmers and that, on the other hand, multi-active small farmers inherited more recently (23% of households inherited after 2003 against 13-15% for the other categories), it suggests that the latter is a category of younger households yet to have sufficient financial capacity to buy land. This fact is confirmed by the positive correlation between multi-active small farmers households and the
<table><caption>**Table 52:** Proportion of households for each categories of farmers concerned by land inheritance and sales</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Inherited<br>88-2003</th><th>Bought<br>88-2003</th><th>Inherited<br>after 2003</th><th>Bought<br>after 2003</th><th>TOT<br>Inherited</th><th>TOT<br>Bought</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th scope="row">Delta</th><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Capitalized<br>F (92)</th><td>29%</td><td>25%</td><td>17%</td><td>18%</td><td>47%</td><td>40%</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Specialized<br>SF (88)</th><td>23%</td><td>19%</td><td>22%</td><td>9%</td><td>43%</td><td>28%</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Multi active<br>SF (36)</th><td>19%</td><td>31%</td><td>17%</td><td>11%</td><td>33%</td><td>42%</td></tr><tr><th></th><th>Inherited<br>88-2008</th><th>Bought<br>88-2003</th><th>Inherited<br>after 2003</th><th>Bought<br>after 2003</th><th>TOT<br>Inherited</th><th>TOT<br>Bought</th></tr><tr><th scope="row">Dry Zone</th><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td><td>% of HH</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Capitalized<br>F (114)</th><td>46%</td><td>25%</td><td>15%</td><td>32%</td><td>47%</td><td>48%</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Specialized<br>SF (126)</th><td>31%</td><td>16%</td><td>13%</td><td>14%</td><td>41%</td><td>30%</td></tr><tr><th scope="row">Multi active<br>SF (111)</th><td>38%</td><td>16%</td><td>23%</td><td>17%</td><td>57%</td><td>31%</td></tr></tbody></table>

age of the households' heads, overrepresented in the 30 to 40 years-old category (while capitalized family farmers households' heads are correlated to the 50 to 60 years-old category). The greater frequency of access to an inherited plot for the multi-active small farmers category may indicate that access to land – even a small surface – in that case provides security to invest and diversify into other livelihoods.

The difference between capitalized farmers in the two zones and other categories regarding acreage of inherited and purchased lands is striking. Households belonging to the capitalized farmers category inherited and bought more lands (larger surfaces) than the average ones, in both zones. However, the different socioeconomic context in each zone impacts on the way these households accessed land. In the Delta, throughout both periods capitalized farmers bought larger surfaces than they inherited. It is likely these capitalized farmers profited from the market created in the period between 1988 and 2003 by the 'Compulsory Quota Policy'. However, as mentioned above, the quantitative survey does not provide reliable data regarding the true impact of this policy on land transfers. Buying hence constitutes the main access to land for this category
– a trend increasing after 2003. Capitalized farmers in the Dry Zone accessed lands primarily through inheritance before 2003 and continued to acquire land through purchase after 2003 in higher amounts and frequency than other categories, though purchased acreages (2.5 acres/household before 2003 vs 2.1 acres/household after 2003) are similar over the two periods. It seems a body of capitalized farmers constituted by older families transferred their land patrimony over generations by channeling land and associated resources (notably cattle) to maintain their dominance. This supports the positive correlation observed between increasing landholding surfaces, increasing age of the household head, and the number of associated cattle.

## 6.3 Farmers strategies and socioeconomic mobility

### Multi-activity in the Delta: the resource of the poor?

As briefly underlined when describing the different categories of farmers in the two zones, none of the three categories in the Delta is correlated to one particular age group regarding the age of the household head. Hence, it is difficult to underline any patrimonial reproduction strategy, unlike the Dry Zone farmers. This tends to support the pioneer dimension of Delta society where the effect of life-cycle capitalization and inheritance is less prevalent than in the Dry Zone.

<table><caption>Table 53: Distribution of Delta farmers' categories per size of the household</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">House hold size</th><th colspan="2">Capitalised family farmers</th><th colspan="2">Multi-active farmers</th><th colspan="2">Farm-specialised small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>&lt; 3 ind.</td><td>20</td><td>21.7</td><td>13</td><td>36.1</td><td>41</td><td>46.6</td><td>74</td><td>34.3</td></tr><tr><td>4 ind</td><td>22</td><td>23.9</td><td>9</td><td>25.0</td><td>19</td><td>21.6</td><td>50</td><td>23.1</td></tr><tr><td>&gt; 5</td><td>50</td><td>54.3</td><td>14</td><td>38.9</td><td>28</td><td>31.8</td><td>92</td><td>42.6</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>92</td><td>100.0</td><td>36</td><td>100.0</td><td>88</td><td>100.0</td><td>216</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=13.8 dof=4 p=0.008 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.179

In the Delta, the Agri-specialized small farmer and capitalized family farmer categories are, however, correlated to different sizes of the household. Agri-specialized small farmers are mainly composed (31.8%) of three-individual households, while being also overrepresented in the category of single-individual households (see Table 53). Capitalized family farmers are mainly represented in the category of households made of five to six individuals (40.2%). Multi-active small farmers are found without much distinction in all categories of household size.
<table><caption>**Table 54:** Correlation between Delta farmers' categories and total incomes (TI)</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Total Income (MMK)</th><th colspan="2">Capitalised family farmers</th><th colspan="2">Multi-active farmers</th><th colspan="2">Farm-specialised small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>&lt; 1.5 millions</td><td>2</td><td>2.2</td><td>15</td><td>41.7</td><td>35</td><td>39.8</td><td>52</td><td>24.1</td></tr><tr><td>1.5 to 3 millions</td><td>6</td><td>6.5</td><td>11</td><td>30.6</td><td>48</td><td>54.5</td><td>65</td><td>30.1</td></tr><tr><td>&gt;3 millions</td><td>84</td><td>91.3</td><td>10</td><td>27.8</td><td>5</td><td>5.7</td><td>99</td><td>45.8</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>92</td><td>100.0</td><td>36</td><td>100.0</td><td>88</td><td>100.0</td><td>216</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=141.5 dof=4 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.572

The sole relationship to the size of the household without any relationship with the age of the household head suggests that access to land and relative landholdings sizes determine in great part the range of profit for each category. Indeed, there is a linearly positive relationship between total incomes and the average holding sizes characterizing each category, with multi-active small farmers being significantly correlated to the lowest incomes category, Agri-specialized small farmers households being correlated to the two intermediate incomes categories, and finally capitalized family farmers households being correlated to the highest incomes category (see **Table 54**).

The share of profit from agriculture arrives in first position both for capitalized family farmers and Agri-specialized small farmers (respectively for 96.7% and 78.4% of households in each of these categories). The share of profit obtained from agricultural labor arrives in first position for almost a third of multi-active small farmers (30.6%), while only 4.5% of Agri-specialized small farmers put it in second position (none in first position), and none of the capitalized family farmers even consider it as a source of profit. Animal husbandry is positively correlated as being the first source of profit for multi-active small farmers (44% of household), the second source of profit for Agri-specialized small farmers and the third source for capitalized family farmers. The share of incomes obtained from livestock is thus negatively correlated to the size of landholdings. Indeed, while 70% of Delta households practice animal husbandry, multi-active small farmers are characterized by larger scale duck breeding activities, with 25% of them owning more than 110 ducks (compared to an average 10.6%). Pig breeding is another important livelihood activity for 75% of multi-active small farmers against an average 51.6% among the three categories.
All three categories practice fishing, however multi-active small farmers are the most involved in this activity (50% of households). Only an extremely low proportion of multi-active small farmers and Agri-specialized small farmers declare fishing to be their main source of profit. Actually, the only significant correlation appears with multi-active small farmers declaring fishing as their third source of profit (19.4% of households). Qualitative interviews show that small landholders cannot easily invest in large scale fishing equipment, and on the other hand, the fishing seasonal calendar conflicts with the agricultural one (especially during harvests, between December and until February in Pay Chaung). A great majority of all categories (92.6% in average) do not consider off-farm work as a source of profit. Small business initiatives (small shops, groceries) are mainly a source of profit for Agri-specialized small farmers and capitalized family farmers, yet only for very small proportions of households in these categories (only around 9% in average).

This first overview of on-farm activities suggests that on-farm diversification of incomes is related to landholding sizes, i.e. the greater the size the lesser diversification is necessary. Off-farm activities (non-primary sector related) also show similar trends.

The analysis of income diversification in on-farm and off-farm activities helps to underline two important points. Firstly, as already stated, multi-activity tends to decrease with the increase in landholding sizes. Hence, multi-activity is mostly a strategy for small farms, especially regarding on-farm activities (agricultural labor, animal husbandry). In addition, off-farm activities (off-farm employed work, small business) are far from being an important source of profit for any of the categories. However, the fact that only Agri-specialized small farmers households declare (yet for only 7% of them) getting their main profit from small business points to the fact that accessing income diversification through non-farm activities is also a matter of resources, with multi-active small farmers being unable to invest in such activities.

These findings tend to show that in the Delta, access to land is the main factor distinguishing poorer from better-off farmers, and marks a difference with the Dry Zone where income diversification (whether on- or off-farm) is also a key factor in securing farmers' livelihoods. To conclude on Delta farmers' strategies in terms of livelihoods' security, 93.5% of capitalized farmers declare they have enough rice for the household's consumption all-year round, while only 25% of multi-active and Agri-specialized small farmers households can say the same.
<table><caption>**Table 55:** Correlation between Delta farmers categories and the fact of lacking rice (Food Insecure) or not</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Capitalized family farmers</th><th colspan="2">Multi-active farmers</th><th colspan="2">Agri-specialized small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Food Insecure</th><td>6</td><td>6.5</td><td>9</td><td>25.0</td><td>22</td><td>25.0</td><td>37</td><td>17.1</td></tr><tr><th>Food Secure</th><td>86</td><td>93.5</td><td>27</td><td>75.0</td><td>66</td><td>75.0</td><td>179</td><td>82.9</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>92</td><td>100.0</td><td>36</td><td>100.0</td><td>88</td><td>100.0</td><td>216</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=12.7 dof=2 p=0.002 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.243

<table><caption>**Table 56:** Food consumption score* for each farmers category in Delta</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Capitalized family farmers</th><th colspan="2">Multi-active farmers</th><th colspan="2">Agri-specialized small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Less than 42</th><td>36</td><td>39.1</td><td>10</td><td>27.8</td><td>46</td><td>52.3</td><td>92</td><td>42.6</td></tr><tr><th>More than 42</th><td>56</td><td>60.9</td><td>26</td><td>72.2</td><td>42</td><td>47.7</td><td>124</td><td>57.4</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>92</td><td>100.0</td><td>36</td><td>100.0</td><td>88</td><td>100.0</td><td>216</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=7.05 dof=2 p=0.029 (Significant) Cramer's V=0.181

* Calculated on the consumption's frequency of different food items over the week preceding the survey.

Despite the fact that the percentage of households being food insecure is the same in both multi-active and Agri-specialized categories, statistical analysis correlates Agri-specialized small farmers to the fact of being food insecure (see **Table 55**). The food consumption score reinforces the difference between multi-active and Agri-specialized small farmers (**Table 56**). Multi-active small farmers are characterized (at 72.2%) by the fact of being in the highest rank of food diversity while Agri-specialized small farmers are at 51.1% in the middle bracket.
Dry Zone patrimonial reproduction strategies

In the Dry Zone, multi-active households are generally young and small, while capitalized family farmers households are on the contrary older and bigger. This suggests that in the Dry Zone young households who haven't fully inherited land yet work only small pieces of lands acquired through marriage, such as the bride-price and/or lands transferred early to the newly married couple by the family in order to make a living. We may recall here the fact that Dry Zone farmers aim at accumulating at least one cattle for each of their children to assist the children when the time comes for them to start their own farm (see V.2). Then young multi-active households would work the land, work others' land as employed workers<fnref n="102" />, do some animal husbandry as an income generating activity<fnref n="103" />, and engage in other activities such as small businesses and factory work in towns. If successful and/or after inheriting the totality of their lands from the parents, they may be able to accumulate more lands and work fully as farmers, i.e. gradually becoming 'capitalized farmers'.

The buying capacity of capitalized farm households is linked as well to diversification of income generating activities. Indeed, capitalized farm households, like multi-active small farm ones, are positively correlated to the fact of having at least one member involved in off-farm work<fnref n="104" /> and 11.4% of them put 'small business' as the second main source of profit (note that 10.8% of multi-active small farmers households put 'small business' as their first source of income). This shared characteristic between capitalized family farmers and multi-active small farmers tends to reinforce the link between these two categories, that at least part of multi-active small farmers are on the way to become capitalized family farmers ones. Along the same lines, this trajectory from multi-active to capitalized family farmers households implies breeding livestock is an income generating activity for the former while it becomes capital – i.e. cattle – for the latter. Finally, multi-active small farmers households are, among the three categories, those most involved in temporary arrangements to cultivate others' land<fnref n="105" />. Such arrangements are often done within their family<fnref n="106" />, suggesting again that newly settled households (rather

<footnote n="102">102. Multi-active micro farmers are overrepresented in the category of households engaged in off-farm activities (45% of them against an average 30.9% of households involved in off-farm activities for all categories).</footnote>

<footnote n="103">103. While multi-active micro farmers households are less frequently involved in animal husbandry than capitalized family farmers or multi-active micro farmers households, they are nonetheless positively correlated with the highest income category (over 350,000 MMK/year for 17% of them) compared to the 2 other categories of farming households.</footnote>

<footnote n="104">104. 37.7% of capitalized family farmers households and 45% of multi-active micro farmers households have at least one member involved in off-farm work, against an average 30.9% for all three categories.</footnote>

<footnote n="105">105. 16.2% (18 households) of the multi-active micro farmers are involved in temporary arrangements, against an average 10.8% for all three categories.</footnote>

<footnote n="106">106. This trend of inter-familial arrangements is mostly underlined through the qualitative study. The quantitative study design could not allow us to discriminate between familial and external arrangements on land use rights.</footnote>
multi-active small farmers) will work part of familial land (from capitalized family farmers households) under these arrangements (whether renting or sharecropping) before getting definitive land use rights on these lands. It may serve to underline that access to land is a dynamic process and that the categories defined for the purpose of these discussions have to be considered cautiously, having in mind that this quantitative survey is a snapshot of possibly transitory states of land tenure and livelihoods.

Agri-specialized small farmers' strategies are more difficult to analyse than the two other categories. As seen above, they are mostly characterized by the fact of getting their primary source of income from agriculture, and the majority does not get access to large land sizes<fnref n="107" />. They are also not considered capitalized because they generally own only a limited number of cattle (between one and three mainly) and do not possess other equipment such as a power tiller (97% of households don't own one, contrary to capitalized family farmers, 32.5% of whom own one). Agri-specialized small farmers don't grow any valuable cash crop, except for tomato. Half of the households live in Hledar (see Chapter V.2.1) and cultivate on small land plots established over temporary streams by retaining alluvial soils with embankments. Apart from these lands (once again quite small in size), it seems that the Agri-specialized small farmers category is characterized by having access only to low quality ya lands that do not allow cultivation of high value cash crops. Finally, what characterizes them the most, contrary to the other two categories, is the fact they are almost exclusively doing agriculture, and nothing else. Finally, looking at modalities of accessing land, we saw that a lower rate of Agri-specialized small farmers inherited land than did multi-active small farmers, yet those who inherited acquired larger sized plots through inheritance. This may constitute a fundamental difference, as access to a small plot of land though inheritance at the beginning of the household's life cycle seems to provide more financial capacity to invest in other livelihoods activities. Conversely, the lack of land for a newly settled household may hinder investment capacity of farmers. Therefore, it underlines the reciprocal relationship between access to land and investment capacity and the role of off-farm livelihoods for increasing on-farm production (investing in cash crops).

**Multi-activity and income diversification: the 'real' security in Dry Zone?**

As underlined above, multi-activity in the Dry Zone is not the privilege of multi-active small farmers but also concerns capitalized farmers households. This is actually something that distinguishes these two categories from the Agri-specialized small farmers one. Nevertheless, the same strategies are not for everybody. For instance, it appears that multi-active small farmers are significantly correlated to the fact of

<footnote n="107">107. 80% of Agri-specialized small farmers households cultivate between 2.5 and 10 acres.</footnote>
having at least one member working outside the township. Agri-specialized small farmers, however, are more likely not to migrate and migration has no significant link with the capitalized farmers category. It suggests that migration is a strategy in itself especially for multi-active small farm households. 25% of capitalized family farmers also have a member migrating for work. This again reinforces the link put forward between younger multi-active small farmers heading in their lifetime to become capitalized family farmers. It indicates that when individuals do not yet have access to land – young individuals from capitalized farmers and multi-active small farmers households – are more likely to look for employment around and abroad before reinvesting earnings from this labor locally (and if possible, in land resources). On the other hand, Agri-specialized small farmers are correlated to the fact of having no members working outside the region or country (Table 57), suggesting that this category of farmers is caught in an almost exclusive agriculture-based livelihood with few options for additional incomes apart from daily farm labor. Given the small frequency of inheritance and their low capacity to buy land, we may even consider the hypothesis that households – barely able to reproduce themselves especially in the absence of a land front and an increasing land fragmentation over time – are fuelling the growing body of landless households.

When looking at incomes (see Table 58), Dry Zone multi-active small farmers are correlated to two different brackets: 29.7% of households are earning less than 750,000 MMK a year, while 41.4% of households are situated in the 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 MMK bracket.

<table><caption>**Table 57:** Frequency of households having at least one member working outside the township among the 3 farmer categories (Dry Zone)</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Capitalized family farmers</th><th colspan="2">Multi-active farmers</th><th colspan="2">Agri-specialized small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>None</th><td>85</td><td>74.6</td><td>74</td><td>66.7</td><td>107</td><td>83.6</td><td>266</td><td>75.4</td></tr><tr><th>1 or more</th><td>29</td><td>25.4</td><td>37</td><td>33.3</td><td>21</td><td>16.4</td><td>87</td><td>24.6</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>114</td><td>100.0</td><td>111</td><td>100.0</td><td>128</td><td>100.0</td><td>353</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=9.23 dof=2 p=0.01 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.162

Multi-active small farmers households in the upper category of incomes are in majority households with four persons<fnref n="108" /> and more (39.1% between five and six

<footnote n="108">108. 32.6% of the 46 households earning between 1.5 and 3 million MMK a year.</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 58: Total incomes (in MMK) of the different farm categories (Dry Zone)</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Total income (MMK)</th><th colspan="2">Capitalized family farmers</th><th colspan="2">Multi-active farmers</th><th colspan="2">Agri-specialized small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>&lt; 750,000</td><td>1</td><td>0.9</td><td>33</td><td>29.7</td><td>50</td><td>39.1</td><td>84</td><td>23.8</td></tr><tr><td>0.75 to &lt; 1,5 millions</td><td>6</td><td>5.3</td><td>28</td><td>25.2</td><td>50</td><td>39.1</td><td>84</td><td>23.8</td></tr><tr><td>1,5 to &lt; 3 millions</td><td>33</td><td>28.9</td><td>46</td><td>41.4</td><td>27</td><td>21.1</td><td>106</td><td>30.0</td></tr><tr><td>3 millions and more</td><td>74</td><td>64.9</td><td>4</td><td>3.6</td><td>1</td><td>0.8</td><td>79</td><td>22.4</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>114</td><td>100.0</td><td>111</td><td>100.0</td><td>128</td><td>100.0</td><td>353</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=213.0 dof=6 p=0.001 (very significant) Cramer's V=0.549

persons, 13% with six to 12 individuals). A greater number of working individuals in the household are likely to make significant contributions to yearly incomes compared to the other multi-active households. Nonetheless, it also suggests a kind of 'specialization' in multi-activity, as these households are generally long established within the village tract<fnref n="109" /> and a great proportion (74%) is more than 40 years old<fnref n="110" />. It means that these households are already well-established ones, which 'specialized' in multi-activity and specific economic niches (itinerant trading of items between villages, weaving, work in town, etc.), at least while not having access to larger tracts of land. The part of the Multi-active small farming households represented in the lower income category are younger and smaller. This is likely that part of these households will become Capitalized farmers in later stage of their life cycle, a fact reinforced by the shared propensity for multi-activity in these two categories.

In the Dry Zone, the distribution of non-farm incomes among the three categories follows a 'U' shape described in Niehof (2004: 326, referring to Ellis 2000) regarding the significance of diversification for rural households. Here the non-farm income share is relatively high for small farmers – for instance our multi-active category – and for larger farm-sizes (our capitalized family farmers) while it declines in the middle-income farm size – the Agri-specialized small farmers described in this chapter. According to Niehof, this "situation occurs in rural areas where the poor are landless, the better-off have access to land from which they derive most of their income,

<footnote n="109">109. 91.3% of these 46 households' heads were born within the village tract.</footnote>

<footnote n="110">110. Against an average 62.2% for the multi-active micro farmers category in Dry Zone.</footnote>
and the rich are large landowners with different sources of income" (ibid.: 326). The same study by Ellis (2000), proposed two other patterns regarding the relationship between income diversification and poverty. The first one is a linear negative relationship where the share of non-farm incomes decreases with the landholding size. This pattern is observed in many parts of Asia and Latin America where access to agricultural land is the main factor distinguishing poor and rich households. The inverse relationship is found in rural Africa where livestock and human capital are the key resources differentiating the poor from the better-off households. Hence, as far as Dry Zone farmers are concerned, it is possible to draw on these three patterns to emphasize both access to land and access to livestock and human capital as key resources differentiating better-off and poorer households, while neither one nor the other are enough as a sole resource to secure a household's livelihood. Apart from incomes (to which we saw that multi-active small farmers were correlated partly in the lowest and partly in the 2nd highest categories), the fact of lacking rice (for the household's consumption) at least once in the year can be considered as a good indicator of their financial status and security. Looking at this variable, it appears that multi-active small farmers are characterized neither by the fact of being 'food secure' or 'food insecure' (see Table 59). However, Agri-specialized small farmers – the category relying mostly on agricultural incomes – are linked to the fact of being 'food insecure'. On the other hand, capitalized family farmers are significantly correlated to the fact of being 'food secure', with 98.2% of the households.

<table><caption>**Table 59:** Distribution of households declaring lacking rice at least once in the year, among the 3 farmers categories (Dry Zone)</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Capitalised family farmers</th><th colspan="2">Multi-active farmers</th><th colspan="2">Farm-specialised small farmers</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Not enough rice</td><td>2</td><td>1.8</td><td>17</td><td>15.3</td><td>22</td><td>17.2</td><td>41</td><td>11.6</td></tr><tr><td>Enough rice</td><td>112</td><td>98.2</td><td>94</td><td>84.7</td><td>106</td><td>82.8</td><td>312</td><td>88.4</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>114</td><td>100.0</td><td>111</td><td>100.0</td><td>128</td><td>100.0</td><td>353</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=16.1 dof=2 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.214
## 6.4 Discussion on the two zones

When comparing Delta and Dry Zone farmers' livelihood strategies and security, we may emphasize two features on which can be drawn different oppositions between the two areas. The first differentiating factor lies in the different histories of these two areas. As seen in **Chapter IV**, most Dry Zone villages under study have been developed from the pre-colonial Burmese monarchies through colonial times. These villages have been developed over a long time-span, based on customary social organization such as the pre-colonial divide between land owning individuals and their servants-tenants (kyun). Without denying the impacts of colonial rule on the Dry Zone (e.g. the restructuring of village-based administration), such villages nevertheless have a stronger capacity for 'resilience' regarding their own social organization in comparison with newly created ones. One remarkably significant observation is the existence of greater horizontal ties within each stratum of the society (large landowners, agricultural laborers, off-farm workers), which supplements the existence of vertical ties between landowners with their laborers, for example.

In the Delta, on the other hand, for recent villages that were studied here, British colonial rule was much more than a disruption; it was a foundational act. Pushed by the opening of a new land front in the Delta, hundreds of thousands of Burmese migrants coming from the Dry Zone and other Upper Burma regions came to clear new lands, continuously extending cultivated areas toward the south. Not only were new villages composed of people coming from different areas and of different 'backgrounds' (yet most of them were royal servants or freemen), but they were constantly being re-modeled by households moving with the land front, others coming in to settle, etc. As a consequence, in most Delta villages vertical ties (or patron-client relationships) long dominated social organization at the expense of horizontal ones. The different histories of the two areas translate into – as far as livelihoods and land tenure are concerned – a greater economic differentiation among Dry Zone villages, coming with stronger reproduction mechanisms. In other words, Dry Zone landowners as a whole have higher probability of remaining land-owning households through generations, which is also true for landless laborers and other socioeconomic categories, who also have a higher probability of remaining within their own category. Hence, from the landowners' perspective it can be translated as greater livelihoods' security, while poorer strata of the population lack access to land as capitalized farmers capture most resources as they work to reproduce their own livelihoods.

Conversely, in the Delta, socioeconomic mobility is higher and often operated along patronal ties. The patron-client relationship is based in great part on the access patrons get over two main kinds of resources: capital (land and financial capital) and social resources (through strategic relationships with people having
control over direct resources and over the local political landscape) (Geffray 1996: 156). Such relationships are even more salient when access to extra-village resources (markets, but also authorities) are difficult, which is a central characteristic of Delta villages compared to the Dry Zone where roads allow greater mobility<fnref n="111" />. This organization is well illustrated by the importance of being connected with administrative authorities to be able to accumulate lands. While such relationship based on social capital cannot be measured easily through quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews show well this relationship (see Chapter VII.4.1). Yet, the relationship between different classes of landholdings and having a household member knowing somebody from local administrative bodies (village administrator, clerk, VTFMC) can support this assertion. In the Dry Zone, as seen in Table 60, the fact of knowing somebody from local administrative bodies is significantly correlated with the fact of having more than 10 acres of arable land (and conversely for landless households who are generally not connected).

This is somewhat logical in an agrarian society, as larger landowners are generally able to access positions within integrating administrative bodies. Interestingly, in the Delta both households owning between zero and five acres and those owning more than 10 acres are significantly correlated with the fact of having one member in local administrative bodies (Table 61). This tends to show that access to social capital in Delta is important in accessing land but does not guarantee alone land accumulation, again underlining the greater socioeconomic mobility characterizing this region. This gives a sense of the preponderance of social capital in getting access to land, as it is not only related to the landholdings' surfaces.

<table><caption>**Table 60: Relationship with landholdings (acres) and the fact of having a household member in local administrative bodies in Dry Zone**</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Landless</th><th colspan="2">0-5</th><th colspan="2">5-10</th><th colspan="2">&gt; 10</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>None</th><td>235</td><td>95.9</td><td>100</td><td>96.2</td><td>123</td><td>91.8</td><td>95</td><td>82.6</td><td>553</td><td>92.5</td></tr><tr><th>One &amp; more</th><td>10</td><td>4.1</td><td>4</td><td>3.8</td><td>11</td><td>8.2</td><td>20</td><td>17.4</td><td>45</td><td>7.5</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>245</td><td>100.0</td><td>104</td><td>100.0</td><td>134</td><td>100.0</td><td>115</td><td>100.0</td><td>598</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=22.4 dof=3 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.193

<footnote n="111">111. In the Delta this also creates a differential between villages closer to Bogale (Aye Ywar for example) and more remote ones (such as Pay Chaung).</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 61:** Relationship with landholdings (acres) and the fact of knowing persons from local administrative bodies in Delta</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Landless</th><th colspan="2">0-5</th><th colspan="2">5-10</th><th colspan="2">&gt; 10</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>None</td><td>304</td><td>96.5</td><td>69</td><td>85.2</td><td>57</td><td>90.5</td><td>58</td><td>80.6</td><td>488</td><td>91.9</td></tr><tr><td>One &amp; more</td><td>11</td><td>3.5</td><td>12</td><td>14.8</td><td>6</td><td>9.5</td><td>14</td><td>19.4</td><td>43</td><td>8.1</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>315</td><td>100.0</td><td>81</td><td>100.0</td><td>63</td><td>100.0</td><td>72</td><td>100.0</td><td>531</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=26.5 dof=3 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.223

We must add here that the situation observed in Delta, evincing features of a pioneer society (which was the case in the 19th and early 20th centuries), may also be linked to the impact of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. Apart from the huge human death toll and the salinization of lands, most of all it inflicted a huge loss of capital (both financial and cattle) for all categories of households. Therefore, Cyclone Nargis probably affected the life cycle and the 'typical' trajectories of Delta households (which would gradually increase their livelihood security as household heads got older).

The second set of oppositions between farmers' livelihood strategies in the Dry Zone and in the Delta relates to the different agricultural characteristics of the two areas. The fact that Delta villages are almost exclusively centered on paddy cultivation and that in the Dry Zone agriculture is much more diversified has different consequences. First, from a historical and political perspective, it greatly influenced the past governments' policies and their impact locally. To summarize what has been explained in **Chapter IV**, much of previous Myanmar governments' efforts focused on controlling paddy production for the state's interests, often against farmers' ones. Therefore, Delta villages were much more affected than in Dry Zone by these policies, among which the Compulsory Quota policy was probably the main vector of land sales and purchases (despite the legal ban on such transfers) executed in the Delta between 1964 and 2003. In the Dry Zone, this Compulsory Quota policy, despite being applied also to pulses, was somehow not profitable enough to justify policy enforcement. In the Dry Zone, most land sales and purchases were therefore linked to farmers' own economic and familial characteristics, rather than driven by state policies.

The major difference in agricultural practices has also a direct impact on the level of specialization farmers must engage. Paddy cultivation necessitates more
investments than most of other crops (with exception of onion in the Dry Zone). For smallholders, such investments are hard to mobilize, even with the support of the Myanmar Agricultural Development Bank's (MADB) low-interest loans, notably due to the untimely schedule on which these loans are delivered (see **Chapter IX.2.2**). This explains at least partly that 40.3% of landowners in the Delta rely on private loans against only 21.8% in the Dry Zone. The greater investments needed for paddy cultivation are integrated in the MADB loans' policy which provides 100,000MMK per acre up to ten acres for paddy cultivation, while ya crops are supported by a 20,000MMK loan per acre (up to ten acres as well). While more than 60% of Delta farmers borrowed (all loans aggregated) more than 600,000MMK per year, 84% of Dry Zone farmers borrow less than 600,000MMK per year, with 33% only borrowing between 150 to 300,000MMK per year. Though the extent of profits made over paddy and other crops could not be precisely compared between the two zones through the quantitative study, some indicators show that as a whole Dry Zone farmers are more food secure than Delta farmers. As per **Table 62**, the rate of households having enough rice throughout the whole year is higher for Dry Zone (88.4%) than in the Delta (82.9%). The fact of having to borrow money for health expenses (an acknowledged cause of indebtedness and vulnerability throughout Myanmar<fnref n="112" />) shows the same opposition (**Table 63**).

<table><caption>**Table 62:** Share of landowners declaring having (or not) enough rice throughout the year for their own consumption in Delta and Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Delta</th><th colspan="2">Dry Zone</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Not enough rice</th><td>37</td><td>17.1</td><td>41</td><td>11.6</td><td>78</td><td>13.7</td></tr><tr><th>Enough rice</th><td>179</td><td>82.9</td><td>312</td><td>88.4</td><td>491</td><td>86.3</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>216</td><td>100.0</td><td>353</td><td>100.0</td><td>569</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=3.45 dof=2 p=0.176 Cramer's V=0.078

We must also elaborate on an *a priori* contradicting result: comparing landowners in the Dry Zone and the Delta having to borrow money in order to buy food significantly points at Dry Zone landowners as resorting to food related loans. However, with paddy as the staple food of lowlands Myanmar, paddy producers can keep part of their production for their own consumption, while few farmers produce paddy in the Dry Zone. On the other hand, more detailed scrutiny on Dry

<footnote n="112">112. See for example Inn Kynn Khaing *et al.*, 2015.</footnote>
Zone villages shows that the village of Hledar is in great part causing this effect with 63% of landowners in this village reporting contracting loans for food expenses. This high rate is linked with the general poorer status of landowners in this village, where lands are of worse quality than in other villagers and where a great part of landowners are relying on small scale tomato cultivation, which is profitable yet quite limited in terms of surfaces and very localized in time.

<table><caption>**Table 63:** Share of landowners having to borrow (or not) money for health purposes in Delta and Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Delta</th><th colspan="2">Dry Zone</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Borrowing for health</th><td>67</td><td>32.8</td><td>54</td><td>19.1</td><td>121</td><td>24.9</td></tr><tr><th>Not borrowing for health</th><td>137</td><td>67.2</td><td>228</td><td>80.9</td><td>365</td><td>75.1</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>204</td><td>100.0</td><td>282</td><td>100.0</td><td>486</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=11.1 dof=1 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.151

Hence, paddy production, and particularly double paddy cropping requires farmers to 'specialize' in agriculture<fnref n="113" /> notably due to its greater labor requirements and greater investments demanded. Farmers thus have to manage time and greater flows of money, having to move between different loan sources (MADB, private money-lenders) which brings greater risks of becoming over-indebted in case of crop failure. Ya crops necessitate on the contrary fewer investments, hence contain fewer risks in case of crop failure. However, due to weather's unpredictability, we have seen that incomes' diversification, notably in off-farm sectors but also by capitalizing on cattle, is a much-needed safety net for Dry Zone farmers independently from the surfaces they hold.

## 7. Who are the rural landless households? Discussing the concepts of landlessness and 'land-exclusion'

Rural landless households are defined here as those households who do not have permanent land use rights on farmland. This definition however encompasses a wide range of socioeconomic situations, from potential traders, business owners,

<footnote n="113">113. This is true for Delta and Dry Zone. In Dry Zone, among the 77 households practicing double paddy cropping, 73 have no other activities.</footnote>
to daily farm laborers. While all these households are technically 'farmlandless' households, not all are engaged in farm work or may be seeking to become farmers. Moreover, we already looked quickly into the fact that landlessness (as defined here) does not mean the same thing for younger and older households, since the share of landless households decreases regularly with the age of the household's head see section VII 2.1). This relationship at least shows that frequency of access to land increases with the age of the household (i.e. through inheritance and accumulation of financial and social capitals).

Before trying to categorize rural landless households, a first look at incomes generated by these households helps underline their diversity. As shown in Table 64, 74.3% of landless households (among both zones) are in the two lowest income categories, while 61.4% of landowners are situated in the two highest income brackets. Hence, it seems at first sight that rural landlessness means economic vulnerability for the great majority. Yet, disaggregating between the two zones, it appears that rural landless households' economic situation is quite different in the Delta and the Dry Zone. In the Dry Zone, landless households are overrepresented in the intermediate upper income category (1.5 million to three million MMK per year): 26.1% of Dry Zone landless are against 14.9% among Delta landless. On the other hand, in the Delta, 46.3% of landless households are in the lowest income category, and only 28% among Dry Zone landless households (Table 65).

<table><caption>**Table 64:** Distribution of landowning and landless households according to annual total incomes in Delta and Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Total income (MMK)</th><th colspan="2">Landowners</th><th colspan="2">Landless</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>TI &lt;750,000</td><td>95</td><td>16.7</td><td>215</td><td>38.4</td><td>310</td><td>27.5</td></tr><tr><td>TI 750,000 to 1,500,000</td><td>125</td><td>22.0</td><td>201</td><td>35.9</td><td>326</td><td>28.9</td></tr><tr><td>TI 1,500,000 to 3,000,000</td><td>171</td><td>30.1</td><td>111</td><td>19.8</td><td>282</td><td>25.0</td></tr><tr><td>TI &gt;3,000,000</td><td>178</td><td>31.3</td><td>33</td><td>5.9</td><td>211</td><td>18.7</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>569</td><td>100.0</td><td>560</td><td>100.0</td><td>1,129</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=176.5 dof=3 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.395
<table><caption>**Table 65:** Distribution of landless households per annual total incomes and per area in Delta and Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Total income (MMK)</th><th colspan="2">Delta</th><th colspan="2">Dry Zone</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>TI &lt;750,000</td><td>146</td><td>46.3</td><td>69</td><td>28.2</td><td>215</td><td>38.4</td></tr><tr><td>TI 750,000 to 1,500,000</td><td>108</td><td>34.3</td><td>93</td><td>38.0</td><td>201</td><td>35.9</td></tr><tr><td>TI 1,500,000 to 3,000,000</td><td>47</td><td>14.9</td><td>64</td><td>26.1</td><td>111</td><td>19.8</td></tr><tr><td>TI &gt;3,000,000</td><td>14</td><td>4.4</td><td>19</td><td>7.8</td><td>33</td><td>5.9</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>315</td><td>100.0</td><td>245</td><td>100.0</td><td>560</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=23.7 dof=3 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.206

**Figure 40** shows that Delta landless much more frequently access lands through temporary arrangements (27% against only 6% in the Dry Zone). Delta landless are also much more dependent on on-farm activities and the primary sector (90% of Delta households against only 56% in Dry Zone). These differences have to be linked with the greater diversity and greater wealth opportunities of income generating activities accessible by rural landless households in the Dry Zone compared to the Delta (see section VII.5 on income diversification), as well as greater labor mobility. When doing Factorial Analysis of Components (see Annex 8 for the details), two groups can be distinguished based on their respective zone (Delta and Dry Zone) and associated activities (respectively fishing and weaving) on the one hand, and on the other a third group emerges based on the fact of accessing paddy lands under temporary arrangements. This third group is closely associated with the fact of breeding a large number of ducks (above 110 animals). Based on these two factors, it is logical that these farmers are mostly found in Delta.

It is noteworthy that the 'Delta landless' group is closely associated with the fact of being involved in on-farm wage labor and the 'Dry Zone landless' group with the fact of being involved in off-farm wage labor. This supports the idea developed when discussing farmers' livelihood strategies, that multi-activity in Delta is principally confined to on-farm livelihoods' diversification while in Dry Zone more employment opportunities are available in the off-farm sector.

Therefore, it already tends to confirm the assertion made earlier that in the Delta, more than in the Dry Zone, access to land is a highly differentiating factor among households, an idea which is explored further below.
Delta landless

<figure><img src="image_77.png" /></figure>

Dry Zone landless

<figure><img src="image_78.png" /></figure>

Agri: agriculture/cultivation, FW: on-farm hired labor work, LS: livestock breeding

<caption>**Figure 40:** Delta and Dry Zone landless' involvement in the primary sector</caption>
## 7.1 Landlessness in the Delta

Following a FAC specific to the Delta (see Annex 8), landless households are distributed into three groups:

* The first one is highly characterized by households having access to temporary land use rights (hereafter 'Farming Landless'), representing 72 households (among which 71 practice agriculture);

* The second one is mainly composed of on-farm wage laborers and fishermen (hereafter 'Farm laborer and Fishing Landless'), representing 148 households;

* The third one is mainly composed of off-farm wage laborers and households having small businesses (grocery shops mainly), hereafter called 'Off-Farm landless', composed of 95 households.

<figure><img src="image_79.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 41:** Distribution of different types of landless in Delta<fnref n="114" /></figcaption></figure>

In order to unpack landless households' trajectories and strategies, a first look at the different age brackets of household heads in these three groups shows that Farming Landless households are generally headed by younger individuals (25% of them are under 30 years old while only 16.5% in the whole Delta landless population are headed by young household heads), Farm laborer

and Fishing Landless are in average headed by slightly older individuals (37.2% of them are in the 30 to 40 years old category) and finally, Off-Farm landless are in average headed by older individuals (46.3% are aged more than 50).

### Temporary land use arrangements for landless: securing permanent access to land?

If we stick to the idea that at least part of landless households seek to become farmers with permanent land use rights (a somewhat logical ambition in any agrarian society), the relationship between each landless category and their respective age bracket is unlikely to point to a lifetime livelihood trajectory leading young Farming Landless households to become Farm laborer and Fishing Landless and then Off-Farm landless. It rather points at young Farming Landless households

<footnote n="114">114. We observe a slight variation with the graphic above (Figure 30) – 23% of Farming Landless against 27% of landless accessing land through arrangements – due to the fact that some of landless households accessing land fall in the two other categories (Off-Farm and On-Farm fishing Landless).</footnote>
on the eve of becoming farmers, most probably through inheritance as we have already seen that children inherit when they are in their 40s/50s.

<table><caption>**Table 66:** Distribution of Delta landless households in each category according to the age of the household head</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Age</th><th colspan="2">Farming Landless</th><th colspan="2">On-Farm Fishing Landless</th><th colspan="2">Off-Farm landless</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>&lt; 30</td><td>18</td><td>25.0</td><td>24</td><td>16.2</td><td>10</td><td>10.5</td><td>52</td><td>16.5</td></tr><tr><td>30 to &lt; 40</td><td>28</td><td>38.9</td><td>55</td><td>37.2</td><td>18</td><td>18.9</td><td>101</td><td>32.1</td></tr><tr><td>40 to &lt; 50</td><td>15</td><td>20.8</td><td>38</td><td>25.7</td><td>23</td><td>24.2</td><td>76</td><td>24.1</td></tr><tr><td>50 to &lt; 60</td><td>9</td><td>12.5</td><td>21</td><td>14.2</td><td>21</td><td>22.1</td><td>51</td><td>16.2</td></tr><tr><td>≥ 60</td><td>2</td><td>2.8</td><td>10</td><td>6.8</td><td>23</td><td>24.2</td><td>35</td><td>11.1</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>72</td><td>100.0</td><td>148</td><td>100.0</td><td>95</td><td>100.0</td><td>315</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=37.7 dof=8 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.245

Looking closer at Farming Landless, 32 households are renting land from others and 36 households are cultivating land under sharecropping arrangements. Interestingly, the 32 households renting land only cultivate summer paddy, through free arrangements. As per qualitative interviews, these free arrangements are made among relatives. By contrast, 32 out of the 36 landless households cultivating land under sharecropping arrangements are doing so over the two seasons of paddy. Once again, as per qualitative interviews, although sharecropping arrangements are also widespread among families (such as in the case of parents temporarily giving lands under sharecropping to their children, before the latter receive them on a permanent basis, through inheritance), sharecropping arrangements are also done among 'strangers' - as in the case of Tet Tet Ku (14 out of the 36) which are contracted with an absentee landowner. Among the 36 households involved in sharecropping, 17 are cultivating more than five acres.

Renting arrangements concern only small surfaces (mainly under three acres) of summer paddy. In the case of renting out land for summer paddy, qualitative interviews rather point at landowners lacking the financial capacity to put all their lands under cultivation - which is much more expensive than for monsoon paddy - and therefore providing the opportunity to close landless households (whether being relatives or inscribed into their client networks) to work a plot of land as
an additional source of income. Therefore, among the group of Farming Landless households, about one-third of them (the familial sharecropping agreements) may be considered as potentially securing land use rights over the land they cultivate through inheritance in a latter stage. Returning to the three landless households categories, a comparison in terms of annual incomes shows the following trend: farming landless and Off-Farm landless are well distributed among the three incomes categories (see below), yet are correlated to the upper class of incomes (> 1.5 million MMK/year); Farm laborer and Fishing Landless are hardly found in the upper class of incomes and rather are statistically correlated to the lowest one (< 750,000 MMK/year).

<table><caption>Table 67: Distribution of Delta landless categories per total annual incomes</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Total income (MMK)</th><th colspan="2">Farming Landless</th><th colspan="2">On-Farm Fishing Landless</th><th colspan="2">Off-Farm landless</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>TI &lt;750,000</td><td>26</td><td>36.1</td><td>87</td><td>58.8</td><td>33</td><td>34.7</td><td>146</td><td>46.3</td></tr><tr><td>TI 0.75 to 1.5 millions</td><td>19</td><td>26.4</td><td>59</td><td>39.9</td><td>30</td><td>31.6</td><td>108</td><td>34.3</td></tr><tr><td>&gt; 1.5 millions</td><td>27</td><td>37.5</td><td>2</td><td>1.4</td><td>32</td><td>33.7</td><td>61</td><td>19.4</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>72</td><td>100</td><td>148</td><td>100</td><td>95</td><td>100</td><td>315</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=59.3 dof=4 p=0.001 (very significant) Cramer's V=0.307

The fact that a quarter of landless farming households report they are able to save money would support the idea that accessing land through temporary arrangements may be a strategy to later purchase permanent land use rights. Looking at Delta landowners who bought land after 2003 (29 households), 12 households (41%) did so between the ages of 30 and 40, once again supporting the idea that older households purchase land after having accumulated enough money. Finally, this category is also statistically correlated to the fact of declaring livestock as a main source of profit (which is the case for 16.7% of landless farming households).

The landless farming household category reminds us of the multi-active small farmers in the Dry Zone discussed above, who diversify their agricultural incomes (relatively low as they generally own small plots) through animal husbandry to constitute financial capital as part of their patrimonial reproduction strategy. This constitutes one more indicator of the fact that landless households contracting
temporary land use arrangements in the Delta are heading toward the status of farmers. As we have seen in the previous discussion of Delta farmers, socioeconomic mobility remains high and land tenure security low, especially for those owning small surfaces (under 10 acres).

**An attempt to disaggregate ‘land-excluded’ and ‘non-farm’ landless households**

Motivated by the desire to attain a more precise picture of landless households’ diversity, and also trying to better characterize processes of exclusion over access to land resources, an overview of the two remaining categories may help this endeavor.

As explained above, Off-Farm landless household heads are correlated with the fact of being aged more than 50. The share of older households suggests a kind of specialization in off-farm work, with 21% of households putting off-farm employed work derived profits in first position in terms of contribution to the household income and 13% small-business derived profits as main source of household income. Note that fishing is not an activity characterizing this category compared to on-farmlandless fishers, though 17% of Off-Farm landless declare fishing as their main source of profit. For these Off-Farm landless fishing households, total incomes suggest these households are composed of full-time fishermen rather than seasonal – small scale – ones (by contrast with farm laborer/fishing landless). One last characteristic is that 35.8% of these households benefit from migrant remittances, which is significantly higher than the average (18.7%) of Delta landless households. Given that people migrating for work are generally younger individuals, and on the other hand the average age of an Off-Farm landless household head is greater than for other categories, we can make the hypothesis that young individuals from these households are more likely to look for work outside the local sphere (and most probably in urban areas). Based on these observations, we may even say that landlessness for this category is not (anymore) a default state while waiting for the opportunity to access land, but is (or has become) a strategy to reduce their dependence on land for their livelihood.

Finally, the farm laborer/fishing landless category (aspiring to become farmers as well – see **Chapter V.4**), who represent almost half of Delta landless households, may be the most affected by local exclusion processes regarding land access, on which they however highly depend as on-farm wage laborers. Fishing arrives in first position for 37.8% of them (and in second position for 28.4%) but on-farm wage labor is their primary source of income with 42.1% of them declaring this activity as their first source of profit, and 31.1% as their second main source of profit.
Therefore, when talking about landlessness in the Delta, we could tentatively conclude that about one half of rural landless households are in need of attaining access to farmlands in order to secure their livelihood. This is somewhat confirmed by Farm laborer/fishing landless households being the sole category linked (even if with little statistical significance) with the fact of lacking rice at least once over the year (44.6% compared to an average 39% for Delta landless households).

Yet, considering the age-effect already observed on the ratio landless/ landowners, we could go further discussing an 'appropriate' definition of landlessness in the Delta, with regard to the need to access farmland. It has been said that being aged 40 to 50 years old was a critical point in households' agricultural trajectories, marking the time of inheritance. Figures in section VII 2.1 well illustrates this point: the proportion of landless households decreases continuously with older household head age categories, and stabilizes for the 40-50 year age category. Based on this and above analysis of Delta landless households, we could propose the following calculations (while bearing in mind that such lifetime trajectories may change over the next generations, a point discussed in VII.2.1).

As explained above, about half (148 households) of the total 315 households may be considered here as 'genuine' agrarian landless. Besides, the ratio landless/ landowners in the Delta shows that landless households decrease by 27% between the 30 to 40 years old and the 40 to 50 years old categories. Therefore, we could consider that about a third of the landless households surveyed in Delta (that is 20% of the total 531 surveyed households) have no prospect of accessing land through their lifetimes.

Of course, this is only an attempt to disaggregate the different categories of landless households in Delta and we are well aware of the limitations of such extrapolations based on past agricultural trajectories that may not necessarily remain the same over time (see Section 7.3 on this point). Besides, it does not take into account local discrepancies – e.g., in villages such as Pay Chaung or Tet Tet Ku the 'genuine landless' proportion is much higher than in Aye Ywar or Thabyugon for example.

## 7.2 Landlessness in Dry Zone

In order to situate landlessness in the Dry Zone against landlessness in the Delta, we must underline the fact that in the Dry Zone only 6.5% of the landless households cultivate land under temporary arrangements, which is considerably lower than the 23% of Delta landless households involved in such arrangements. Hence, the fact of cultivating others' land could not be used as a differentiating factor. On the other hand, given the greater opportunities for income diversification
in the Dry Zone, the FAC performed on landless households took mainly into account the different on-farm and off-farm activities and their rating in terms of profit sources (see Annex 8). Based on this FAC, Dry Zone landless households have been disaggregated into 3 groups:

* The first one, which includes 51 households, is characterized by being almost exclusively composed of on-farm wage laborers (94% of these households), an activity from which they get their main source of income (72.5% of these households). They are hereafter called 'Farm Laborer Landless'.

* The second one, made of 74 households, is characterized by being actively involved in livestock breeding (93% of these households), including cattle (46%). Livestock breeding represents the first source of income for almost 34% of households. Nonetheless, 55% of these households also practice on-farm wage labor – yet this activity is ranked first source of income for only 9.5% of these households – and 90% have some members involved in off-farm wage labor (36.5% of households in the category report this activity as their main source of profit). For these reasons, they are hereafter called 'Multi-Active Landless'.

* Finally, a third group of 120 households is characterized by being mainly involved in off-farm activities<fnref n="115" /> (99% of these households) and are statistically correlated with the fact of not being involved in on-farm wage labor (only 27.5% have members doing on-farm wage labor) from which 64% of households are getting their main source of income. They are hereafter called 'Off-Farm landless'.

Given there is a statistical correlation between these categories and neither the age of the household head nor the average age of the household members, it is impossible to discuss possible lifetime trajectories, as done for Dry Zone farmers and Delta landless households. Therefore, we should discuss these categories mainly in terms of livelihood security, specialization, and in comparison with Delta landless households.

## A genuine Off-Farm landless category?

Interestingly enough, while the bulk of Delta landless households fall in the most vulnerable category, so-called on-farmlandless fishers, in the Dry Zone most landless households (49%) fall in the Off-Farm landless one (i.e. non agrarian). As its name indicates, these Off-Farm landless households are characterized by performing mostly (almost exclusively) off-farm livelihood activities. In order to reinforce their off-farm specialization, we can notice that very few (19 households) are involved in home gardening, even fewer (only three households) in animal husbandry, none possess

<footnote n="115">115. Here defined as excluding animal husbandry as well.</footnote>
cattle, while only 33 households count members involved in on-farm wage labor.

As a matter of fact, these landless households have put a great distance from agricultural livelihoods. In this regard, Off-Farm landless household heads are significantly correlated with being more literate (see Table 68). Indeed, government staff (teachers, administrative staff) are present. Furthermore, they show a

stronger interest in investing in education for their family members, as seen in Table 69. The link with the Off-Farm landless category and the percentage of household members reaching higher education is even more significant, as almost 52% of households are composed of three or fewer individuals. Such correlation cannot be found in any other categorization (whether on farmers or landless in both zones). Hence, marking a difference with the Delta, the Dry Zone seems to feature a significant number (at least half of all landless households) of genuine Off-Farm landless households, who have little concern or interest in agrarian livelihoods. This supports the idea that access to land-based resources is less important in shaping Dry Zone communities' livelihoods than in the Delta. This may also be the result of a higher degree of land fragmentation compared to the Delta, and less socioeconomic mobility for landless households (between off-farm and agrarian livelihoods) leading a fringe of Dry Zone society to connect with more 'urban' livelihoods.

<figure><img src="image_80.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 42:** Distribution of different types of landless in the Dry Zone</figcaption></figure>

## Agrarian landless: strength in numbers?

Among the three categories introduced above, two can be characterized by the total yearly incomes they generate. Quite in line with what has been underlined for Dry Zone farmers, it seems that multi-activity (both on-farm and off-farm) is also profiting landless households. Indeed, the multi-active landless are significantly correlated with earning more than 1.5 millions MMK/year (Table 70). Yet, before concluding too hastily of the existence of a livelihood-secure, agrarian landless category, we must first notice that such important incomes are consistent with the over-representation of these households in larger families. Indeed, the multi-active landless are quite significantly correlated with households counting more than five individuals (which is the case for 42% of households, compared to an average 28.6% among all Dry Zone landless).

Performing a quick analysis on the relationship between households' size and
<table><caption>**Table 68:** Household heads' level of education in the different landless categories in the Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Farm Laborer Landless</th><th colspan="2">Multi-Active Landless</th><th colspan="2">Off-Farm landless</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>A: Primary and under</td><td>46</td><td>90.2</td><td>70</td><td>94.6</td><td>97</td><td>80.8</td><td>213</td><td>86.9</td></tr><tr><td>B: Middle school and more</td><td>5</td><td>9.8</td><td>4</td><td>5.4</td><td>23</td><td>19.2</td><td>32</td><td>13.1</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>51</td><td>100.0</td><td>74</td><td>100.0</td><td>120</td><td>100.0</td><td>245</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=8.24 dof=2 p=0.016 (Significant) Cramer's V=0.183

<table><caption>**Table 69:** Share of household's members attending higher education per landless categories in the Dry Zone</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Farm Laborer Landless</th><th colspan="2">Multi-Active Landless</th><th colspan="2">Off-Farm landless</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Less than one third</td><td>47</td><td>92.2</td><td>63</td><td>85.1</td><td>89</td><td>74.2</td><td>199</td><td>81.2</td></tr><tr><td>One third and more</td><td>4</td><td>7.8</td><td>11</td><td>14.9</td><td>31</td><td>25.8</td><td>46</td><td>18.8</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>51</td><td>100.0</td><td>74</td><td>100.0</td><td>120</td><td>100.0</td><td>245</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=8.66 dof=2 p=0.013 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.188

the fact of lacking rice or not at least once in the year shows that 68% of landless households (all categories included) with four individuals and more are lacking rice once in the year, against only 51% for households counting three or fewer individuals. However, with regard to the livelihood security indicators available for this study, there is little evidence suggesting multi-active landless are more or less secure than farm laborer landless households.
<table><caption>**Table 70: Distribution of Dry Zone landless households per categories and total yearly incomes**</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Total income (MMK)</th><th colspan="2">Farm Laborer Landless</th><th colspan="2">Multi-Active Landless</th><th colspan="2">Off-Farm landless</th><th colspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>TI &lt;750,000</td><td>23</td><td>45.1</td><td>7</td><td>9.5</td><td>39</td><td>32.5</td><td>69</td><td>28.2</td></tr><tr><td>TI 0.75 to 1.5 millions</td><td>23</td><td>45.1</td><td>24</td><td>32.4</td><td>46</td><td>38.3</td><td>93</td><td>38.0</td></tr><tr><td>&gt; 1.5 millions</td><td>5</td><td>9.8</td><td>43</td><td>58.1</td><td>35</td><td>29.2</td><td>83</td><td>33.9</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>51</td><td>100.0</td><td>74</td><td>100.0</td><td>120</td><td>100.0</td><td>245</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=38.8 dof=4 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.281

Given that Off-Farm landless households have been clearly established as a non-agrarian category, and in absence of relationship between multi-active and farm laborer landless categories and the age of the household, we may consider that these two agrarian categories constitute a reservoir of rural landless who, as they grow older, will either become farmers or remain landless (whether agrarian or off-farm ones). Indeed, as explained in the beginning of this discussion on landlessness, the share of landless households decreases with the age of the household. Taking into account the age-effect on the landlessness rate, and the difficulty to distinguish among households from the two agrarian landless categories between who are heading towards farmer status and who may remain landless, we may propose the following interpretation:

Much like in Delta, if we exclude the off-farm landless category from agrarian landless households, it leads to about half of the landless households (120 out of 245) being in need of farmlands.

The landless/landowner ratio in the Dry Zone shows that landless households decrease by 31% between the 30-40 years old to the 40-50 years old category (see Figure 26). Here again, we could project that one third of the total landless (that is about 14% of the total surveyed households) are at risk of perpetually being in economically vulnerable situations due to exclusion from land-based resources.
7.3 A changing agrarian landscape?

While we presented a 'genuine' category of non-agrarian landless in Dry Zone, the existence of such category in the Delta is far less obvious. Together with qualitative interviews, the quantitative study suggests that Dry Zone Off-Farm landless households are definitively not relying anymore on agricultural livelihoods. In the Delta, the same category rather points at households in the process of putting some distance between themselves and agrarian livelihoods, that is adopting non-agricultural activities and especially migrating to other places in search of new income opportunities. Although the quantitative study could not cover the full extent of migrations, qualitative interviews indicate that resorting to remittances from family members who work in urban wage jobs (principally in Yangon) is an increasing trend, one that intensified after Nargis as confirmed also by Thiesmeyer (2012:7). Besides, the quantitative study shows that the overall proportion of households reporting benefiting from remittances is higher in Delta (17%) than in Dry Zone (11.5%).

The second fact is that in the Delta, remittances are received essentially by
landless and smallest land-owning (less than 2.5 acres) households. In the Dry
Zone, it is the opposite and the highest frequency of those receiving remittances
are found in the larger landownership categories: 5 to 10 acres (17.7% of
households) and 10-15 acres (15.5% of households). Therefore, this all indicates
that migrations in the Dry Zone are a farmers' strategy to improve their financial
capital to be reinvested locally (though not necessarily in farm livelihoods,
but also children's education, etc.), while in the Delta migrations tend to drive
landless households outside the Delta's agrarian sphere. Even in the absence
of figures relating to households definitely leaving the region, studies dealing
with Yangon peri-urban growth show that the majority of households settling
in townships such as Hlaing Tha Yar come from the Ayeyarwaddy Delta (Boutry,
forthcoming).

Government policies on paddy had a great impact of land trajectories for
Delta households. However, the differences observed between Off-Farm landless
in the two zones suggest other impacting factors. First, the devastating effects
of Cyclone Nargis on southern Delta townships surely come into play. Indeed,
much infrastructure and assets but also savings (cash, seeds, and crops) were
destroyed, land often standing as the only remaining asset (though some tracts
of lands disappeared with the cyclone and increasing salinity affected others,
especially in the most southern part of the Delta). Following this reasoning, any
genuine Off-Farm landless category would have been greatly affected. The recent
disappearance of the land frontier in the Delta may also be affecting the landless
situation. Indeed, new land was still available to be put under cultivation no less
than 20 years ago. Hence, geographical mobility remained high, especially for households having no access to land in their former place. In the Dry Zone, where the land frontier disappeared long ago in most villages, demographic pressure and land fragmentation over generations implies a greater necessity for part of the population to opt for non-agrarian livelihoods.

Reflecting on the last point, it is highly probable that land fragmentation will curb the trend observed in increasing land access along with increasing age of the household, particularly for the Dry Zone. For the Delta, the lift of predatory policies such as the compulsory procurement of paddy to the government (stopped in 2003), will probably mean greater land tenure security for farming households. We could even expect Delta households following life-cycles closer to the Dry Zone in coming generations, with also a smaller rate of landless households than in the past, while in the Dry Zone landless households would proportionally increase. Figure 43 shows that the deviation between landless/landowners' ratio among the two zones is, interestingly, decreasing with the age of households, meaning that access to land over time increases in greater proportion for Delta households than for Dry Zone ones. This may be explained by the higher frequency and larger plot areas purchased in the Delta after 2003 compared to the Dry Zone, here again suggesting less demographic pressure on land resources in the Delta than in the Dry Zone.

<figure><img src="image_81.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 43:** Ratio of landless households/landowners' households according to the age of household head, in each zone and deviation between the two zones</figcaption></figure>
We have essentially spoken in this section about access to land but it is also useful to reflect on the proportion of landless who used to own land and have lost such access to land. In the Delta, an average of 9% of surveyed landless households had accessed landownership (through clearing, buying, inheritance, etc.) between 1988 and 2014, three times more than in the Dry Zone. The following section will further explore exclusion processes.
# VIII. Landlessness as a result of intimate exclusion

In Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia<fnref n="116" />, the authors provide an innovative, practical, and useful framework for understanding the profound transformations affecting land use and social relations around land since the 1980s, by focusing on the notion of 'exclusion', arguing "that all land use and access requires exclusion of some kind" (Hall et al., 2011: 4).

> Exclusion is not a random process, nor does it occur on a level playing field. It is structured by power relations. Across rural Southeast Asia and elsewhere, exclusion from land can be understood in terms of the interaction between regulation, force, the market and legitimation... Regulation, often but not exclusively associated with the state and legal instruments, sets the rules regarding access to land and conditions of use. Force excludes by violence or the threat of violence, and is brought to bear by both state and non-state actors. The market is a power of exclusion as it limits access through price and through the creation of incentives to lay more individualized claims to land. Legitimation establishes the moral basis for exclusive claims, and indeed for entrenching regulation, the market and force as politically and socially acceptable bases for exclusion.

(Hall et al. 2011: 4)

All these forces may operate at different scales – from local and village-based, to national and global – and the way land exclusion processes are effected may be the result of these powers interacting between different scales as well. To illustrate this point, the Myanmar government's Compulsory Procurement of Paddy policy is surely a matter of policy designed at the national level – where the state's discourse on national autonomy in paddy production triggers powers of legitimation and regulation – while the different ways it impacted landholders is more the result of village-based power relationships: how legitimation and market forces operate through socioeconomic relationships explains the dispossession of one farmer for the benefit of another in the name of the same policy; or how force is employed by local authorities either to maneuver around the policy so as to benefit one farmer or on the contrary to enforce the policy. Legitimation also operated in the land reallocation procedures at the village level. Indeed, as mentioned previously, the lands seized from undutiful farmers would most often be allocated to better-off farmers rather than to smaller or landless farmers in the village. Such decisions were

<footnote n="116">116. 2011, Derek Hall, Philip Hirsch and Tania Murray Li.</footnote>
justified by the narrative that the lands would be more productive – and hence the
nation would benefit more – if cultivated by farmers who had the capacity to invest.

In this section, we go back to the research hypothesis, that is that high rates of landlessness observed in Burmese lowlands (between 40% and 70% of the rural population<fnref n="117" />) cannot be solely attributed to the dimension of large scale land grabs and evictions as often brought to the foreground by most reports dealing with land issues in Myanmar. As a matter of fact, none of the studied villages was impacted by land grabbing, yet landlessness rates are high. This problematic leads us to the dimension of village-based intimate exclusion, that is exclusion as the result of agrarian class formation, face-to-face relationships between villagers, and more largely the processes through which social intimates – neighbors and kin – exclude each other from access to agricultural land. To bring up these issues, we proceed by analysing first how ‘class division’ between large landholders and landless or smallholders shapes exclusion at the village level. The second entry point is access to credit – that is how the power of ‘market’ (yet highly connected to regulation and force) shapes exclusion at the village level. We conclude this part by analysing more particularly the role of the headman in land management in history and through the reform, as a particularly important stakeholder at the village level, concentrating most of the powers at work in exclusion processes: regulation, force, market and legitimation.

# 1. Village-based class division and exclusion

## 1.1 Dry Zone: intimate exclusion through power of legitimation

Land exclusion – both in the ways in which already-existing access to land is maintained by the exclusion of other potential users and the ways in which people who lack access are prevented from getting it – is found in Dry Zone villages. Because of villagers’ greater social and economic stability – as opposed to mobility – the issue is often a matter of how people legitimize their exclusive claims on land, and how class divisions find support in this legitimation, and vice versa. Forms of marriage endogamous to class – individuals from landless households marrying landless, large landholders marrying within the same class – are part of this legitimacy of exclusive claims. The rationale from this legitimation is largely supported by the *dama-u-gya* practice – that is, rights acquired through clearing and cultivating any vacant land transforms it into the property of the cultivator. Since in the Dry Zone the agricultural frontier closed much earlier than in the

<footnote n="117">117. Compared to most of surrounding Southeast Asian countries. In Cambodia, landless farmers now make up 28% of the rural population (Phann et al., 2015) while in Vietnam, landlessness rates among rural households are estimated at 12%. (Mellac and Castellanet, 2015).</footnote>
Delta, retaining legitimate claims to land by pioneer families increasingly became a matter of excluding others seeking access to land, especially when inheritance and demographic growth led to land fragmentation. The strategies developed to retain access to sustainable landholdings – the bigger the better – even involve exclusion processes within the same family. As such, the following case of ‘U Shwe’, a villager from Gaw Gyi (Monywa township), is informative.

BOX 15: RETAINING ACCESS TO LAND OVER GENERATIONS

U Shwe inherited 15 acres from his parents, who had a family of 6 children. Two of them passed away very early. Among his remaining three siblings, two are unmarried women who have lived together with him since they were young. His elder brother who had no children also got 15 acres and handed over those lands to U Shwe. U Shwe's wife inherited 10 acres from her parents. Hence he came to hold 40 acres of land.

U Shwe has six sons and three daughters. The eldest is 49 years old and the youngest is 23 years old. Four of them are married and left the parents' household. U Shwe lives together with two sons and two daughters who remain unmarried. All except two have graduated from University. Only two sons and two daughters pursue farming, succeeding to their parents, and the others are serving as government employees and private school teachers.

The case of U Shwe illustrates well the intra-class endogamy found in Dry Zone villages. While he inherited 15 acres from his parents, he married someone who could also bring in significant holdings (as his wife brought 10 more to the household's landholding.) Second, the effort developed by U Shwe and his wife to offer a proper education to his children underlines another kind of strategy: even with 40 acres as a whole, dividing those equally among nine children would mean the end of the family's belonging to a 'large landholder' class.

This issue is then addressed by keeping only four children in farming livelihoods while the others are provided with an 'equivalent' high status – and livelihood security – as government employees and school teachers. This may not hide attempts of socioeconomic mobility by other individuals in Dry Zone villages. The present study also recorded many successful cases of individuals who managed to access land and climb the socioeconomic ladder. However, the following case, recorded in Si Laung village (Yinmabin township), illustrates well the difficulties faced by those undertaking this ascent.

The case of U Thein's family exemplifies the difficulties faced by landless and small scale farming families to retain access to land and eventually try to expand their
farm holdings. It also provides a mirror image of how capitalized family farmers exclude others from accessing land by capturing both legitimation (or social regulation) – land is kept among this class through endogamy and inheritance – and market powers – as capitalized farmers they are the one able to buy more land, and also able to invest in production tools, etc. Farmers in Dry Zone villages who lack both the benefits of inheritance and capitalizing (and purchasing) power, find it difficult to access and retain land. When talking about the power of market here, we must keep in mind that it is also highly linked with access to social capital.

BOX 16: THE STRUGGLE OF A SMALL-SCALE FARMING FAMILY TO MAINTAIN ACCESS TO LAND

U Thein was formerly a porter working in a broker house in Monywa. He lived in the outskirts of Monywa and saved money to buy a small house. Since his parents, living in Si Laung village, had eight children, U Thein's share of inheritance from the parents was only one acre of farmland. U Thein nevertheless wished to be a farmer, so he went to Monywa and worked hard to save money and later on sold his house and went back to Si Laung. With his savings, U Thein bought farmlands.

U Thein cultivated 13 acres with his wife. They have four children. In the family farm succession cycle, the parents allocated two acres to the elder son, three acres to Maung Gyi and two acres to Maung Nge (twin brothers). The daughter is unmarried, living together with the parents and cultivates the parents' farmland together with them.

The elder son married a woman who inherited four acres from her parents. He raised a young calf before he departed from the parents' house. After marriage, the parents-in-law gave an additional cattle, so the couple could cultivate their farm independently with a pair of cattle. They purchased afterwards four acres and recovered some virgin land by their own effort not far away from their village.

Maung Gyi got married but his wife received no land in inheritance, and as the family was poor, it had to sell off two acres of farmland. The father, U Thein gave them another acre. They had no cattle and could not cultivate the land properly. Maung Gyi finally sold all the land to buy a herd of goats. The couple now lives on goat breeding.

Maung Nge also married a woman who received no land in inheritance. They cleared virgin land to make a field of half an acre near a nearby mountain. They bought an additional acre and they now have a total of 3.5 acres. Their livelihood is just subsistence-based. His sister helps the family in cultivation. They pooled the farmlands to work together and share the farm's produce.
As rightly underlined by the authors of Powers of Exclusion, "there is often a 'market price' for the bribe that will induce guards to look the other way as fishers use an off-limits breach, or the pay-off that will convince a city council to rezone a piece of land for conversion" (Hall et al. 2011: 18). But in many cases having the money may not be enough without knowing the right authorities to bribe, and this relies on the individual's social capital. In some instances, this social capital cum market power may act counter to or together with legitimation depending on the scale where these apply. Before unpacking this idea, we should go through the following land dispute case.

BOX 17: LEGITIMATION VS. MARKET? CONTRADICTING CLAIMS OVER LAND

A pair of siblings moved from one of the villages under study to Mandalay, leaving the farmland they had received in inheritance to remaining villagers for continued cultivation. About 20 years went by.

At the time of land registration (2013), the villagers who were cultivating the land were seeking to apply for Form 7. The Mandalay-based absentee landowners protested against this action. The Village Tract Farmland Management Committee wanted to assign the land to the villagers currently cultivating the land. But due to continued objection, the case was sent up to the township administrator. The absentee landowners paid a large sum of money to the authority and were finally granted Form 7.

This land dispute shows that the market force in this situation – i.e. the price to bribe a government officer – goes against village-based legitimation of access to land by operating at a higher level, the township. The point made here is that the socioeconomic structuration of Dry Zone villages often gives more weight to ‘customary’ norms of legitimation than other types of powers when operating at the village level – so that other powers may be applied at higher levels to overcome these norms. This contrasts Dry Zone from Delta villages, where exclusion through legitimate claims is often minimized at the profit of individuals with greater social capital, playing with the powers of force, market, and regulations. To support this idea, the qualitative study indicates that while in the Dry Zone, village founders often retained their access to land, in the Delta, pioneers often lost their access, leading them either to move to other areas or to become landless households.

## 1.2 Delta: intimate exclusion through force and market

In the Delta, village-based norms of legitimation are weak compared to the Dry Zone, and this surely has to do with the high socioeconomic mobility which operated through the development of the region's agricultural frontier into the rice bowl of Myanmar. We could say conversely that impacts of government policies
were less mitigated by local social norms than in the Dry Zone. Yet, both the way
individuals put to work the powers of force and market to get access to land, and
the way they play with these policies, have to do mostly with intimate exclusion.
Here we may recall the fact that according to our analysis in **Chapter VII.6.3**,
capitalized-family farmers in the Delta are more characterized by their purchasing
power than the opportunity they got from inheriting land. On the other hand, we
also stressed that much of the land market in the Delta was linked to the Compulsory
Paddy Procurement policy and that one's capacity to access this market was
much a matter of having connections with relevant men of power and authority.
The study case below is very enlightening in this regard. Farmers adopted many
coping strategies when they were unable to fulfil the paddy quotas. Among other
strategies to avoid prison and totally losing their lands, farmers would ask a better-
off farmer to pay the needed quota of paddy baskets on their behalf. In return, the
better-off farmer would receive the land use rights on the plot of land and keep the
farmer working as a casual laborer or as a sharecropper. However, it is not a rule. One
landlord would strategically avoid having the same farmer continuously cultivating
his former paddy field as the landlord feared the former landowner would one day
claim back his lands. On the contrary, this landlord preferred distributing derived
land use rights (such as sharecropping) to other farmers, preferably farmers which
had recently migrated from other villages.

BOX 18: STUDY CASES: LAND ACCUMULATION AND CONTESTED RIGHTS IN DELTA

U Kyaw Lin was a member of his village administration (Ya Wa Ta) in 1995 for three and a half years. From 2006 to 2010, he served also as village tract leader for four years. Since then, he has not been involved in village administration affairs. After getting married in 1992, he worked as a boat manager and paddy broker for eight years. Since 1996, U Kyaw Lin gradually acquired lands and currently owns 30 acres. During the land registration process, the land tenure rights over 28 of these 30 acres were contested by four different persons. Below are the details of the lands U Kyaw Lin gradually acquired:

The first 10 acres: U Kyaw Lin first acquired 10 acres from Daw Shwe, another villager. Daw Shwe and her daughters together used to cultivate these 10 acres. In 1995, Daw Shwe and her family couldn't provide the forced procurement paddy baskets to government for 10 acres. So the next cultivation season, the village tract land committee put her lands on the waiting list. The two daughters of Daw Shwe requested to the land committee to transfer the confiscated 10 acres back to them in their name, instead of transferring the lands to other villagers. One of the two daughters, Daw Tin living with her mother, then got the permission to work five of the 10 seized acres under her name. The other daughter, Daw Khin received the remaining five acres under the name of her husband, himself the brother of U Kyaw Lin. In 1997,
Daw Tin couldn't deliver the 60 baskets due to the government, so the five acres were transferred to another villager. The latter sold his lands to U Kyaw Lin for the price of 20,000 MMK/acre. At that time, as farmers were not allowed to sell, buy, or mortgage lands, the two parties did not make any official contract. To overcome the legal ban on land transfers, the seller officially handed over the five acres to the village tract leader (part of the village tract land committee) with the pretext of his not being able to cultivate them. Then the village tract leader transferred the lands to U Kyaw Lin. U Kyaw Lin's brother and his wife cultivated their five acres for two years.

After two years, in 1997 they couldn't transfer the due paddy to the government. U Kyaw Lin then transferred on their behalf the due 60 baskets of paddy to the government. In addition, the brother was already indebted to U Kyaw Lin for 10,000 Kyats, 40 baskets of seeds, and renting charges for one buffalo (30 baskets of paddy). As he was unable to repay his debts, the brother agreed to transfer his land to U Kyaw Lin.

Under the recent land registration process, Daw Tin contested the five acres first transferred to another villager and then sold to U Kyaw Lin. However, the other sister Daw Khin didn't want to contest the five acres transferred to U Kyaw Lin, being his sister-in-law. As a result, Daw Tin ultimately objected to the transfer of the land rights of the 10 acres previously held by her mother, but which are now held by U Kyaw Lin.

+ 5 acres: In 1992, U Ngwe bought five acres from U Htun. Two years later, U Ngwe obtained a bad paddy harvest (only 40 baskets for five acres!) due to a serious pest infestation. U Htun, the former owner, had informed U Ngwe that he wanted to buy those five acres back, in case U Ngwe would need to sell them. U Htun however lacked the financial capacity to do so. U Ngwe finally sold those five acres to U Kyaw Lin for 10,000 Kyat/acre. Yet, under the recent land registration process, U Htun has contested the land tenure rights of these five acres, now in the hands of U Kyaw Lin.

+ 7 acres: In 1991, U Maung accessed seven acres from Daw Hla, by way of the 'paddy procurement' waiting list. In 1994, as he was unable to transfer the due paddy to the government, U Maung had to sell his lands to U Kyaw Lin. After selling his lands, U Maung decided to migrate to another village to cultivate 50 acres under the status of forestlands. Under the land registration process, Daw Hla contests the land tenure rights of the seven acres now owned by U Kyaw Lin.

+ 6 acres: In 1998, U Kyaw Lin bought six acres from U Than at 20,000 Kyats/acre. The previous owners of those six acres were the parents-in-law of U Than. U Sinn, brother-in-law of U Than, did not consent at that time to sell his parent's lands to U Kyaw Lin. Therefore, under the land registration process, U Sinn contested the land tenure rights of these six acres of U Kyaw Lin's, arguing that those lands should have been part of his inheritance.

+ the last 2 acres: U Kyaw Lin finally bought two acres from Daw Moe after 2003 (when the forced paddy procurement system had already ended). Those two acres are free from objection. Currently U Kyaw Lin still cultivates the 30 acres, although according to the 2012 land law, he is not allowed to do so for the 28 contested acres.
Many details of the story have obviously been lost, concealed and too
'indirectly' expressed. But this case study sheds light on the collective dimension
of land contestation. Indeed, the multiple contestations against the same person
(who was previously a village administrator) not only reveal a series of unjust
household situations but also a collective contestation against persons who
might have abused of their power in the past. This power, which at first glance
seems to be the ability to pay the price of land - including the price of the paddy
procurement quota - is not so much related to market as it is to the individual's
power to exert force. It is not a coincidence that U Kyaw Lin acquired his first 10
acres through the compulsory procurement system at a time when he was part of
the village administration. Being in such a position, he could capture the effects
of the paddy procurement to the state for his own benefit and at the expense
of other farmers who found themselves excluded. The power operating here
is partly regulation - the state policy - but much more the claim made by force
(even if implicit) by the village authorities. Finally, the multiple contestations also
highlight that the land registration process is clearly perceived as an opportunity
to renegotiate rights over lands, even for lands that were lost during the forced
paddy procurement system decades ago. Locally produced social norms offer a
rationale for legitimation of claims over land, and the way legitimation operates
is above all subjected to the powers of force and market put in place through the
successive government policies.

2. Credit, indebtedness, and intimate exclusion

Access to finance is crucial for farmers because of the farm investment needs
and the seasonal expenses necessary to undertake agricultural work (inputs, labor,
equipment...). Yet, access to affordable and adapted financial services remains a
constraint for farmers. Our assumptions are that the lack of appropriate credit
systems has been a key driver in intimate exclusion in the Myanmar lowlands
and that the power relations involved with access to credit have been critical in
this process. These power relations exist at different levels and call on the four
dimensions of regulation, force, the market, and legitimation. (Hall et al., 2011).

A first dimension in which power relations concerning rural credit emerge is in
the issue of access to the government's agricultural loans. Access to credit is, in part,
a matter of markets: credit has a price, and people who can pay the price can access
credit. But what we find, in practice, is that the price of credit is not determined
by market powers alone. It is mediated by access to powerful individuals - village
authorities - who can enhance access for some actors, and exclude others through
their exclusive knowledge of regulations. The MADB village tract representative is
key in this process. Social relations and the capacity to pay bribes are essential in
determining wider and timely access to the MADB loans.

A second dimension involves the power relations between money-lenders (who are often farmers themselves) and other borrowing farmers. As mentioned above, the case of the Delta is particularly relevant, as money-lending practices are built upon strong patron-client relationships. These relations include an element of force, as clients are coerced to mortgage their land and suffer foreclosure, or be compelled to sell land to cover loans (see part 2.4).

A third dimension which will not be developed here (due to insufficient
information at this stage) is the emergence of interventions of larger market actors
such as town-based rice millers or agri-input companies which are offering new
forms of arrangements (such as indirect contract farming arrangements) to farmers
via brokers at village level. This generates a new domain of power relations.

## 2.1 Credit and dispossession, a historical constant: the example of the Delta

The link between indebtedness and dispossession is not a new phenomenon
in Myanmar. As briefly explained above, British colonial economic policies focusing
on surplus production for exporting rice had a deep impact on Delta society. These
policies were responsible for "systematically (undermining) the comprehensiveness
of exchange and the relative bargaining position of peasant clients – particularly in
lowland areas most affected by colonial administration and market agriculture" (Scott,
1972: 7). In order to achieve this surplus production, farmers had to rely on credit
for investing, a phenomenon which brought with it the rise of the money-lending
class of Indian Chettiars (from the south part of the Indian continent) which rapidly
became the main provider of capital to Burmese cultivators. The imposition of
British land-title laws enabled farmers to pledge land as collateral, and although
the Chettiars had no interest in agricultural lands, they insisted on taking land as
collateral.

With the closing of the agricultural frontier, the degradation of production
conditions, and the incapacity of the administration to adopt measures to address
these issues, an agricultural crisis emerged in the first decades of the 1900s. It was
dramatically aggravated by the Great Depression and consequent crash of paddy
prices, which led a massive number of farmers to insolvency (Adas, 1974b). It finally
contributed to massive mortgage closures and land accumulation in the hands
of an absentee landowner class that lived in the main towns instead of villages,
developing high dependency relationships with tenants or sharecroppers. While
most of these Chettiars returned to India following the independence of the
country, a few remained and even managed to reconstitute large holdings through
the post independence period, as in Tet Tet Ku (see **Chapter IV.2**).

Despite the Land Nationalization Act promulgated in 1953 (accompanied by
a redistribution of lands to small farmers), the dependency of farmers on money-
lenders was also reinforced by government policies – especially compulsory rice
procurement – combined to ensure a surplus production to supply governmental
staffs, the army, and the urban masses. Provoking high indebtedness patterns, it led
again to the concentration of landownership into the hands of few individuals as
we saw in the first part of this chapter (1.2). We may also recall that this pattern was
reinforced by village headmen acting as enforcers, who either directly benefited
by this exclusion process and attained land, or who accessed indirect – financial –
benefits by authorizing some persons to access land while excluding others.

## 2.2 MADB, credit and indebtedness

### Background information on MADB

In 1973, rural credit institutions (village banks) were dismantled in favor of a
state-led 'advance purchase' system. The compulsory crop procurement was the
vehicle of credit distribution. As such, the state provided advance payments on
the paddy quotas to be provided by farmers. Although no interest was charged
on the advance payments, the scheme represented a significant financial burden
for farmers due to the low purchase prices set by the state, the fact that only part
of the quota's value was paid to farmers, and the important share collected by the
state on the production.

The MADB was created in 1990 and replaced the Myanmar Agricultural Bank (MAB). It became the main source of short term and seasonal loans for agriculture. The re-emergence of MADB was linked with the reduction by two thirds of the state's take in the compulsory paddy procurement in 1989 (from 30-40 baskets per acre, down to 10 to 12 baskets). According to the MADB law (1990), the aim of MADB is "to effectively support development of agricultural, livestock and rural socioeconomic enterprises in the country by providing banking services". As such, with 11,200 village banks, it was given a wide mandate to provide bank loans to state-owned agriculture and livestock organizations, co-operatives, private persons and entrepreneurs in simple procedures. However, due to insufficient capital, it only provides seasonal loans to farmers. In 1993, the government closed the village banks, leaving only township branch banks. Since then, MADB's outreach is very limited. Farmers must travel to the town or rely on the MABD village tract representatives who are not employed professionals but appointed villagers.
In 2012/2013, the MADB disbursed Kyat 557,846 million in agricultural loans to 2.26 million of farmers (average loan per farmer Kyat 246,835). 30% of the total loan amount was for the Ayeyarwaddy region, and nearly 90% of the total loan amount disbursed was for paddy, in line with the government's historical fixation on this crop. It has 220 branch banks all over the country and nearly 3,000 staff<fnref n="118" />.

MADB loans have very low interest rates (0.42% to 0.45%/month) compared to other formal and informal credit operators. Loan duration is of 4 to 7 months according to the season. Two seasonal disbursements take place per year in the studied regions.

* Only official farmland owners are eligible for the MADB loans. The loan amount is based on landownership:

* 100,000 MMK per acre of paddy lands, up to 10 acres (maximum loan size of 1 million MMK)

* 20,000 MMK per acre of ya lands, up to 10 acres (maximum loan size of 200,000 MMK). It is planned to increase to 50,000 MMK/acre in 2015.

## Constraints of MABD credit at village level

Currently, according to this study's quantitative survey, MADB provides loans to 84.5% of surveyed landholders: 79.3% in the Delta, 88.3% in the Dry Zone. The lower rate in the Delta is explained by the fact that two out of the five sample villages of the quantitative survey are settlements in 'forestlands' and therefore farmers are not eligible to MADB loans on such lands.

In the Delta, paddy farmers usually take loans from village money-lenders with high interest rates, ranging from 5% to 15% per month depending on the relationship between borrowers and money-lenders<fnref n="119" />. Even the formal credit sector (through MFIs) provides much higher interest rates (ranging from 2 to 5% per month as the price may include additional 'fees' and costs). For these reasons, we must acknowledge the government's initiative to provide loans to all landowners at very low rates through the MADB as representing a real effort to finance agriculture. However, loan management process between the township MADB branches and farmers suffers many shortcomings.

The first – already mentioned – weakness of the governmental credit scheme is the inadequate time frame in which MADB loans are disbursed to the farmers. It is not adapted to farmers' cash flow constraints and cropping calendars. For monsoon

<footnote n="118">118. MADB country report 2013.</footnote>

<footnote n="119">119. Desperate loans (mostly contracted by the most vulnerable for the family's daily food needs) can even go up to 20% per day.</footnote>
paddy, farmers in the Delta need to invest before or in the beginning of the monsoon
period (last week of May, early June) to prepare the land cultivation for paddy. But
MADB cannot manage to disburse the loans in time for all the farmers, notably
because of lack of human resources. Hence, farmers usually take loans from village-
based private money-lenders with high interest rates to make the necessary urgent
farm expenses. As soon as they receive the MADB loan, usually between late June
and August for monsoon paddy, they repay their debts to the private money-lenders.
At that time, a very small amount of money is left in the farmers' hands. MADB loans
have to be repaid in March of the next year. When the due date is passed, farmers are
fined. MADB loans can be obtained two times a year in the Delta (i.e. for monsoon and
summer paddy seasons). Summer planting season loans can be taken in December
and should be repaid in May of the next year. Some farmers settle partially their
monsoon loan (at least one third to two thirds) with the money from summer loan in
December. While this issue seems to be just an administrative failure – late payment –
it actually feeds into a market process (more expensive credit) and ends up enriching
a category of landholders – the money-lenders – who themselves access large MADB
loans and wield coercive market powers.

The second issue for the farmers regarding access to the MADB loans relates
to the disbursement's conditions. As no collateral is pledged, farmers have to
form Self Help Groups (SHG – *Wynn Gyee Choke Sa Nint* in Burmese) composed of
ten individuals. If one farmer among the SHG fails to repay his credit in time, the
remaining nine farmers are responsible for reimbursing the loan. In case they fail
to do so, they cannot get a loan from the bank the following year<fnref n="120" />. This generally
results in a late payment of the loan in the next year. Thankfully, MABD rules
changed in 2015: if one fails to repay in time, the others are not penalized. The late
payer is given until March of the following year to repay. If he/she fails at that time,
the other group members must repay the loan.

Finally, as in many cases regarding the law in general (in addition to the land
policy framework), farmers have very limited (if not nonexistent) knowledge
of de jure processes. For this reason, they remain dependent on local powerful
individuals (village head, village clerk, for example), and the MADB's village tract
representative. While the principle is that the MADB representative is elected by
the local authorities (including the village tract headman, the 100 households
leaders, and the elders) to represent the interests of the farmers and the bank, he
is often appointed directly by the village tract headman. Indeed, the position is
potentially lucrative and therefore envied. One of the MADB representative's tasks
is to help the farmers fill the forms for obtaining the loan.

<footnote n="120">120. In 2012, this group size was reduced to 5 farmers but in 2015, it was reinstated back to 10 members. Repayment conditions and sanctions toward default groups are currently being revised by MADB to allow more flexibility.</footnote>
This first process already includes an element of corruption: farmers who pay to obtain the representative's 'help' will receive the loan before those who cannot afford to bribe. In addition, as the representative is the only individual to link the township MADB with farmers at the village level, he is the focal person of the township MADB network of farmers, money-lenders, and brokers. For example, while the MADB provides loans of 1 lakh<fnref n="121" /> per acre up to a maximum of 10 acres per farmer, the MADB representative helps farmers owning more than 10 acres to artificially divide their holdings into different individual properties (generally distributed to the farmer's close family, wife, and children). This may have created distortions in the land registration process as well, with holdings artificially divided in the name of family members.

Another key role of the MADB representative is to ensure timely loan repayment. However, as explained above, most small and Agri-specialized small farmers (generally under 10 acres in the Delta) cannot avoid taking high interest rate loans from local money-lenders to compensate for the late disbursement of the MADB loans. Hence, part of the MADB loan is used in order to repay the high interest private loans. Consequently, and when coupled with unexpected low production rates (due to bad weather, rodents, pests), farmers may be unable to repay the MADB loan. In order not to be fined by the bank for the late payment, farmers either have to borrow money from private money-lenders (around 10% interest rate/month) or to seek the MADB representative's help. The latter finds arrangements with private money-lenders on big amounts of money with smaller interest rates (7%/month) to repay the bank in time. According to our interviews, in 2013, loans in one village of Mawlamyinegyun township borrowed from the MADB representative summed up to 40 million Kyats. 'Logically', part of the interest goes back to the MADB representative. Therefore, the money made available by the MADB at small interest finally benefits farmers little, as it is injected in a high interest rate loan system, hardly improving the farmers' financial situation (if not worsening it) but benefiting mostly the same wealthier local individuals. The powers at play in this process combine various factors, and at different stages of the loan cycle. One which concerns the whole loan cycle relates to regulation and the loan modalities (such as timing of disbursements and repayment, procedures and rules in loan application, the official role given to the MADB representative) which – we have seen above – favor the better-off farmers. In addition, the market also plays a crucial role, at different moments of the loan cycle. First, at the loan application stage: although there is no difference in market prices (the official MADB loan interest rates are the same for all households), the payment of bribes to the MADB representative to have priority access to the loans operates as a differentiation factor. Market and regulation are interlinked in the name of legitimation: it is moral

<footnote n="121">121. One lakh equals 100,000 MMK.</footnote>
and even a question of honor to be a good borrower, and to repay loans in time.
Indeed, late loan disbursements (due to the incapacity to provide incentives in
order to access MADB loans first) fuels the risks of non-compliance to MADB loan
conditions (such as untimely repayment over the previous season's loans).

This fuels a market of informal high interest loans, which benefits some households who managed to access the MADB loans and act as informal moneylenders. Force also enters the picture in case of repayment problems, where the village headman and the police may be requested to play a role to put pressure upon the defaulter to pay back.

2.3 Delta: a stronger dependency on loans

The data below come from the quantitative survey of 1,129 households. Below, the term 'loan' may refer to both informal and formal loans. Over the total surveyed population, 65.7% of households have declared taking loans in the last 12 months. This rate is slightly higher in Delta (69.5%) than in Dry Zone (62.4%).

The majority (65%) of borrowers are landholders (having direct access rights), suggesting both that agriculture production requires credit and that landowners have better access to credit. This is confirmed also by the fact that loan amounts are correlated with landholding size, particularly in the Dry Zone.

In the Delta, frequency of loans is similar among landholding size categories
with little variation, while there are very significant differences and links in the
Dry Zone: only half of farmers owning less than 2.5 acres take loans. Frequency of
borrowing gradually increases with landholding sizes, up to a maximum of 93%
among farmers owning 10 to 15 acres. Beyond 15 acres, the loan frequency among
households decreases.

In both study areas, there is a very significant link as well between loan amounts
and total household income.

The frequency of loans taken in Delta is much higher for both landowners and
landless.

* 94% of landowning households take loans in the Delta, against 80% in the Dry Zone. This can be explained by the fact that Delta landowners are mostly paddy growers. As such, they have more financing needs, since paddy requires more investment than most ya land crops, and they must manage tight time schedules for double cropping, which generates significant cash flow constraints.
* 53% of the Delta landless take loans, against 37% in the Dry Zone. This can be explained by the stronger cash flow constraints linked to Delta landless livelihoods (mainly dependent of season farm labor and fishing), by the patron client relationships between landless laborers and farmers (for whom landless work) which facilitates access to credit, and finally by the presence of MFIs/ NGOs which provide credit services.

<table><caption>**Table 71: Frequency of borrowing of landowners and landless in Delta and Dry Zone<fnref n="122" />**</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="3"></th><th colspan="4">Landowners</th></tr><tr><th colspan="2">LOAN</th><th colspan="2">No LOAN</th><th rowspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb. HH</th><th>%</th><th>Nb. HH</th><th>%</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Delta</th><td>203</td><td>94.4</td><td>12</td><td>5.6</td><td>215</td></tr><tr><th>Dry Zone</th><td>282</td><td>79.9</td><td>71</td><td>20.1</td><td>353</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>485</td><td>85.4</td><td>83</td><td>14.6</td><td>568</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="3"></th><th colspan="4">Landless</th></tr><tr><th colspan="2">LOAN</th><th colspan="2">No LOAN</th><th rowspan="2">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb.</th><th>%</th><th>Nb. HH</th><th>%</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Delta</th><td>166</td><td>52.5</td><td>150</td><td>47.5</td><td>316</td></tr><tr><th>Dry Zone</th><td>91</td><td>37.1</td><td>154</td><td>62.9</td><td>245</td></tr><tr><th>Total</th><td>257</td><td>45.8</td><td>304</td><td>54.2</td><td>561</td></tr></tbody></table>

Among the Delta landless who take no loans, the majority (57%) are from the poorest income category (less than 750,000 per year). Frequency of borrowing increases with the household income. In the Dry Zone, landowners who do not take loans (71 households) are mostly non-paddy farmers who own all key farm equipment assets (cart, pump, cattle...) and a motorcycle. A significant proportion (almost half, 31 households) also own less than three acres. As Dry Zone landless are more diverse according to specific villages conditions, it is difficult to characterize those who do not take loans.

<footnote n="122">122. All tables presented in this part are drawn from the quantitative study of this research.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 72:** Dry Zone landowners households contracting loans (formal and informal) with regard to landholding size<sup>S</sup></caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="3">LOAN</th><th colspan="3">No LOAN</th><th colspan="3">Total</th></tr><tr><th>Nb.</th><th>%</th><th>%</th><th>Nb.</th><th>%</th><th>%</th><th>Nb.</th><th>%</th><th>%</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>0.3-2.5</td><td>27</td><td>9.6</td><td>52.9</td><td>24</td><td>33.8</td><td>47.1</td><td>51</td><td>14.4</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>2.5-5</td><td>43</td><td>15.2</td><td>71.7</td><td>17</td><td>23.9</td><td>28.3</td><td>60</td><td>17.0</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>5-10</td><td>113</td><td>40.1</td><td>86.9</td><td>17</td><td>23.9</td><td>13.1</td><td>130</td><td>36.8</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>10-15</td><td>54</td><td>19.1</td><td>93.1</td><td>4</td><td>5.6</td><td>6.9</td><td>58</td><td>16.4</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>&gt;15</td><td>45</td><td>16.0</td><td>83.3</td><td>9</td><td>12.7</td><td>16.7</td><td>54</td><td>15.3</td><td>100.0</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>282</td><td>100.0</td><td>79.9</td><td>71</td><td>100.0</td><td>20.1</td><td>353</td><td>100.0</td><td>100.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=36.3 dof=4 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.321

<table><caption>**Table 73:** Distribution of households contracting loans per loans' amount and total annual incomes (TI) in Dry Zone and Delta</caption><thead><tr><th>Total income (MMK)</th><th>Loan&lt; 150,000</th><th>Loan 150,000 to 300,000</th><th>Loan 300,000 to 600,000</th><th>Loan&gt; 600,000</th><th>Total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>TI &lt;750,000</td><td>69</td><td>47</td><td>27</td><td>7</td><td>150</td></tr><tr><td>TI 750,000 to 1,500,000</td><td>51</td><td>81</td><td>60</td><td>18</td><td>210</td></tr><tr><td>TI 1,500,000 to 3,000,000</td><td>38</td><td>34</td><td>65</td><td>66</td><td>203</td></tr><tr><td>TI &gt;3,000,000</td><td>15</td><td>25</td><td>33</td><td>106</td><td>179</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>173</td><td>187</td><td>185</td><td>197</td><td>742</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=222.4 dof=9 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.316
## Loans amounts and number of loans

The following data are to be taken carefully, as bias may have been significant due to the sensitive nature of indebtedness.

Over households taking loans, 65% have declared taking one single loan, 30% two loans, 5% three or more loans, without major differences between the Delta and the Dry Zone. However, borrowed amounts are much higher in the Delta for both landowners and landless (700,000 MMK in average – 9.6 lakhs for landowners, 3 lakhs for landless) than in the Dry Zone (300,000 MMK in average – 3.6 lakhs for landowners, 1.6 lakhs for landless) – which can be attributed to the high number of paddy loans in the Delta.

Landless households' indebtedness has to be linked with the greater frequency of landless cultivators in the Delta (27% of landless) than in the Dry Zone (only 6%). For the Delta landless, borrowing is more frequent (63%) among those who practice farming, and there is a very significant link with the highest loan amounts and the fact of cultivating non owned lands. Indeed, 71% of landless who borrow more than six lakhs (21 households), have access to lands through temporary arrangements, suggesting that MADB loans are transferred under such arrangements to the tenants (as seen in Chapter V.2).

<table><caption>**Table 74: Distribution of Dry Zone households per loans' amounts and landholding sizes**</caption><thead><tr><th>Landholding (acres)</th><th>Non réponse</th><th>L&lt; 150,000</th><th>L 150,000 to 300,000</th><th>L 300,000 to 600,000</th><th>L&gt; 600,000</th><th>Total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>0.3-2.5</td><td>24</td><td>14</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>2</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td>2.5-5</td><td>17</td><td>12</td><td>22</td><td>7</td><td>2</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td>5-10</td><td>17</td><td>23</td><td>44</td><td>37</td><td>9</td><td>130</td></tr><tr><td>10-15</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>9</td><td>22</td><td>18</td><td>58</td></tr><tr><td>&gt;15</td><td>9</td><td>1</td><td>13</td><td>17</td><td>14</td><td>54</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>71</td><td>55</td><td>93</td><td>89</td><td>45</td><td>353</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=102.7 dof=16 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.27
The main sources of credit:

Table 75 shows that in the Delta the main sources of credit for landowners are MADB (79% of borrowers), followed by money-lenders (42%) and NGOs/MFIs (33%). Other sources of credit, even from relatives, are extremely marginal.

<table><caption>**Table 75:** Delta: Main sources of credit (both formal and informal) for landowning and landless borrowers in Delta</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Delta credit sources</th><th colspan="2">Overall borrowers</th><th colspan="2">Landowners borrowers</th><th colspan="2">Landless borrowers</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>MADB</td><td>165</td><td>45%</td><td>161</td><td>79%</td><td>4</td><td>2%</td></tr><tr><td>Cooperative Bank</td><td>1</td><td>0%</td><td></td><td>0%</td><td>1</td><td>1%</td></tr><tr><td>Relatives</td><td>12</td><td>3%</td><td>3</td><td>1%</td><td>9</td><td>5%</td></tr><tr><td>NGO/MFI</td><td>141</td><td>38%</td><td>68</td><td>33%</td><td>73</td><td>44%</td></tr><tr><td>Brokers/millers</td><td>3</td><td>1%</td><td>2</td><td>1%</td><td>1</td><td>1%</td></tr><tr><td>Local money-lenders</td><td>191</td><td>52%</td><td>86</td><td>42%</td><td>105</td><td>63%</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>369</td><td></td><td>203</td><td></td><td>166</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

For landless households, money-lenders are the most frequent sources of loans (63% of borrowers) followed by NGO/MFIs (44%), then relatives (5% only). Other sources of credit are extremely marginal. In the Dry Zone, the main sources of credit for landowners are: MABD (88% of borrowers, 9% more than in the Delta<fnref n="123" />), followed by money-lenders (27%), cooperative loans (23%), and relatives (15%). For landless households, the main sources of credit are money-lenders (42%), followed by relatives (28%), NGOs (14%), and cooperative loans (12%). Surprisingly, 8% have declared taking MADB loans, a fact that unfortunately cannot be explained by the study (see Table 76).

Overall, in terms of coverage and number of borrowers, money-lenders appear to be the main loan providers in the Delta (52% of borrowers), followed by MABD (45%) and MFIs/NGOs (38%). In the Dry Zone, MADB is the main provider, followed by money-lenders (32%), cooperative banks (21%), and relatives (18%). For Delta and Dry Zone landowners, MADB and money-lenders both rate as the main sources of credit, while for the landless, money-lenders are the main source of credit. This

<footnote n="123">123. As mentioned before, this difference is due to the fact that some farmers in Delta own forestlands that are not eligible to MADB loans.</footnote>
shows once again the challenges faced by the credit sector to address the needs of this population. The quantitative survey cannot estimate the volume of credit provided by these different providers to evaluate their ranking but, for the Delta, MADB is clearly the main provider for landowners in terms of loan amount.

<table><caption>**Table 76: Dry Zone's main sources of credit (formal and informal) for borrowers**</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Delta credit sources</th><th colspan="2">Overall borrowers</th><th colspan="2">Landowners borrowers</th><th colspan="2">Landless borrowers</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of HH</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>MADB</td><td>256</td><td>69%</td><td>249</td><td>88%</td><td>7</td><td>8%</td></tr><tr><td>Cooperative Bank</td><td>78</td><td>21%</td><td>66</td><td>23%</td><td>12</td><td>13%</td></tr><tr><td>Relatives</td><td>69</td><td>18%</td><td>41</td><td>15%</td><td>28</td><td>31%</td></tr><tr><td>NGO/MFI</td><td>15</td><td>4%</td><td>2</td><td>1%</td><td>13</td><td>14%</td></tr><tr><td>Brokers/millers</td><td>1</td><td>0%</td><td>1</td><td>0%</td><td></td><td>0%</td></tr><tr><td>Local money-lenders</td><td>119</td><td>32%</td><td>77</td><td>27%</td><td>42</td><td>46%</td></tr><tr><td>total*</td><td>373</td><td>100%</td><td>282</td><td>100%</td><td>91</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

There are important differences between the Dry Zone and the Delta. The recourse to money-lenders is much more frequent in the Delta (52% of Delta borrowers versus 32% of Dry Zone borrowers) while the frequency of borrowers taking loans from relatives is also much higher in Dry Zone. These findings confirm the already mentioned trend of stronger vertical links in Delta (patron/client, money-lender/borrower) and the stronger horizontal links in Dry Zone (more 'solidarity' among relatives).

In addition, the penetration rate of other credit services provided (NGOs and MFIs) in the Dry Zone (4% of borrowers) is much lower than in the Delta (38% of borrowers), where NGOs and large MFIs are more represented and have provided financial services in many villages for a longer time. This may have led Dry Zone villagers to turn to cooperative loans to compensate the needs.

## The main reasons for borrowing

Overall, the most frequent reasons for taking loans for landowners in Delta and Dry Zone are the same: agriculture comes first (45%), followed by purchase of food (21%), the need to cover health costs (12%), and education costs (11%) (see Table 77 and Table 78). Loans for the purchase of equipment and social events
are significantly more frequent in the Delta in both landless and landowning categories. As such, these reasons seem secondary compared to other urgent needs and suggest that Delta households take loans more ‘systematically’ (as part of the stronger patron-client system) and not necessarily for serious emergency cases.

Among landowners, the reason for taking loans for agriculture, loan repayment, health, or education costs have similar frequency between the two areas. Major differences are in frequency of taking loans for purchase of food, which is almost double in the Dry Zone (26%) than in the Delta (14%). This may be explained by the lower food self-sufficiency of Dry Zone farmers and thus higher expenditures for food (compared to Delta farmers who can often provide most of the paddy for the household’s consumption needs).

Among the landless, the main reasons for taking loans are for buying food (39%), purchase of equipment (21%), and also agriculture (17%), which corresponds to those who have derived access rights to land. Here again, loans for buying food is more frequent in the Dry Zone (50% of the loans versus 33% in the Delta.). Loan repayment, health, or education costs have similar frequency between the two areas.

The major differences between landless and landowners are logical: frequency of purchase of food is twice more frequent for the landless (39% against 21% of landowners), while loans for agriculture are much less frequent among the landless. Another difference is the much higher frequency of loans for purchase of equipment among the landless. It may be assumed that the equipment may be bought for income generating purchases, but the qualitative survey indicates that this category can also include secondary items such as mobile phones which are needed in the case of migration. Another important difference is the fact that taking loans for health costs is extremely low (1%) among landless compared to landowners (12%). This shows that access to credit is a burden on one hand (because of inappropriate credit systems) but a 'privilege' on the other, as landless households are generally not considered as soluble by private money-lenders for loans covering high medical treatment's costs, or only at very high interest rates (above 20% per month).
<table><caption>**Table 77:** Purpose of contracting loans (formal and informal) among Delta households</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Loan purpose</th><th colspan="2">Total</th><th colspan="2">Landowners</th><th colspan="2">Landless</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of loans</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of loans</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of loans</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Pay back a loan</td><td>23</td><td>4%</td><td>14</td><td>4%</td><td>9</td><td>5%</td></tr><tr><td>Buy food</td><td>110</td><td>21%</td><td>45</td><td>14%</td><td>65</td><td>33%</td></tr><tr><td>Agriculture</td><td>165</td><td>32%</td><td>136</td><td>42%</td><td>29</td><td>15%</td></tr><tr><td>Education</td><td>60</td><td>12%</td><td>34</td><td>11%</td><td>26</td><td>13%</td></tr><tr><td>Health</td><td>49</td><td>10%</td><td>48</td><td>15%</td><td>1</td><td>1%</td></tr><tr><td>Social Event</td><td>32</td><td>6%</td><td>17</td><td>5%</td><td>14</td><td>7%</td></tr><tr><td>Buy equipment</td><td>78</td><td>15%</td><td>27</td><td>8%</td><td>51</td><td>26%</td></tr><tr><td>Total Nb of loans</td><td>516</td><td>100%</td><td>320</td><td>100%</td><td>196</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><caption>**Table 78:** Purpose of contracting loans (formal and informal) among Dry Zone households</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Loan purpose</th><th colspan="2">Total</th><th colspan="2">Landowners</th><th colspan="2">Landless</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of loans</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of loans</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>% of loans</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Pay back a loan</td><td>19</td><td>4%</td><td>13</td><td>3%</td><td>6</td><td>6%</td></tr><tr><td>Buy food</td><td>162</td><td>31%</td><td>112</td><td>26%</td><td>51</td><td>50%</td></tr><tr><td>Agriculture</td><td>221</td><td>42%</td><td>200</td><td>47%</td><td>21</td><td>20%</td></tr><tr><td>Education</td><td>55</td><td>10%</td><td>46</td><td>11%</td><td>9</td><td>9%</td></tr><tr><td>Health</td><td>45</td><td>8%</td><td>41</td><td>10%</td><td>3</td><td>3%</td></tr><tr><td>Social Event</td><td>5</td><td>1%</td><td>4</td><td>1%</td><td>1</td><td>1%</td></tr><tr><td>Buy equipment</td><td>20</td><td>4%</td><td>9</td><td>2%</td><td>11</td><td>10%</td></tr><tr><td>Total Nb of loans</td><td>527</td><td>100%</td><td>425</td><td>100%</td><td>102</td><td>100%</td></tr></tbody></table>

## 2.4 Land exclusion due to indebtedness

In both areas, 5.1% (Delta) and 5.4% (Dry Zone) of surveyed households claim having lost lands due to indebtedness, either by mortgage foreclosure, or by selling their lands to urgently repay loans. Although those rates are similar between the two regions, **Table 79** indicates that indebtedness is a stronger driver of complete land exclusion in the Delta than in the Dry Zone. Indeed, in the Delta, a large proportion (63%) of these households have become landless while in the Dry Zone, the majority (87.5%) are still landowners.
<table><caption>**Table 79: Landlessness among those who lost lands due to indebtedness in Delta and Dry Zone**</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="3">Delta</th><th colspan="3">Dry Zone</th></tr><tr><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>%R</th><th>Nb HH</th><th>%C</th><th>%R</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Still landowners</td><td>10</td><td>37.0</td><td>26.3</td><td>28</td><td>87.5</td><td>73.7</td></tr><tr><td>Became landless</td><td>17</td><td>63.0</td><td>81.0</td><td>4</td><td>12.5</td><td>19.0</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>27</td><td>100.0</td><td>45.8</td><td>32</td><td>100.0</td><td>54.2</td></tr></tbody></table>

Chi-Square=14.1 dof=1 p=0.001 (Very significant) Cramer's V=0.489

The fact that in the Delta most money-lenders are large landholders makes credit a major factor of exclusion (see box below). Along this process, large landholders are able to accumulate even greater land plots, as seen in **Chapter VIII.7.3**.

**BOX 19: GOVERNMENTAL LOANS, MORTGAGE, AND EXCLUSION (AYE YWAR, DELTA)**

In 2010, UK who lives in Aye Ywar took six acres from Daw H in mortgage for the sum of 700,000 MMK, initially for a four-year period. Daw H needed that money for redeeming the previous MADB loan (300,000MMK in total at 50,000MMK/acre) of monsoon paddy and other expenses.

In 2013, after four years, Daw H could not afford to reimburse UK. They subsequently negotiated the sale of land use rights over two of the acres, at 450,000MMK/acre. UK paid 200,000MMK to Daw H: the total for the two acres less the mortgage amount. The agreement was made in front of the SLRD village tract officer.

Before contracting this mortgage, UK already had some experience lending money and foreclosing on land. In 2002, UK lent 70,000MMK to another villager, with a 50% interest rate on one paddy season, plus 35 paddy baskets. This villager needed the borrowed money and paddy baskets to pay back a government loan and fulfil the compulsory paddy procurement. After four years, this villager could not afford to pay back the loan to UK, so the agreement was to transfer over two acres of his land to UK.

As a whole, UK now owns land use rights, titled under Form 7, for 15 acres (including those from Daw H). In the midst of the titling process, Daw H tried to apply for LUC on all six of her former acres. However, the SLRD officer only issued the LUC for four acres, as he was aware of the mortgage issue, as well as a close friend of UK.
3. The village headman, cornerstone of exclusion processes?

Credit may appear to be a market matter, but as demonstrated in the sections
above, it is underpinned by regulation, legitimation, and force. In all these
dimensions, the village tract headman plays a crucial role. Under the current
framework, the village administrator has taken on a new, informal power: the
privilege of nominating the MADB representative. This extends his connectedness
to the main source of credit available for farmers (and especially paddy cultivators
– see Chapters VIII.2.2 and 2.3).

Indeed, since the British colonial times (whether we call this character
thugyi or village tract administrator), the village tract administrator stands
as the last state's representative at the local level. Furthermore, in many
places and especially in the Delta, the following observation made by Myat
Than about a village in Bago region in 1980, first studied by Pfanner (1962),
could be taken almost word for word as reflecting our findings in the study:

"Mayin (village) has borne witness to three consecutive governments since 1960. (...) Although the administration system has changed three times, the leadership representing the village elite has not changed significantly. The president of the village (People's Council) in 1978 was the son of the former headman and the president of the People's Council in 1980 was his cousin. The leaders live in relatively better houses, possess better education, have contact with township leaders and they are able to devote time to village affairs by often traveling to town to attend meetings." (Mya Than, 1987: 80-81)

Indeed, after five consecutive governments, among the villages studied in
both the Dry Zone and the Delta, most of village headmen are sons or cousins of
the previous ones, and that their 'connectedness' remains much the same.

### 3.1 The village headman in pre-2012 land management

While the village headman's history and the continuity of the village headman
should be traced back to the colonial rule (as we already have seen in previous
chapters), we mainly refer here to 1988 onward, which witnessed the creation
of Village Councils (Law and Order Restoration Council and later Peace and
Development Councils), whose chair at the village level – i.e. the village headman –
acted as the most local representative of the state. It was also under this period that
the General Administration Department (GAD), with which the village headman
has a close relationship, was created, with only few changes through different
governments, including the current NLD one (Kyi Pyar Chit Saw and Arnold, 2014:
11). Nevertheless, as just highlighted, village leadership presented more or less the