COMPILATION OF SELECTED PAPERSPRESENTED AT THE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON

EXPLORING DESIRABLE PATHS
OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL
DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA:
CHANGING LIVELIHOODS,INTERNATIONALCOLLABORATIONSAND TRANS-DISCIPLINARY
CHALLENGES
Edited by Kobayashi Satoru
December 2018

Published by: Department of Practice-oriented Area Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies(CSEAS), Kyoto University, Japan*The authors retain ownership of intellectual property for their own papers.

Contents
Prefacei

Acknowledgementii

Program of the workshop

iii

Part1 Changing Rural Landscape in Asia
Chapter 1 The Depopulation Problem in Rural Bhutanese Villages: Rethinking
Development Priorities

1

Chapter 2 Rural-Urban Migration and Agriculture: Hinthada Township,
Ayeyarwady Region

14

Chapter 3 Cheroots in Myanmar: Rural Development behind the Government
Policy24

Chapter 4 Transformation of Cambodian Agriculture: Roles of Financial
Institutions and Land Registration

35

Chapter 5 Reaffirming the necessity of an orthodox pathway: A case study in aplanned REDD+ project site in a Cambodian frontier area

46

Chapter 6 Trans-boundary Connectivity and Contributions to Rural
Development: A Case Study on the Cambodia-Thai Borderland

55

Part 2 Universities’ Challenges for Social Contribution
Chapter 7 Extension Approach of Bangladesh Agricultural University:
History and Current Practice66

Chapter 8 Gross National Happiness Development Center

74

Chapter 9 The History, Necessity, and Potential Role of the Community
Development Center of the University in Myanmar

82

Chapter 10 Field practice and services for rural areas provided by students in
the Faculty of Regional Collaboration, Kochi University

91

Chapter 11 Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) by Students and Young
Scholars of Bhutan in Japanese Depopulated Area: Its Implication
for Challenging Global Issue

97

Preface
This book is the product of an international workshop held at the Royal University of Agriculture,
Phnom Penh, on February 20-22, 2018. As you see in the workshop program on the next section, 24
researchers from five countries; Japan, Cambodia, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh, presented theirstudies having relations with agriculture and rural development in Asian countries. The first purpose of
the workshop was to make the multi-scale comparative examination on the changing situation ofagriculture and rural development in each county in the region. Moreover, it also aims to explore a future
vison on the academic researches concerning agriculture and rural development, which will produce
new knowledge and practice to make a positive difference to a community/society. Participants werevery diverse in academic disciplines, areas of study, and research experiences, but all were aware of thenecessity for innovating academic approaches with regarding the fact that traditional roles of ruralcommunities such as a being a place of food production and a storehouse of traditional culture havechanged already with the intensification and diversification of connectivity associated with globalization.
In addition, both public opinion and policymaker in every country in recent years are more and moreinterested in the social contribution of academia and universities toward the creation of a better future.
The workshop, based on the consideration on this critical atmosphere concerning academic researches
on agriculture and rural development, had tried to produce a small but significant step for promoting the
global discussion on the issue. It was very successful in stimulating questions and comments fromparticipants.
The workshop would not have been possible without the generous and thorough support of Royal
University of Agriculture, Cambodia. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the staff andstudents of the university who assisted us. We are grateful to the Department of Community
Development, Faculty of Development Studies, Royal University of Phnom Penh, who sent
representatives to the workshop. We specially appreciate the efforts of Sherubtsue College, Royal
University of Bhutan, Yangon University and Hinthada University in Myanmar, and Bangladesh
Agricultural University in Bangladesh to dispatch researchers to the workshop as well.
We hope that this book becomes a cornerstone for further developing discussions and collaborations on
empirical study of agriculture and rural development in Asia.
KOBAYASHI SatoruiAcknowledgement
The workshop was supported by the projects mentioned below. We would like to express
sincere thanks to all of them.
•

Kyoto University Grand (ZENGAKUKEIHI): Academic Collaboration Promoting Project forextending Kyoto University’s Area Studies Approach for setting up the practical issues with major
traditional agricultural countries in Asia, Kyoto University, Japan•

Japan-ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Platform (JASTIP), Japan Science andTechnology Agency, Japan•

Japan-ASEAN Platform for Transdisciplinary Studies, CSEAS, Kyoto University, Japan•

International Program of Collaborative Research, CSEAS, Kyoto University, Japan•

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) “The Practice-oriented Area Study challenging to Global
issues through Zaichi No Kyodo (Collaboration of Locally Existing) in Asia”（FY2015-2018）•

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) “Exploring the Sustainable Humanosphere in Rural
Cambodia through Interdisciplinary Research on Changing Connectivity and Livelihoods”(FY2015-2017)ii

Workshop ProgramFirst day: 20 February 2018
No. Times
1
08:00-08:30
Opening Remarks
2
08:30-08:45
3

08:45-09:00

Keynote speeches
4
09:05-09:30
5

09:30-09:55
09:55-10:15

TitlesRegistration and exchange namecards

Speakers

Facilitators
Team

Agricultural education of theRoyal University of Agriculture
Introduction of the workshop“Exploring desirable paths ofagriculture and rural developmentin Asia”

Prof. Ngo
Bunthan
Assoc. Prof.
Kobayashi
SatoruDr. Kobayashi
SatoruDr. Sanara Hor

Sustainable Humanosphere Studies Prof. Kono
in CSEAS, Kyoto University
Yasuyuki
Synergy Research and Education
Prof. Men Sarom
for Economic Development
Group photo and Coffee break

Dr. Borarin
Buntong
Dr. Kobayashi
SatoruSession1: University’s roles for contributing to society through agricultural science and ruraldevelopment6
10:15-12:00
Extension Approach of
Prof.
Chaired by Prof.
Bangladesh Agricultural
Muhammad
Dr. Preap
University: history and current
Salim,
Visarto, VicepracticeBangladesh
Rector, Royal
Agricultural
University of
University
Agriculture
7
RUA’s research and extension: the Dr. Buntong
challenge
Borarin, RUA
8The history, necessity, potential
Dr. Nilar Aung,and role of the community
Yangondevelopment centers of
University
Universities in Myanmar
9Gross National Happiness
Mr. Sonam
Development Center and its
Wangdi,program of the Sherubtse College, Sherubtsue
Bhutan.
College
Discussion, Questions andParticipants
Answers
15 12:00-13:30
Lunch
Session2: Creation/adaptation of agricultural technologies and management
10 13:30-14:50
Conservation agriculture for soil
Dr. Hok Lyda,
Chaired by Dr.
health improvement in Cambodia
RUA
Nawata Eiji,
Graduate
11
The Commercialization of
Dr. ChanSchool of
Aromatic Rice in Cambodia: A
Phaloeun,
Agriculture,
Case Study of Boosting Food
General
Kyoto
Production Project
Directorate of
University
Agriculture,
MAFF

iii

12

Rice and black gram multiple
Dr. Ando Kazuo,
cropping in Maubin, Ayeyarwady
Kyoto University
Delta
Discussion, Questions andParticipants
Answers
14:50-15:10
Coffee break
Session3: Livelihoods transformation in rural communities under globalization
13 15:10-16:50
Rural urban migration and
Dr. Myint Thida, Chaired by Dr.
agriculture of Hinthada Township, HinthadaMatsudaAyeyarwady Region
University
Masahiko,
Ritsumeikan
14
Migration of rural people from a
Mr. Okada
University
village of Ayeyarwady Delta: aNatsuki, Kyoto
case study of livelihoods strategy
University
15
Depopulation and abandoning of
Mr. Rinchen
farm land in the villages of the east Dorji, Sherubtse
BhutanCollege
16
Transboundary connectivity and
Dr. Kobayashi
Rural Development: A case study
Satoru, Kyoto
in Cambodia-Thai borderland
University
Discussion, Questions andParticipants
Answers
Discussion, Questions and16：50−17：30
Answers for Session 1-3

Second day: 21 February 2018
No. Times
TitlesSpeakers
Session4: Reexamining the reality of rural development and natural resource
17 08:45-11:00
Cheroots in Myanmar: Rural
Dr. Matsuda
Development behind the National
Masahiko
Policy18
Land Resources Assessment for
Dr. Seng Vang,
Agricultural Development in
CARDI
Cambodia19
Transformation of Cambodian
Dr. Yagura
agriculture: the role of financial
Kenjiro, Hannan
institutions and land registration
University
20
Land resource management
Dr. Hor Sanara,
research in Ratanakiri province,
RUA
Cambodia21
Reaffirming the necessity of an
Dr. Kurashimaorthodox pathway based on
Takayuki, Kyoto
ongoing multiple realities: A case
University
study in a planned REDD+ pilot
project area in central Cambodia
Discussion, Questions andParticipants
Answers
11:00-13:30
Visit RUA research facility andLunch
Session5: Participatory approach of rural development
22 13:30-15:10
Practice in fields and services to
Dr. Ichikawa
rural areas by the students of
Masahiro, Kochi
15 minutes
faculty of regional collaboration,
University
Presentation and Kochi University.

iv

Facilitators
Chaired by Dr.
Myint Thida,
HithadaUniversity

Chaired by Dr.
Kobayashi
Satoru, Kyoto
University

23

24

10 minutes
Discussion for
each

Participatory Learning and Action(PLA) by Students and Young
Scholars of Bhutan in Japanese
Depopulated Area: Its Implication
for Challenging Global Issues.
Role of University in community
development involvement:
Revising Silk sector throughprovision of disease-free silkworm.

25

Dr. Akamatsu
Yoshio, Kyoto
University
Mr. Dork Vuthy
and Mr. Chap
Nimol, Royap
University ofPhnom Penh
Mr. Volin and
Ms. Sothea,
Royal Universityof Phnom Penh

An Observation of Rural
Development in Trapeang Sankaer
Fishing Community by thestudents of Royal University ofPhnom Penh
Session6: Institutional improvement of research and education in agricultural science andrural development
26 15:10-15:40
Discussion 1: What is theParticipants
university role supporting thesocieties?
27 15:40-16:10
Discussion 2: What is the effective Participants
regulation and policy setting for
the university to ensure sustainableagricultural and ruraldevelopment?
Closing Remarks
16:10-16:20
Remarks

Third day: 22 February 2018
Field visit to RUA’s stations in Kampong Cham Province and Tbongkhmom Provincev

vi

The Depopulation Problem in Rural Bhutanese Villages:
Rethinking Development Priorities
Rinchen Dorji*

Abstract
Bhutan has seen unprecedented socio-economic development over the past four decades. This has led
to increased living standards of the people while also creating many opportunities. More people thanever are now working in cities, earning their livelihood with comfort.
While development has brought all the comforts to the people, it has also led to numerous problems
in society. With better opportunities and facilities in urban centers, thousands of people have been
moving from villages to cities. People now choose to live in cities instead of working in their ancestral
farmlands, leading to population congestion in cities while causing depopulation and abandonment offarmlands in the villages. If this trend continues at the current pace, more farmlands will be left fallow.
This is a grave concern because while Bhutan is an agrarian country where 79 percent of the
population depends on agricultural related activities, approximately only 7.8 percent of the land isarable. Thus, Bhutan optimally using the arable land to minimize total dependence on imports in orderto have a favorable trade balance is very important. Therefore, revisiting our developmental priorities
to encourage the rural population to stay in their villages and continue their agricultural work has
become imperative. This paper will explore the causes of this influx of rural population into urban
centers, including possible solutions to contain this ever-growing problem.
This paper is an outcome of my presentation ‘Rural Depopulation in Bhutan,’ presented during The
International Workshop on “Exploring desirable paths of agriculture and rural development in Asia:
Changing livelihoods, international collaborations, and trans-disciplinary challenges" held in Phnom
Penh, Cambodia from February 20 to February 22, 2018. All the data and facts presented in the paper,
however, are from researches already conducted by others. I have used them to compile a report onrural depopulation in Bhutan.
The proposed study will help contribute to our knowledge about the depopulation of rural Bhutan.

Keywords: depopulation, migration, farmlands, agrarian, arable____________________________________*Lecturer, Sherubtse College, Royal University of Bhutan, Bhutan.
Email: rinchendorji.sherubtse@rub.edu.bt
1

Introduction
Bhutan is a small landlocked country situated between China and India. With an area of 38,394 square
kilometers, Bhutan’s east-west dimension, which is the longest, stretches approximately 300
kilometers, and 170 kilometers at its maximum north-south dimension. Located in the eastern
Himalayas, Bhutan is primarily mountainous and heavily forested. Elevations range from 160 meters
to more than 7,000 meters above sea level. Bhutan’s highest peak, Jhomo Lhari, overlooking the
Chumbi Valley in the west, is 7,314 meters above sea level. Bhutan shares a 470-kilometer-longborder with Tibet, which is China’s Xizang Autonomous Region, in the north and northwest, and a
605 kilometer border with the Indian state of Sikkim in the west, West Bengal in the southwest,
Assam in the south and southeast, and Arunachal Pradesh in the east.
The form of government is democratic constitutional monarchy with His Majesty the king as thehead of the state and an elected prime minister as the head of the government. For administration,
Bhutan is divided into twenty districts, each headed by a governor.
The unique philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), the brainchild of His Majesty the
Fourth King of Bhutan guides Bhutan’s development. GNH encompasses four pillars: sustainable andequitable socio-economic development, preservation and promotion of culture, conservation of theenvironment and promotion of good governance. GNH is based on the premise that true development
occurs when material and spiritual development complement each other and highlight both thephysical and mental well-being of the individual. His Majesty the Fourth King stresses that Gross
National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product as wealth does not necessarily
bring happiness to the people.
About 70 percent of the Kingdom is covered with forests. The constitution of the Kingdom of
Bhutan mandates Bhutan to have at least 60 percent forest coverage at all times. Thus forest
conservation has a high priority.

2

Population
The principal source of data on population is the population and housing census, which is conducted
every ten years. The Population and Housing Census in Bhutan was first conducted in May 2005 andthen again in 2017. The results of the second census have not been released yet. The data presented
here is based on the first census conducted in 2005. The census provides a complete count of the
population according to a range of characteristics including demographics, health, education and othersocial aspects. The data are useful because they provide a range of current population data as well as
creating a benchmark for making population estimates in non-census years and for population
projections.
The statistics presented in this chapter are from the 2005 Population and Housing Census of Bhutan.
The actual resident population enumerated as of May 30 and 31, 2005 is 634,982 persons with
333,595 males and 301,387 females. The urban population consists of 196,111 persons while 438,871
are in the rural areas. Based on the growth rate of 1.8 percent derived from population projections(2005-2030), the populations for 2016 and 2017 were projected at 768,577 and 779,666.

3

Table 1: Projected population of Bhutan

Rural Depopulation in Bhutan
Due to the rugged terrain, only about 7.8 percent of the total land area is arable, but the majority of
Bhutan’s population relies upon agriculture. However, rural-urban migration has increased to painful
dimensions in Bhutan, leaving much agricultural land abandoned. According to the UN Human
Development Report (2009), the rural-urban migration rate in Bhutan is one of the highest in the South
Asian region at six percent. While most of Bhutan’s population still lives in rural areas (69.1 percent),
urban centers have emerged in recent decades in most districts and have attracted a considerable
number of people (Ministry of Agriculture, 2005; Office of the Census Commissioner, 2005).
Thimphu, the capital, is growing at seven percent per annum (MoA, 2005). The rapid influx of people
from rural to urban centers is becoming a major issue in Bhutan and consequences are already being
felt in both rural and urban areas. According to the Population and Housing Census of Bhutan (2005),
lifetime migration from rural to urban areas stood at 111,770 people while people moving from urban
to rural areas was 19,992 people, making the net migration rate to urban areas 91,778 people.

4

This movement of people from rural to urban Bhutan has been reported in mainstream media. Overa hundred families from Bidung Gewog migrated in 2009. In 2007, there were already around 90
empty houses. (BBS, 2013, March 29). In Tashigang, 983 of the total 8610 households are empty(Business Bhutan, 2016, February 20). Of 355 households in Tashiding Gewog in Dagana, 75 are
empty (Kuensel, 2017, January 14). As of December 2016, over 15 acres of land in Zangthiy, Lauri
Gewog in Samdrup Jongkhar were left fallow, as some of the villagers have left the village. (Business
Bhutan, 2017, February 14).
“Rural-urban migration is increasing and along with it, the number of gung-tongs (empty
households) is also increasing. Currently, a total of 4,269 households are registered as gung-tongs outof a total of 85,261 households in all 20 districts. Of them, 3,097 or 72 percent of total gung-tongs arein six eastern districts (Prime Minister’s state of the nation report, 2016).
If this trend continues, and farmers and their children leave Bhutan’s rural areas at the current pace,more farmland currently under cultivation will become fallow, increasing reliance on imports andworsening Bhutan’s already negative trade balance. Migration from the rural areas will also dilute
Bhutan's unique culture which is in large parts embedded in the agrarian lifestyle. Unemploymentrelated issues will continue to rise because neither public service nor the private sector, in its current
state, can absorb the growing number of youth drawn to the cities. It is worrying to observe that, evenas fertile land becomes fallow, Bhutanese are seeking livelihoods overseas in both professional andnonprofessional jobs, in often unknown circumstances.

Reasons for rural depopulation
Rural-urban migration is a global phenomenon and Bhutan is no exception. Rural depopulation affects
many regions of the world as people move to cities, driven by social, economic and ecological factors(Grau & Aide, 2007; Rey Benayas et al., 2007; Robson & Berkes, 2011). Some of the mostconventionally cited reasons for people moving from their villages in Bhutan to urban centers are
economic reasons such as income disparity between rural and urban areas, better opportunities inurban centers, better health and educational facilities, human-wildlife conflicts and the hardships ofrural life.
5Measures taken to contain rural depopulation and The Way Forward
Rural infrastructural development
Rural areas being given high priority in infrastructural development is imperative as people move tourban centers looking for better facilities. Although experience has shown that infrastructuraldevelopment alone cannot stop the influx of people from rural to urban centers, this development is
crucial. Neglecting the rural areas will only increase the movement of people from these areas, thusincreasing rural depopulation. One of the pillars of GNH, Sustainable and Equitable Socio-Economic
development, ensures that developmental activities are shared equally. Guided by this GNH pillar,
many developmental activities are occurring in rural areas. An unprecedented number of schools,
hospitals and hundreds of kilometers of road are being constructed. Over 90 percent of rural homes
have been connected with electricity. Most rural villages now have access to clean and safe drinking
water.
Protecting rural farmers from human-wildlife conflict
As an agrarian-based society, almost 70 percent of Bhutan’s population depends directly on crop
and/or livestock production for their livelihood. However, most farming communities in Bhutan sufferfrom wildlife; crops are destroyed, domestic stock killed; sometimes homes are destroyed and people
attacked. Such incidences have undermined livelihoods, resulted in lost lives and farmland
abandonment. This damage, if not abated, could result in lower food security, reduced health, lower
school attendance and still more farmland abandonment. Thus, the Royal Government of Bhutan has
created strategies to help rural farmers contain their problems with wildlife. Compensation is one suchintervention that is widely utilized around the world. This scheme, which is to compensate people forlosses to wildlife, is used in some places where the farmers' crops and livestock are damaged bywildlife. This has helped farmers to regain what they have lost to sustain their livelihoods.
Electric fencing including solar battery operated fences is another solution to help farmers against
wildlife. As of November 2015, the Department of Agriculture (DoA) and Department of Forests andPark Services (DoFPS) have established approximately 650 km of electric fencing, benefiting morethan 3,744 households and protecting 7,698 acres of farmland in the country (The Bhutanese, 2016,
February 27). The paper also reported that without electric fencing in the past, the ministry recorded6

over 7,542 metric tons of cereal crop damage across the country due to wild animals, andapproximately 493 livestock were reported to have been killed by predators. Thus electric fencing has
been a great help for the farmers to protect their crops and livestock, ultimately preventing somepeople from migrating to urban centers.

Table 2: Showing details of interventions and investment made by DoFPS since 2008

Central Schools
The central school is a concept initiated by the current government in 2015. Today 60 central schools
are spread across Bhutan, located outside of urban centers. The government started central schools as a
strategic school-based reform program to provide more wholesome quality education at integrated andcentrally located autonomous boarding schools as opposed to the many existing small andunsustainable schools all over the country. In the central schools, children are given everything theyneed in school, free of cost, including uniforms, stationery and food. The schools are to help improve7

the quality of education; children can now stay and study in schools that required some to walk forhours before.
While central schools definitely help the rural populace to send their children to school, they also
help in containing the problem of people moving into the cities. As people believe that quality
education and exposure is better in urban schools, more people are opting to send their children tourban schools where handling the admission is very difficult as in Thimphu. The facilities andexposure now provided in central schools will help prevent rural to urban migration. The Honorable
Prime Minister of Bhutan remarked: ‘having central schools in rural parts of the country will greatly
help our rural people. The children studying as dependents in urban schools can return to rural areasand stay close to their ancestral homes.’ (Prime Minister’s State of the nation report, 2016).
It is already evident from the central schools being overwhelmed with applicants that some of thepeople who moved into the cities for educational purposes for their children are now returning to theirvillages where their children can study in central schools free of cost.

Rural Economy Advancement Programme (REAP)
A pilot program targeting poverty alleviation, the Rural Economy Advancement Programme (REAP-I),
was initiated in 2009 in the 10th five-year plan for the 14 poorest villages covering 10 districts to target
extreme poverty that may not be adequately addressed by mainstream development plan programs.
With the completion of REAP I in 2012, a terminal evaluation was implemented in 2013 to study theeffectiveness of the program and to assess the value of increasing the program scale. The evaluation
results have shown that the program was effective in reducing extreme poverty and recommended
increasing the program scale in the 11th five-year plan (2013-2018). Recognizing the importance andeffectiveness of the targeted poverty interventions, REAP-II is planned for 104 villages, covering all
20 districts.
Under the two phases of the Rural Economy Advancement Program (REAP), villagers were given
loans at only seven percent interest without any security. This helped rural farmers to start productive
activities including growing cash crops and vegetables, creating art and craft products and rearing
livestock. Villagers who were interested were also provided free training on cash crops and vegetable8

cultivation as well as for rearing livestock, poultry and fishery. Farming machinery was also suppliedat subsidized rates.

Table 3: Supply of agriculture machinery

Table 4: Dairy farming

Figure 2: Vegetable farming

9

Figure 3: Cardamom plantation

Reports show that this program greatly enhanced the income generation among the rural populace,helping them to emerge from poverty. These people were otherwise potential migrators to urban
centers, looking for better lives.

School Agriculture Program
The School Agriculture Program (SAP) is being introduced to all schools where students are engaged
in agricultural related activities. The subject of agriculture is also incorporated into the school
curriculum. The School Agriculture Program (SAP) is to impart basic knowledge and skills ofagriculture sciences, produce fresh vegetables to supplement nutrition in school food programs and tocreate awareness about self-employment opportunities. Most importantly, SAP is to make the children
appreciate agriculture so that when they grow up, they will take up agriculture as their profession.
They also learn to respect the dignity of labor and value community service. The central schools in
Bhutan now strive to grow their own vegetables and be self-sufficient.
In the long run, when today’s children come to appreciate and embrace agriculture, it will have agreat bearing on containing the movement of people from rural to urban areas.

10Conclusion
While infrastructure developments like roads, schools, hospitals and banking facilities in rural places
are an indispensable part of development, they are insufficient to contain the problem of people
moving from rural to urban centers. This is evident from Japan. “To stop over-migration, the Japanese
government tried several projects to eliminate the disparity between rural and urban facilities since themid-1960s. However, no significant effects seems to have resulted” (Ando 2012). Despite all the basic
facilities established, Japanese rural communities have witnessed an unprecedented level of ruraldepopulation. Many of the traditional houses and schools in rural Japan have been converted into
community centers. Japan’s case thus provides us with the opportunity to critically look at our current
approach to solve rural-urban migration in Bhutan and ask if having all facilities in place is sufficientor if there is something more than just infrastructure development. We must rethink and reconsider thesolutions for rural depopulation if developmental facilities and focusing on improving economic
stability are insufficient. “Rural development is not about the issue of economic and materialistic
development; rather it is the issue of emphasizing the values and life of rural society” (Ando 2012).
People today do not value rural life and society. Thus, the greatest change required is a change inthe thinking of the people. We should bring back the glory associated with rural life. The perception ofagriculture in Bhutan, especially among the youth, needs to change drastically. Today, farming ismostly seen as part of a lifestyle of the past. People do not understood that commercial agriculture
offers a professional career and can be highly profitable. A shift from agriculture being seen as a
traditional sector mired in poverty to a potentially lucrative and creative sector is necessary.

11References
Ando, Kazuo. 2012. "Rural Depopulation: A lesson from Japan." Kuensel, November 16.
Bhutan Broadcasting Service. 2013. "Bidung, the hardest hit gewog by rural-urban migration." March
29.
Cheychey. 2014. "Villages continue to lose its people." Bhutan Broadcasting Service, April 25.
Conover, M.R. 2002. Resolving human-wildlife conflicts. Florida: Lewis Publishers.
Dema, Yeshey. 2011. "21 percent of the houses empty in Tashiding." Kuensel, January 14.
Dorji, Tshering. 2016. "Empty households: The flipside of economic migration." Business Bhutan,
February 20.
Grau, H.R & Aide, T.M. 2007. "Are rural-urban migration and sustainable development compatible inmountain systems?" Mountain Research and Development 27 (2) 119-123.
Kuensel. 2009. "Bhutan's internal migration rate highest in South Asia." October 22.
Rey Benayas, J.M. Martins, and Schulz, J. 2007. "Abandonment of agricultural land: an overview ofdrivers and consequences." CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science andNatural Resources 2(57) 1-14.
Robson, J.P & Berkes, F. 2011. "Exploring some of the myths of land use change: can rural to urban
migration drive decline in biodiversity?" Global Environmental Change 21 844-854.
Royal Government of Bhutan. 2004. Bhutan Biodiversity Complex: Living in Harmony with Nature.
Thimphu: Nature Conservation Division, Department of Forest, Ministry of Agriculture.
Royal Government of Bhutan.2005. Rural-Urban Migration in Bhutan. Thimphu: Ministry ofAgriculture,
Royal Government of Bhutan. 2005. Population and Housing Census of Bhutan. Thimphu: Office of
the Census Commissioner, Royal Government of Bhutan.
Royal Government of Bhutan. 2007. Bhutan at a Glance. Thimphu: National Statistics Bureau.
Royal Government of Bhutan.2008. Socio-Economic and Demographic indicators 2005. Thimphu:
National Statistics Bureau.
Royal Government of Bhutan. 2009. Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development, Human
Development Report. New York: United Nations Development Program.
12

Royal Government of Bhutan. 2013. Assessment on Impact of Human-Wildlife Conflict Management
Intervention to the local communities. Thimphu: Department of Forests and Parks, Ministry ofAgriculture and Forests.
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Program Phase I. Thimphu: Research and Evaluation Division, GNH Commission, Royal
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Royal Government of Bhutan. 2016. Prime Minster's The state of the Nation report. Thimphu: Royal
Government of Bhutan.
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Yonten, Kinley. 2017. "Villages Empty in Zangthiy." Bhutan today, February 14.

13

Rural-Urban Migration and Agriculture:
Hinthada Township, Ayeyarwady Region

Myint Thida*, Moh Moh Khaing**, Win Thanda Oo***

Abstract
This paper presents the rural-urban migration due to the low and irregular income from Hinthada
Township agriculture. Productivity is low due to low investment and untimely rain; job opportunities
are few. Agriculture mechanization leads to unemployment and most migrants moved to urban areas
due to economic reasons. Possessing limited skills, they perform casual labor and female laborers workin industrial zones located in the Yangon Region. Most migrants are between 20 and 40 years old; alarge proportion is female. Although they go to urban areas to obtain regular incomes, some migrants
do not obtain regular incomes and do not regularly send remittances home. This paper explores thepresent situation of agriculture affecting migration to understand migration types and profiles and to
examine the consequences. Primary data were mainly collected through interviews, questionnaires andfocus group discussions. The quantitative-qualitative mixed method is applied in presenting the paper.

Keywords: agriculture, machinery use, limited job opportunities, migration, income*

Professor, Department of Geography, Hinthada University, Email: myintthida.2011@gmail.com
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Hinthada University, Email: mohmohk1970@gmail.com***
Tutor, Department of Geography, University of Yangon, Email: winthandaoo.geog@gmail.com
14**

Introduction
Agriculture is a major pillar of the Myanmar economy. Agriculture is one of the most importanteconomic activities in Myanmar, contributing 37.8 percent of GDP and employing 70 percent of thelabor force. Agriculture mechanization is gaining momentum; hand tractors were widely used due to thecheap prices and light tools in the 2000s. Agriculture machinery reduces the work of agricultural laborand unemployment is a major problem in rural areas.
Income derived from agriculture activities is also low. According to Todaro (1969) and Harris andTodaro (1970), rural-urban migration in less developed countries is related to the difference between the
expected urban wage from migration and the agricultural wage. Limited job opportunities in rural areas
also encourage migration; young adults move to urban areas to obtain regular and higher incomes, abetter environment and higher living standards.
Migration is a recent phenomenon in developing countries including Myanmar where rural-urban
migration started gaining momentum after the 1990s. People living in rural areas move to urban areas,
especially Yangon, the major city of Myanmar. Due to job opportunities in the urban area andunemployment in rural areas, rural-urban migration became distinct in the last decade; irregular and low
incomes from farming are the major pushing factors.
Lewis (1954) stated that rural-urban migration is a response to high demand for labor from theindustrial sector. In Myanmar, after the transition toward market-oriented economy started in 1990s, thegrowth of the industrial sector became distinct. Industrial zones were established in cities such as
Yangon, Mandalay and Mawlamyine. In Yangon City, Hlaintharyar, Shwepyithar, North Dagon, South
Dagon and Shwepaukkan Industrial Zones were established. The growth and establishment of industrial
zones affect rural-urban migration.
To present the problems with agriculture, which is the mainstay of the rural economy, including
pushing and pulling factors as well as migration types and consequences, Hinthada Township, a major
town located in the Ayeyarwady Region, was selected.

15

Study area
Hinthada Township is located in the northern Ayeyarwady Region and includes an urban area and 103
village tracts. Lying between the north latitudes of 17o 26′ and 17o 48′ and between the east longitudesof 95o 11′ and 95o 33′, the township is situated in the deltaic area and the existing physical conditions
support agriculture. Hinthada Township is nearly 160 kilometers (100 miles) away from the Yangon
Region.

Figure 1: Hinthada Township location
Source: Myanmar Atlas (2002)

Aim and Objectives
This paper focuses on reducing the problems concerning migration. The paper explores the present
situation of agriculture affecting migration in order to understand migration types and migrant profiles
as well as to examine migration consequences.

Methodology
Among 103 village tracts of Hinthada Township, five village tracts, Pauktanlay, Zetawgone, Mayancho,
Letpangone and Gyogone, were selected as sample villages. Data were obtained using a mixed methods
approach comprising of questionnaire surveys and key informant interviews. Primary data werecollected from 100 respondents (73 males and 27 females) who were purposively selected. Of the
respondents, 64 percent own their farmland. The questions are related to pushing and pulling factors,
migrant profiles, the differences in job opportunities in rural and urban areas, income differences and16

problems concerning migration in a rural area. To obtain a detailed understanding of migration, focus
group discussion was conducted with village administration authorities and local residents. To present
the paper, the qualitative and quantitative mixed method was used.

Results and Findings
Migration types
International migration is found because 22 percent of the migrants moved to other countries. Of these,
18 percent moved to neighboring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Seventy-eightpercent of the migrants moved to other cities and towns in Myanmar. Sixty-three percent moved to
Yangon City because of many job opportunities.

to other towns; 19%

Internat ional; 22%

to Yangon; 81%

Internal Migrat ion; 78%

Migration causes
In the study area, two migration types are found. Economic reasons rank first with 92 percent of the
migrants and the remaining eight percent is education related migration. This eight percent of the
migrants move to Yangon City where half of them graduate and continue their studies in Computer
Training Class and Economics such as LCCI (London Chamber of Commerce and Industry). While they
are learning, they search for jobs to support themselves and work in weekends. The remaining four
percent are university students.

17

Number of migrants
The number of migrants distinctly increased due to the higher pace of urbanization. Before 2000, only
nine villagers migrated. Then, during the ten-year period between 2000 and 2010, the number of

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20
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number of migrant( person)

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Percent

migrants tripled. Between 2010 and 2018, the number of migrants more than doubled, totaling 63.

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Reason for migration

Pushing and pulling factors
Major pushing factors include unemployment and irregular income which affect rural-urban migration.

Job opportunities in the area
In the area, job opportunities are limited. Agriculture and brick making are the major economic activities
in the area.

Agriculture
Agriculture is a major part of the economy in the area but only provides low and irregular income due
to high risks and low yield. Low and irregular income derived from agriculture is one pushing factor
affecting migration. Most farmers grow pulse as well as rice (paddy-pulses system) because summer
paddy cultivation requires much investment. Although paddies are mainly cultivated in the rainy season,
the yield per unit area is approximately three tons per hectare. Pulses are extensively cultivated in thecool dry period, but price fluctuation reduces the return for pulse cultivation.
Agriculture machinery is also gaining momentum in Hinthada Township. Most farmers use tractors
in plowing and combined harvesters for reducing labor costs double-cropping and finishing in time to18

avoid the untimely rain. Therefore, the working period shortened and unemployment problems became
significant.

Photo 1. Using a combine machine for

Photo 2. Brickmaking (28.1.18)

harvesting (27.11.17)

Brick making is the non-farm activity in the area. In the off-season period, young adults earn income
for their manual labor in brick making. Their daily income is 4000 kyats per capita. Brick making is
mainly performed in the dry period and does not provide regular income for rural residents. Most ofthem are smallholder farmers and they cultivate paddies in the rainy season.

Working calendar
May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

Paddy
cultivation
Pulse
cultivation
BrickmakingFurnituremakingWorking period of local residents in Hinthada Township
Source: Interview (November 2017)

In the rainy season, traditional rain-fed paddy cultivation is practiced. Although the growing period isnearly four months, the total period for monsoon paddy cultivation takes over five months. The labor
requirement starts in May for land preparation and plowing and ends in November for harvesting.
Daily workers earn a low and irregular income of only 4000 kyats per day, which is insufficient tosupport themselves. Pulse cultivation is mainly in the cool dry period as the farmers conduct double19

cropping. Pulse cultivation requires much labor and is advantageous for casual labor, but the work period
is only from November to March. Brick making is seasonal work between January and April. The daily
income of a brick maker is 5000 kyats.

Pulling Factors
The nearness to Yangon City is a major advantage for the area because the study area is located in
Ayeyarwady Region, which is 160 km (100 miles) away from Yangon Region. Hlaingtharyar Industrial
Zone is the largest industrial zone in Yangon and was established in 1995. Over 650 factories operate
in this industrial zone; the area has many job opportunities. The factories in the area attract female
workers and all females older than 18 can obtain jobs regardless of their education.

Migrant Profiles
GenderForty-two percent of the migrants are male and 53 percent female. Young rural women moved into theurban labor market following the recent establishment of industrial zones around Yangon, the capital(Chaw Chaw, 2007). Job opportunities for females are higher in the Yangon Region and a greaternumber of female laborers are needed in most factories such as garment and food-stuff factories.

Education level and job types
Eighty-seven percent of the migrants have limited education.

The migrants with some high school

education are the highest with 51 percent, but only 13 percent have graduated. Migrants who have
graduated work as government employees and earn regular incomes. The migrants with less education
work as housemaids, housekeepers in hotels, casual labor and in restaurants and factories in industrial
zones within Myanmar.

20

60
50

20
10

Figure 7:

Source: Questionnaire results

ev
ll
sc
h

oo

oo
Pr
im
ar
y

eS
ch
dl
id
M

Figure 6: Migrant gender

el

el
ll

ll
oo
Sc
h
h

Hi
g

ev

ev

te

el

d

0

ua

Male; 46%

30

Gr
ad

Female; 54%

Number of Migrant40

Migrant education

Source: Questionnaire results

Ages
The typical rural-urban migrant in less developed countries (LDCs) is 15-30 years old (Lipton, 1980).
In the study area, according to the field survey, 52 percent of the migrants are between 20 and 30 years
old because all persons above 18 years can find jobs in an industrial zone and other economic activities.
However, 31 percent of the migrants are under 20 years old because some migrants who are under 18
can work in commercial areas and construction sites.

IncomeIncome varies with job types and work places. Those working abroad earn a high income of over 500,000
kyats per month. International migrants need large capital investment and high skills.
Those who work in Myanmar earn more than 200,000 kyats per month. They need limited skills
because they work as blue collar workers.
Forty-two percent of the migrants are employed as casual labor and construction workers who do notearn regular incomes. The migrants working in restaurants and hotels earn regular incomes; those whowork as casual labor, housemaids and in factories earn irregular income. They are always looking for
better jobs and higher income through middlemen, relatives and friends.

21

Remittance
Like income, remittance varies because of different incomes and costs. International migrants send
remittances back once every three months. Twenty-seven percent of the internal migrants do not sendback remittances regularly due to low incomes and the high cost of living in urban areas. They send
remittances back mainly on special occasions such as Thidingyut, New Year and when their family
members are in ill health. As the young adults move to other areas, their families encounter high laborcosts for farming (World Bank, 2005).

Migration consequences
Labor shortages are one consequence of rural-urban migration. Due to labor shortages, labor costs are
high.
In 2005, the labor cost was 1000 kyats per day, which has increased to 4500 kyats per day. Therefore,
the labor cost increased 4.5 times during a more than 10 year period. It also increases the cost of crop
production and decreases economic returns derived from crop cultivation.

Conclusion
Hinthada Township is located in a deltaic area and agriculture is the mainstay of the economy.
Unfortunately, agriculture productivity is low and only provides irregular low incomes to the rural
residents. Farmers mainly cultivate paddies in the rainy season but the economic return is low due tountimely and irregular rain high labor costs. In the dry season, they cultivate pulses but the return is low
due to price fluctuations. Therefore, income derived from agriculture is low although agriculture is amajor pillar of the economy in the area.
Brick making is also performed in the dry season but only provides irregular income as the work islimited to that season. Agriculture machinery use is gaining momentum, causing a short working period
and resulting in increased underemployment, which leads to rural-urban migration in the study area.
Most migrants are female because factories located in the large industrial zone within Yangon fringearea mainly attract female laborers. Some male migrants work as casual laborers. Most are unskilledlaborers and do not obtain regular incomes. Although they send remittances to their families, it is used22

for daily consumption, health costs and education for the youths. Therefore, the socioeconomic
conditions of the people remain low in Hinthada Township.
In the future, rural-urban migration will gain momentum because of the quick pace of urbanization;
rural depopulation problems will increase. Therefore, suitable ways to avoid rural depopulation
problems and to upgrade agriculture are necessary. Supporting technology to obtain high yields andreduce losses are also necessary as well as establishing a vocational school and small and medium
enterprises to reduce the migration pace. Moreover, existing infrastructure, especially road infrastructure,should be upgraded to support the local economy. Research covering the dropout rate in education,
farmer perception on agriculture, local resources and more are also needed to fulfill the needs of thelocal residents in Hinthada Township.

References
Chaw Chaw. 2007. Rural women migrating to urban garment factories in Myanmar,(http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.202.254&rep=rep1 &type=pdf)
Harris, J.R., Todaro, M.P.1970. Migration, unemployment, and development: A two-sector Analysis,
American Economic Review, 60(1): 126-38.
Lewis, W.A. 1954. Economic development with unlimited supplies of labor, The Manchester School of
Economics & Social Studies, 22, 139-192.
Lipton, M. 1980. Migration from rural areas of poor countries: The impact on rural productivity andincome distribution, World Development, 8, Pergamon Press Ltd., Great Britain, pp.1-24.
Todaro, M. 1969. A model of labor migration and urban unemployment in less developed countries, The
American Economic Review, 59(1):138-148
World Bank. 2013. Empowering People by Transforming Institutions, Social Development in WorldBank Operations, 2005, International Journal of Population Research, Volume 2013, Article ID
610193 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/610193).

23

Cheroots in Myanmar:
Rural Development behind the Government Policy
Matsuda Masahiko*Abstract
Cheroot, seboleik in Burmese, is a traditional and unique tobacco product made of tobacco andthanatphet (Cordia dicotoma Forst.) leaves in Myanmar. This paper examines the development processof production centers of the two materials for cheroot making, using information obtained by fieldsurveys. The two centers were very different in ecological and cultural settings but have created strong
interdependence between them. The centers had continuously grown, even under contrary agriculture
policy and during political instability; the rural development was purely led by the local residents.

Keywords: Burma, Pao, Thanatphet, Tobacco*

Professor, College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto 603-8577, Japan.
Email: matsu@ir.ritsumei.ac.jp
24

1. Cheroot smoking in Myanmar
Myanmar has a traditional and unique tobacco product: cheroot. In Burmese a cheroot is called seboleik,
which means light-tasting rolled tobacco. The cheroot has been smoked widely in Myanmar regardlessof age, gender and ethnicity, although the majority of cheroot smokers are normally elderly men (Figure1). Cheroot are more popular than commercial cigarettes in rural areas.
The cheroot contains leaves, stems and roots of the tobacco plant and wood chips from trees forfragrance. Local Myanmar varieties of tobacco are used for cheroots. Cured tobacco leaves are chopped
and scented with vinegar, which is made from the sap of Palmira palm, banana, pineapple or tamarind.
The chopped stems and roots are also scented and roasted. They are wrapped by a leaf of thanatphet(Cordia dicotoma Forst.) plant, with a filter made of maize husks (bract).
This paper focuses on commercialized cheroots. The commercialized cheroot, which is wrapped inthanatphet, is popular and available everywhere in Myanmar and is consumed in great volume at thepresent. People in Myanmar also smoke homemade rolled tobacco, which is rolled in materials including
newspapers, banana leaves and maize husks. They all are also included among seboleik in a broad sense.
The commercial cheroot looks like a cigar at a glance, but is completely different from the cigar, which
is made solely of tobacco leaves. The cigar is called sebyinleik in Burmese and means strong-tastingrolled tobacco.
The main materials in the cheroot are tobacco and thanatphet. The two materials are produced indifferent regions and by different ethnic groups. Tobacco is mainly grown in the central part of Myanmar
where mainly Burmese, the ethnic majority, live. Thanatphet is grown in the mountainous region where
the ethnic minorities commonly live. This paper outlines the cheroot and its industry in Myanmar, andexamines the independent development process of production centers of the two main materials forcheroot making, considering the national agriculture policy and politics. Field information and statistical
data used here were primarily obtained by surveys in Myanmar from 2007 to 2017. This paper is largely
adapted from Matsuda (2014) and original discussion on rural development is newly added.

2. Burmese cheroot making and tobacco farming in central Myanmar
Myingyan Township, located in the central dry zone of Myanmar, is the best-known production center25

for both tobacco leaves and cheroots. Many people in Myingyan, mostly Burmese, engage in tobacco
farming and/or the cheroot industry; local residents call the township tobacco town.
The Myanmar cheroot industry is concentrated in Myingyan. The number of cheroot making
companies, seleikkoun, in Myingyan has been gradually increasing for the last few decades. The cheroot
industry in other regions of Myanmar, in general, has been decreasing or has become a sub-center
depending on Myingyan. Mandalay is probably the second largest center of cheroot production andapproximately 15 companies were working in 2009, but the owners said that the industry was in a
downward trend. Bago was also well-known for cheroot making in lower Myanmar and approximately
20 companies were producing their own brand in 2011; most of them use ready-made materials
purchased from the manufacturers in Myingyan.
Over 200 cheroot manufacturing companies are probably operating in Myingyan town. There were atleast 60 large scale companies with their own brand of cheroot with small subcontractors under them in2010. A large-scale cheroot company can produce more than 150 thousand cheroots per day. Eachcompany has acquired specific regions as their steady markets; Myanmar has no cheroot brands sold
across the entire country. Most of the large companies have continued to purchase cured tobacco leaves
from specific villages, each company working with different villages. The cheroot companies provide
processed materials including mixed and processed tobacco, filters and thanatphet leaves which werepurchased from the mountainous region to the workers in the villages to handle most of the wrapping
process (Figure 2). Commission brokers link cheroot companies and villages; the cheroot companies
commission villagers with the piecework of making cheroots.
Tobacco is a major cash crop in Myingyan Township. Local Myanmar varieties of tobacco called
seywegyi, bamase, and myanmase have been grown more widely in Myingyan than a bagyiniya(Virginia) variety which was introduced into Myanmar from the USA in the 1930s and used for cigarettes.
According to official statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI), thesown area of the local variety of tobacco in Myingyan Township was 7,842 acres in 2009-2010. The
area was the largest in Myanmar and accounted for approximately 24% of the national total sown area.
Tobacco is sown both in the upland fields (ya) and alluvial lowland fields (kain) in Myingyan. Farmers
said that the former was generally higher quality and lower yield than the latter. Sowing tobacco starts
26

in August in nurseries and the seedlings are transplanted into the fields in September and October. The
leaves are harvested from December to February. Harvested tobacco leaves are dried outside in the sun
for a few days and inside for approximately three months. Then, the cured tobacco leaves are classified
by quality and sold to cheroot manufacturing companies (Figure 3).
Although tobacco farming has been developed and is an important income source for local residents,
Myanmar government policy has not supported the industry. The central government sometimes
hindered tobacco farming in Myingyan during the 2000s. The agriculture policy of the previous
government had prioritized rice production all over the country, probably in order to maintain a low andstable price of rice for social stability then. To achieve the chief objective in the agriculture policy,
increasing rice production and attaining regional self-sufficiency, the government had a planned
economy, especially for the politically important crop: rice. The government had set a production target
for rice at the township level and led farmers to follow the policy. Even in the central dry zone where
agricultural fields suitable for rice farming are limited from the agro-ecological viewpoint, increasing
rice production had been driven by the government, especially since the late 1990s (Matsuda 2009). The
planned sown area of rice in Myingyan Township was 2.68 times as large as the actual sown area in
2009-2010 and 1.85 times in 2010-11 according to the MOALI statistics. These areas probably indicate
the strong political pressure for expanding the paddy fields in Myingyan Township in the late 2000s.
According to local officials, the central government planned to replace tobacco with rice in lowland
fields which were potentially available for rice production. Tobacco was thought of as an obstruction torice production and the government called tobacco a restricted crop.
However, the tobacco farmers did not simply follow the rice-oriented agriculture policy and tried tomaintain tobacco production, working against the policy and the strong pressure from the central
government. The statistics from MOALI state that the sown area of tobacco was more than that of ricein the previous years, but decreased 73 percent from 2000-2001 to 2009-2010 and was replaced by ricein the late 2000s. That may have been an “achievement” of the national policy. However, the number oftobacco products changed relatively little from the previous years in the statistics, which indicated only
a 39 percent reduction during the same period. All cheroot companies said that they had never faced any
tobacco leave shortages then. The rice-oriented agriculture policy was changed and relaxed after a27

democratic government was newly established in 2011; the sown tobacco area became greater than rice
again after 2011-2012. Tobacco farming in Myingyan has developed in spite of the central government’s
policy.

3. Pao thanatphet production in a mountainous region
Thanatphet has been produced in the mountainous region of Myanmar and shipped to central Myanmar
for cheroot making. Thanatphet has been widely planted as a perennial crop on the Shan Plateau at least
since the British Colonial Era and used as a cheroot wrapper. Its cultivation and marketing were often
found in descriptions of gazetteers published in the 19 century due to its importance as a revenue source
for the colonial government. The recent production center is in Southern Shan State. According to
MOALI, the planted area of thanatphet in Southern Shan State was 53,633 acres in 2009-2010,accounting for 98 percent of the total Myanmar thanatphet crop.
In Southern Shan, thanatphet has been grown mainly on the hillsides and is sometimes found in homegardens as well. The leaves can be harvested the second year after seedlings are planted. The harvest
period is from June to September, which is the rainy season, and the leaves are picked twice a month.
Manure and chemical fertilizers are used for thanatphet cultivation and pesticides are usually applied.
Agrochemical use started by the 1950s (Maung Khun Nwe 1973). The harvested leaves are pressed anddried on stoves in villagers’ houses (Figure 4). The processed leaves are classified by size and sold incentral Myanmar for cheroot making.
Kyautaloungyi Sub-township, a southern part of Taunggyi Township located in Southern Shan State,is a well-known center of thanatphet production. Pao, an ethnic group, has lived there and grownthanatphet for a long time (Maung Khun Nwe 1973), which has been important in their livelihoods.
Matsuda (2010) described thanatphet farming and its position in the livelihoods in a hillside village ofthe sub-township as follows. Many households, 29 out of a total of 36, grew thanatphet in the village
and nearly half of the thanatphet farming households (13) have a stove for drying in their houses. Somehouseholds (5) have continued thanatphet production since the 1950s. Thanatphet production was abasic income source in the village. The villagers said that the area and amount of the production hadoriginally been less than the present level in the 1950s when subsistence rice farming in shifting28

cultivation had been important for their livelihood. Thanatphet planting had expanded when commercial
crops and continuous upland farming had also increased there in the 1960s-1970s. Then, in the 19801990s, most of the villagers had engaged in thanatphet production at the present level. Although thevillagers enjoyed a boom in garlic, which was intensively cultivated in the dry season in irrigated uplandin the 2000s, they kept producing thanatphet as well until now.
The production center of thanatphet, Kyautaloungyi, was politically unstable for a long time. Afterthe independence of Myanmar in 1948, ethnic armed groups against the central government had
occupied their territories in rural areas in order to secure their autonomy. In Shan Plateau, military
conflicts occurred between the ethnic groups and the national army; political tension was also high fora long time. The production center was the same, and the area was occupied by the Pao National
Organization (PNO), an anti-government Pao organization. The ceasefire agreement between the PNO
and the central government was signed in 1991. Then, the area was authorized as Special Region No. 6
and the PNO received some administrative autonomy. Even after the agreement, entry into the area wascontrolled by the PNO until 2011 when the democratic government established. Now, the area is a SelfAdministered Zone established by the 2008 Constitution.
Although the political tension between the PNO and the central government was especially highbefore a ceasefire agreement in 1991, the thanatphet distribution from the production center to central
Myanmar was not interrupted. The local residents continued their business in spite of the situation.
According to Maung Khun Nwe (1973), the distribution of thanatphet from Shan State only stopped
during the Japanese rule in World War II. Additionally, in the Socialist era, the central government
intervened and started to control the thanatphet trade in 1963 (Maung Khun Nwe 1973). However,delivery to the government at the fixed price did not work well and the system was abolished in 1966
and thanatphet was liberalized again (Maung Khun Nwe 1973).

4. Co-evolution of the production centers
The two production centers of the major cheroot materials, Myingyan for tobacco and Southern Shanfor thanatphet, have created a strong and closed interdependence between them. They need each otherto exist because both materials are only used for making cheroots. The local tobacco variety is primarily
29consumed for cheroots, although it is partly used as an ingredient for betel chewing. It is indispensable
for cheroot making because the introduced variety of tobacco is not appropriate for cheroots. Thanatphet
is only utilized for cheroot wrappers, indicating that the centers, disparate in ecological and cultural
settings, are economically linked together.
The interdependence between the two different centers can be described as a consequence of coevolution. As the cheroot industry developed and became concentrated, the production centers of thematerials changed and their interdependence increased. Cheroot making changed from subsistence to acommercial enterprise. Then the cheroot industry and tobacco farming in rural area were graduallyconcentrated at Myingyan. Thanatphet came to be produced more intensively in Southern Shan and its
importance in earning livelihoods was increased in Pao villages; they became major producers ofthanatphet in Myanmar. The cheroot related industry should be a chief component in the ruraldevelopment of the two centers: Myingyan and Southern Shan.
The firm bond between the two centers was a strong barrier against external dividing forces underpolitical tension to realize stable economic connection. Even when political relations between the ethnicorganization in the thanatphet center and the central government were hostile, good economic relations
were maintained by the local residents. However, this could also be a weakness in that they have acommon destiny. If one should face serious difficulties and the local industry declines for any reason,
the other would also be affected by that negative impact.
In recent years Myanmar society and the economy have been changing faster than before, and theindustry and relevant rural areas should adapt to the new environment in the near future. The local
cheroot industry in Myanmar has developed in its own way and the production centers of materials haveco-evolved until now, competing with cigarettes in the Myanmar domestic market. Asia has someexamples of traditional tobacco industries that experienced modernization and they may provide ideas
for the Myanmar cheroot industry in the future. Indonesia has a unique local tobacco, kretek, whichcontains cloves. The kretek industry have flourished by shifting to a cigarette-like kretek. Originallywrapped mainly in maize husks, it has been replaced by cigarette papers and the production process has
been mechanized (Horii and Akasaki 2008). Whereas, Indian local tobacco, bidi, is rolled with the leavesof particular plants like Myanmar cheroot while bidi in Bangladesh is wrapped by papers at the present30(Dr. Muhammad Salim, personal communication, 2018).

5. Rural development according to local resident initiatives
The rural development accompanied by the cheroot industry in Myanmar is an obvious and concrete
example purely led by local residents. Unsupported by the government and sometimes opposed by thegovernment, tobacco farming in Myingyan had faced the challenges of both rice-oriented and antitobacco agriculture policies of the previous government, but was still developed by the local residents.
Even with political instability, Thanatphet trading was also sustained by the common people.
Local resident initiatives could be a fundamental component of sustainable and desirable ruraldevelopment. The Japanese One Village One Product (OVOP) is a well-known model for ruraldevelopment in Asia. The movement started officially in 1979 in a prefecture in Japan and expanded
domestically and internationally, such as the One Tambon One Product Project (OTOP) in Thailand.
Financial or institutional support from the public sector are often found in these cases and are sometimes
built into the projects. Cooperation between the government and the people, of course, is generally
expected for successful results. However, the origin of the OTOP movement was a farmers’ trial against
the national agriculture policy of the Japanese government. The villagers had decided to prioritize theregional economy on perennial crop production instead of rice farming in the 1960s (Matsui andYamagami 2006). The Japanese government had focused on promoting rice production then, but the
local residents had decided to go the opposite way with their own initiative. Outsiders, including
government agencies and universities, should play supporting roles in rural development. They canencourage and facilitate local initiatives, propose technical options (which can become part of the local
strategies, if suitable), support adaptation to a new environment if the local society faces to difficulty
due to rapid socio-economic changes and make additional contributions.

References
Horii, Kenzo, and Akasaki Yuichi. 2008. “Tobacco.” In Cyclopedia of Southeast Asia edited by Shiro
Momoki, Hidefumi Ogawa, Christian Daniels, Sumio Fukami, Madoka Fukuoka, Ken Miichi,
Masayuki Yanagisawa, Mako Yoshimura and Yoshinari Watanabe, 264–265. Tokyo: Heibonsha. (In31

Japanese.)
Matsuda, Masahiko. 2009. “Dynamics of Rice Production Development in Myanmar: Growth Centers,
Technological Changes, and Driving Forces.” Tropical Agriculture and Development 53: 14–27.
Matsuda, Masahiko. 2010. “Ecohistory in the Southern Shan State, Myanmar: The Development Processof Commercial Farming and Indigenous Irrigation Systems.” Noko no Gijutsu to Bunka (Farming
Technology and Culture) 27: 109–134. (In Japanese.)
Matsuda, Masahiko. 2014. “Smoking Links the Plain and the Plateau.” In Mono to Kurashi no
Shokubutsushi (Flora of Materials and Daily Life) edited by Yukino Ochiai and Chihiro Shirakawa,
112–130. Kyoto: Rinsen Book. (In Japanese.)
Matsuda, Masahiko. 2016. “Sustainable Farming Systems in Myanmar: The implications of Findings
from Field Surveys in the 2000s.” In The Myanmar Economy: Its Past, Present, and Prospect editedby Konosuke Odaka, 131–153, Tokyo: Springer.
Matsui, Kazuhisa, and Susumu Yamagami, eds. 2006. One Village One Product Movement andDeveloping Countries: How was the Japanese Rural Development Introduced? Chiba: IDE-JETRO.
(In Japanese.)
Maung Khun Nwe (Inlay). 1973. Seinmyanyoywet Thanatphet (Emerald Greenish Brown Cheroot
Leaves). Yangon: Burma Translation Society. (In Burmese.)

32

Figure 1. Burmese man smoking a cheroot. (Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region, in August 2017)

Figure 2. Cheroot making in a village. Chopped tobacco leaves and other ingredients were being
wrapped in a shaped thanatphet leaf. (Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region, in August 2017)33

Figure 3. Classification of cured tobacco leaves in a village. (Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region,in August 2017)

Figure 4. Pressing and drying thanatphet leaves by the stove. (Kyautaloungyi Sub-Township,Southern Shan State, in August 2013)34

Transformation of Cambodian Agriculture:
Roles of Financial Institutions and Land Registration
Yagura Kenjiro＊

Abstract
Over the last decade, Cambodian agriculture has undergone significant changes includingcommercialization as well as the adoption of labor-saving and capital-intensive technologies. Data
indicate that the commercialization has been promoted by technological changes, and the capitalintensive ones are in line with the increased rice prices and rural wage rates. Both the commercializationand the technological changes also require better access to credit for farmers as well as traders ofagricultural inputs and outputs, which have been facilitated by financial institutions and land registration.
In Cambodia, financial institutions have drastically increased lending to the agricultural sector. Land
registration implemented by the government in the last decade has promoted this process by making it
easy for borrowers to use their land as loan collateral. Land registration may also increase land prices,thus enabling borrowers to obtain large loans. Field data indicate traders of agricultural inputs andoutputs have relied on loans from financial institutions for working capital and funds for facility
investment. Financial institutions have also promoted the sale of agricultural machines by providing
credit to buyers in the form of installment payments and by guaranteeing payments from agricultural
machine dealers to manufacturers.

Keywords: Commercialization, Technological change, Financial sector, Land titling____________________________________*

Professor, Faculty of Economics, Hannan University, Matsubara, Osaka 580-8502, Japan
Email: k-yagura@hannan-u.ac.jp35Introduction
During the last decade, Cambodian agriculture has undergone significant changes, notablycommercialization and the adoption of labor-saving and capital-intensive technologies. Changes inprices of inputs and outputs have partially contributed to the commercialization and technologicalchanges, but the price mechanism alone was insufficient to cause the drastic transformation of the
agricultural sector, as argued below.
This study demonstrates crucial roles played by financial institutions and land registration in the
recent transformation of Cambodian agriculture by drawing on national and provincial-level statistics
as well as information collected through the author's field survey.

Recent Transformation of Cambodian Agriculture
Commercialization in Cambodian agriculture is represented by increasing production of upland cash
crops such as cassava and maize, especially in provinces in northwestern Cambodia such as Battambang,owing to the abundance of arable land, better soil and easier access to the Thai market. Among uplandcash crops, cassava production has increased the most dramatically, the harvested area jumping from30,000 hectares in 2006 to 388,000 hectare in 2016 (Food and Agriculture Organization n.d.).
Commercialization has also been observed in the rice sector. Rice exportation has increased to a large
degree although precise statistics are unavailable because a large amount of rice is exported toneighboring countries through unofficial routes. This increased exportation is possible thanks to asignificant increase in rice production from 2.5 million tons in 1990 to 9.8 million tons in 2016 (Foodand Agriculture Organization n.d.), which has resulted from increases in both planted areas and yields.
One major technological change in Cambodian agriculture in the last decade is increasing
agrochemical use. For example, the amount of chemical fertilizer used has tripled between 2008 and2015 (Fig. 1), which contributed to the increased rice yields as well as the rapid expansion of cash crop
production mentioned above.
Increasing use of machinery is another noticeable technological change, which is inferred from theincreased exports of agricultural machines from Thailand to Cambodia (Fig. 2). The more direct
evidence is the data presented in Fig. 3, which show that in Pursat province the proportion of the area36

of rice fields plowed by machines during the rainy season has increased from under 50 percent in 2010
to nearly 100 percent in 2016. In addition, according to the author's field observations in Pursat andTakeo provinces, an increasing proportion of rice is also harvested and threshed by combine harvesters.
Figure 3 also shows that during the same period, an increasing proportion of rice fields in Pursat province
are planted by broadcasting rather than transplanting.
These technological changes are characterized as increasing use of capital goods and decreasing useof labor, and thus thought to have increased agricultural production by boosting both land and laborproductivity. The increase in production enables farmers to sell a larger proportion of their output. The
commercialization, therefore, has been promoted by the technological changes.

Price Mechanism Bringing about the Transformation
As argued and demonstrated by previous studies such as Ruttan and Hayami (1972), technologicalchanges in agriculture are stimulated by changes in prices of inputs. Farmers adopt technologies which
provide them with greater income or profit. This indicates in relative terms that they adopt technologies
which use less inputs with price increases while using more inputs with price decreases. In addition, theincrease in the price of outputs provides farmers incentive to increase the use of variable inputs such as
fertilizer.
This kind of price mechanism can explain why Cambodian farmers began to adopt labor-saving andcapital-intensive technologies as described above. First, the real wage rate in the rural area has increased
in recent years as shown in Fig. 4. The increased wage rate makes hiring workers to do manual farmwork such as transplanting and harvesting costly, which encourages farmers to adopt labor-saving
technologies.
Rural wage rates increase if the labor supply decreases and/or the reservation wage increases in therural area. These changes are caused by increased labor migration from rural to urban areas in Cambodia
and international migration.
The increase in rural-urban migration is indicated by the increase in the number of workers in garment
and footwear sectors, the leading manufacturing industries in Cambodia, from approximately 300,000
in 2010 to over 600,000 in 2016 (International Labor Organization 2017, Fig. 6). Garment and footwear
37

factories are primarily located in urban areas such as Phnom Penh and most of the workers in thefactories have migrated from rural areas. Figure 4 also shows that the rural wage rate has increased
following the increase in wage rates in the construction and garment sectors. The construction sector isanother sector concentrated in urban areas absorbing migrant workers from rural areas. Migration to
Thailand, where workers can earn a higher income than in Cambodia, has also increased, as indicatedby an estimate that the number of Cambodian nationals in Thailand has increased from 153,000 in 2000
to 805,000 in 2015 (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2015). The datasuggest that a large number of rural workers have moved to an urban area or Thailand to earn a higher
wage, leading to an increase in the rural wage rate. The increase in labor migration from the rural areas
also causes labor shortages in the rural areas, forcing farmers to use labor-saving technologies.
The use of chemical fertilizer may also stimulate increased rice prices. As indicated in Fig. 1, theproducer's price of rice shows an increasing trend between 2006 and 2011, and during the same period,
the use of chemical fertilizer also increased significantly.

The Role of Financial Institutions
The price mechanism as described above, however, cannot fully explain the technological changes. For
example, while the producer’s price of rice has increased, the price of chemical fertilizer has also
increased to a large degree in the last decade,1 possibly offsetting the incentive for farmers to increasechemical fertilizer use.
More importantly, except broadcasting as the rice planting method, farmers need funds to adopt thelabor-saving and capital-intensive technologies mentioned above. Funds are necessary to buy chemicalfertilizer and agricultural machines. Retailers or dealers of chemical fertilizer and agricultural machines,
from whom farmers buy those inputs, also need funds to purchase them from wholesalers or
manufacturing companies. Commercialization is also only possible when crop traders have sufficient1

According to information collected by the author in Takeo province, the retail price of urea per bag (50kg) wasaround 30,000 riel in 2002, but it has increased up to 90,000 riel in 2014.
38

funds to buy crops from farmers, as cash-strapped farmers need to get paid upon the deliveryof the crops.
The problem is that in most cases both farmers and traders need funds before they get paid for selling
their products. Without their own sufficient funds, they need to borrow money to use as funds. Thisstrongly suggests that financial institutions have played critical roles in transforming Cambodian
agriculture by helping farmers and traders to secure funds in some way.
Various data support this proposition. First, commercial banks and microfinance institutions in
Cambodia have significantly increased their loans to the agricultural sector in the last decade (Fig. 5).
In addition, microfinance institutions have increased the average loan size per borrower dramaticallyfrom a mere 143 USD in 2005 to 1,140 USD in 2014 (Cambodia Microfinance Association n.d.).
The increasing loan disbursement may have promoted the use of chemical fertilizer. Farmers can buy
fertilizer with funds they borrow from financial institutions. In addition, according to informationcollected by the author from fertilizer stores in Pursat province, the stores often sell fertilizer to farmers
on credit for the promise that the farmers will pay after harvesting their crops.2 Sales on credit are
possible because fertilizer stores also borrow money from financial institutions, or because they can also
buy fertilizer from wholesalers on credit. Although information on wholesalers is unavailable,
wholesalers may also be able to obtain loans from financial institutions to sell fertilizer to retailers on
credit.
The mechanization of farm work is also facilitated by financial institutions in two ways. First, foragricultural machine dealers in Pursat, 50 to 60 percent of agricultural machines they sell are paid for in
installments. In the installment payment plan, financial institutions pay the price to the dealers upon thesale of machines, and farmers (i.e. buyers) pay the financial institutions in installments. Agricultural
machine sales could increase with this payment plan even if both farmers and machine dealers haveinsufficient funds.
Second, the payment by machine dealers in Pursat to an agricultural machinery manufacturing
company in Thailand is guaranteed by a Cambodian commercial bank using a Letter of Guarantee (L/G).

2

The information was collected from five fertilizer retailers in Pursat province on August 16-18, 2017.
39

In this arrangement, if a dealer cannot pay the manufacturing company, the bank will pay the company
in place of the dealer, the cost being covered by selling the land the dealer offered as collateral. Thisapparently facilitates the purchase of machines by the dealers from manufacturers.
Financial institutions also promote commercialization by providing loans to crop traders and ricemills. For example, two rice mills in Pursat that the author visited on August 15-16, 2017 routinely
obtain loans from a commercial bank to buy paddy rice from farmers and rice collectors. They alsoborrowed from a bank to replace or expand their facilities. For upland crops, a trader in the Phnom
Kravanh district of Pursat province who buys upland crops such as cassava from farmers also borrowed
10,000 USD from a microfinance institution.3 Cassava collected by such traders in Pursat province ismostly sold to silos on the Cambodia-Thai border that export cassava to Thailand. The silos also obtainloans from banks to buy cassava from traders.4

Land Registration
The data and information presented above indicate that increased loans from financial institutions tofarmers and traders have promoted the transformation of Cambodian agriculture. The question is how
financial institutions could do so; one answer is increasing the availability of funds. Disclosed financial
information shows that loanable funds of Cambodian financial institutions have increased significantlyin the last decade owing to capital inflow and borrowing from foreign sources as well as an increase indeposits collected domestically.5
Another possible factor is the land registration program. Land registration matters because in
Cambodia borrowers primarily offer land as collateral to financial institutions for loans. Following theenactment of the Land Law in 2001, the Cambodian government implemented a systematic land
registration program. In the program, each land parcel people have occupied and used as their de-facto
property is surveyed and registered with a cadastral map; a land title certificate is given to the de-facto
landowner if the conditions required by the law are met. Land registration based on Order 01, which

3

Information based on an interview with the trader by the author on December 28, 2016.
Information based on an interview with the manager of a silo in Battambang province by the author on
December 29, 2016.
5
Based on National Bank of Cambodia, Supervision Annual Report for 2005-2016.
440

started in 2012, further expanded the geographical coverage of the registration and boosted thenumber of registered land parcels. As a result, 63.6 percent of the estimated number of land parcels in
Cambodia have been registered as of the end of 2016 (Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planningand Construction, 2017).
Previous studies demonstrated theoretically and empirically that land registration or land titling gives
landowners better access to credit.6 In Cambodia, the land registration increases lending by financial
institutions in two ways. First, land registration makes loan applications easier. In fact, financial
institutions in Cambodia have given loans to customers who do not have land title certificates. In suchcases, however, loan applicants who want to offer land as collateral must have documents proving theyown a certain land parcel on a de-facto basis7 as well as signatures of local government authorities suchas the village and commune chiefs. Financial institutions also need to exercise some caution in
confirming whether applicants really own the land parcels they offer as collateral in such cases. With aland title certificate, the application process is greatly streamlined because the certificate alone can proveapplicant ownership of the land parcel.8
Second, land registration may increase land prices, enabling loan applicants to increase the size of
their loans because financial institutions limit loan sizes according to the pledged asset values. For
financial institutions in Pursat province, where the author visited in August 2017, the loan limit is set at
67 to 80 percent of the pledged asset value. The significant increase in the size of the loan per borrower
from the microfinance institutions mentioned above required the land price increasing to a large extent.
Land registration can increase the land price for several reasons. First, as Binswanger and Rosenzweig(1986) argue, land prices reflect the benefit of owning land in the form of better access to credit if theland is used as loan collateral. Land registration, by facilitating loan applications as mentioned above,

increases the economic benefit of owning land, which is factored into the land price. Second,
land registration makes the land ownership more secure and decreases the risk of land being

6

Feder and Nishio (1998) present a theoretical framework and review of previous empirical studies of this issue.
An example of document used in such case is a ticket given from the local authority when it surveyed the landparcel in the early 1990s with an intention to register (but registration did not proceed after then).
8This proposition is based on information collected by the author from staff members of financial institutions in
Pursat province on August 15-16, 2017.
741

grabbed by other parties. As demand for such land parcels increases, land prices will also increase (Feder,
Just, and Zilberman, 1985).9The second reason indicates that the effect of land registration on land prices would be strong infrontier regions where many people immigrated from other regions and cleared land for farming
relatively recently. In such regions, mutual trust among people may be weak; people may not havecommon recognition of who owns or occupies which land parcel. Under such situation, conflicts amongpeople or with outsiders over land ownership would happen much more frequently than where people
settled and cultivated land for many years.
Although official statistics on land prices in Cambodia do not exist, data collected by the author
indicate land registration positively affects the land price in at least some regions. For example,
according to a farmer in the Viel Veng district, a frontier region in Purat province, the price of uplandfields in his village was only several hundred USD per hectare before land registration, but increased to2,000 to 4,500 USD per hectare after land registration in 2012.10
Even in regions with long histories of settlement and cultivation, the land price has increased
significantly in the past several decades. For example, in two villages the author surveyed in Takeo
province, the price of rice fields was 800 to 1,000 USD per hectare in 2002, but became as high as 4,000
to 20,000 USD per hectare in 2014. In one village in Bakan district, Pursat province, the price of rice
fields jumped from a mere 200 USD per hectare in 2000 to 6,000 USD per hectare in 2016. Though thesurge in land prices seems to have been caused by factors other than land registration because land prices
started to increase even before land registration, the increase in land prices has certainly enabled
increased loan amounts.

9

As argued by Feder (1987), enhanced security of ownership owing to land registration can also lead to higher
land price by increasing land improvement investment by farmers such as installing irrigation facility. But thismechanism is not mentioned as a factor of increasing land price in the present paper because in Cambodian case,land price has increased even where such investment is not made.
10
Information based on an interview with the farmer by a team of researchers including the author on March 14,
2016.
42

Conclusion
In the last decade, Cambodian agriculture has undergone significant changes includingcommercialization as well as the adoption of labor-saving and capital-intensive technologies represented
by mechanization and increasing fertilizer use. For both the commercialization and the technologicalchanges to occur, farmers, as well as traders of agricultural inputs and outputs, need better access tocredit, which has been facilitated by financial institutions and land registration.
Commercial banks and microfinance institutions in Cambodia have drastically increased lending to
the agricultural sector. Land registration implemented by the government in the last decade promotes
this process by making it easy for borrowers to use their land as loan collateral. Land registration also
increases land prices and thus enables borrowers to obtain larger loans as financial institutions set loan
limits according to the pledged asset values. Field data indicate traders of agricultural inputs and outputs
have relied on loans from financial institutions for working capital and facility investment. Financial
institutions have also promoted the sale of agricultural machines by providing credit to buyers in theform of installment payments and by guaranteeing payment from agricultural machine dealers to
manufacturers.
The argument above is hypothetical as sufficient supporting evidence still needs to be obtained.
Systematic empirical investigation needs to be conducted to more closely examine the relationshipbetween commercialization, technological changes and increasing access to credit, as well as the effectof land registration on land prices and credit access.

References
Binswanger, Hans P., and Mark. R. Rosenzweig. 1986. "Behavioral and Material Determinants of
Production Relations in Agriculture." The Journal of Development Studies 22, no. 3: 503-39.
10.1080/00220388608421994.
Cambodia Development and Resource Institute. Cambodia Development Review.
Cambodia Microfinance Association. n.d. Annual Report 2014.

43

Customs Department of the Kingdom of Thailand. n.d. Trade Statistics. Accessed July 1, 2017.
http://search.customs.go.th:8090/Customs-Eng/Statistic/StatisticIndex2550.jsp.
Feder, Gershon. 1987. "Land Ownership Security and Farm Productivity: Evidence from Thailand."The Journal of Development Studies 24, no. 1 (October): 16-30. 10.1080/00220388708422052.
Feder, Gershon, Richard E. Just, and David Zilberman. 1985. "Adoption of Agricultural Innovations in
Developing Countries: A Survey." Economic Development and Cultural Change 33, no. 2(January): 255-98. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/451461.
Feder, Gershon and Akihiko Nishio. 1998. "The Benefits of Land Registration and Titling: Economic
and Social Perspectives." Land Use Policy 15, no. 1 (January): 25-43.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3989973.
Food and Agriculture Organization. n.d. FAOSTAT. Accessed February 6, 2018.
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data.
International Labor Organization. 2017. Cambodian Garment and Footwear Sector Bulletin. Issue 5,
January 2017. http://www.ilo.org/asia/publications/WCMS_541288/lang--en/index.htm.
Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. 2017. Robaykar bouk sarop leatpal
nei kar anuvat karngea chhnam 2016 neng leuk thehdaw karngea chhnam 2017 roboh krasuong
riapchom daendei nokorupniyeakam neng somnong.
http://www.mlmupc.gov.kh/?page=document&menu1=214&menu2=292&ref_id=24&ctype=art
icle&id=292&lg=kh.
National Bank of Cambodia. Supervision Annual Report.
https://www.nbc.org.kh/english/publications/supervision_annual_reports.php.
Ruttan, Vernon and Yujiro Hayami. 1972. "Strategies for Agricultural Development." Food ResearchInstitute Studies in Agricultural Economics, Trade, and Development, 11, no. 2: 129-148.
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/135054.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 2015. "Trends inInternational Migrant Stock: Migrants by Destination and Origin (United Nations database,
POP/DB/MIG/Stock/Rev.2015)."44http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates15.shtml.

45

Reaffirming the necessity of an orthodox pathway:
A case study in a planned REDD+ project site in a Cambodian frontier area
Kurashima Takayuki*, Matsuura Toshiya**, Miyamoto Asako***,Sano Makoto****, and Sopal Chann*****

Abstract
This article focuses on the latest global mechanism of “Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation in developing countries” (REDD+) to address tropical deforestation. One methodology
characteristic of this is to reduce deforestation through supporting frontier farmers that have problematic
land use practices. Here we consider incentives for alternative land use practices among the farmers,
especially in relation to support for agriculture and natural resource utilization. After examining theresults on agricultural household income change during the nine years of Cambodian frontier farmers,
who have expanded their arable lands into forests, we explain the type of support activities REDD+
projects need to be performed in the frontier areas. The farmers, living at the site of a planned REDD+
project, had experienced broad changes in household income and structure during the nine years owing
to the rapid expansion of the cultivation of cash crops. Our results indicate that practical supports forcurbing further deforestation on the frontier need to consider transition related to land use and householdincome. Support to encourage the land-intensive cultivation of higher value-added crops and the
exploration of more expensive non-timber forest products using advanced technologies should be
examined to discourage forest-destructive land use practices in the area.

Keywords: Household income, Agricultural practice, Frontier farmer, REDD+ project, Cambodia*Affiliated Associate Professor, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, Japan.

Email: takakurashima@gmail.com**Senior Researcher, Department of Forest Management, FFPRI, Japan.
***Team Leader, Center for Biodiversity, FFPRI, Japan.
****Director, Network Management Division, FFPRI, Japan.
*****Deputy Director, IRD, Forestry Administration, Cambodia.
46

Introduction
Many international organizations have implemented pilot projects for “Reducing emissions fromdeforestation and forest degradation in developing countries” (REDD+) in tropical regions since the late
2000s. Although almost all international organizations have implemented support activities to invite
local farmers to sustain their livelihoods under the projects, only a few organizations have tried tounderstand how the farmers have changed their land use and agricultural practices, in which they haveoften tended toward commercial farming, before the support activities. Furthermore, few organizations
have tried to understand how the farmers have changed their incomes and income structures due to theirarable land expansions into forests in frontier areas.
Frontier areas, the focus of this article, comprise the second of three forest-agricultural landtransitional stages proposed by Angelsen and Rudel (2013): (1) core forests, (2) frontier areas and (3)forest-agricultural mosaics. They explain that frontier areas have the following characteristics: thepopulation density is low to medium; market access is medium; land tenure is insecure; and governanceis tenuous. Chomitz et al. (2007) organized forests over the world in terms of spatial typology, insteadof considering transitional changes, defined frontier areas as frontier and disputed areas, characterizingthem as areas where the pressures for deforestation are increasing and agricultural land is expanding.
These frontier areas are worth examining with a REDD+ project, because they can, in theory, yieldsignificant returns regarding the forest carbon balance if the project comes to fruition. In addition, theways for REDD+ developers to induce local farmers to stop their problematic land use and agricultural
practices must differ from those in other areas.
As with other development assistance programs, to support alternative land uses and agricultural
practices, REDD+ projects need to consider the historical background and existing situation to provide
effective assistance for recipient communities. Even if REDD+ project developers unilaterally consider
the offered assistance valuable for the community members, the majority of members are unlikely to be
motivated to embrace alternative practices if the type and amount of assistance for each member do notmeet their situations and expectations. Thus, accurate information on communities and insights basedon such information need to be obtained and developed to encourage truly functional assistance through
REDD+ projects.
47

This article focuses on incentives for REDD+ projects to change land use and agricultural practices
among farmers who earn their livelihoods at the frontiers of forest clearing and arable land expansion.
Specifically, we clarify the change and structure in the household income experienced by Cambodian
frontier farmers, in addition to those in land use and agricultural practice. Then, we suggest what
principles regarding support activities, particularly for agriculture and small-scale forestry, should beconsidered by international organizations and each government for REDD+ projects in frontier areas inorder to reduce the arable land expansion of farmers into forests.

Material and Methods
1. Research site, the reasons for site selection and a brief history of the area
We examined data obtained from
central Cambodia, specifically threevillages in the eastern part ofKampong Thom Province (Figure 1).
We selected these villages for thefollowing reasons: cultivated land forcommercial crops had expanded overthe past decade; a household income
and livelihood study was conducted in
the area approximately 10 years ago(McKenny et

al. 2004), which

Figure 1. The research site

provided empirical data for temporalcomparisons between the householdincomes of the villages; and a REDD+
pilot project had been planned by

Source: True-color band combination from Landsat 8, taken in
January 2014.(Cited from Kurashima et al. 2014. Prey Long
Wildlife Sanctuary zone, which was in planning in 2014, wasdesignated there in 2016).

international organizations and the Cambodian government, targeting an area adjoining the villages as
the core.

48

Drastic expansion of cultivated lands can be identified from two satellite images taken in the dry
seasons of 2003 and 2014 (Figure 2). Black and green areas indicate forest, and white and light red areas
indicate cleared land. These images show the extensive forest clearing and arable land expansion that
occurred around the three villages during the decade. According to the information from many
informants and our field observations, the expansion of cassava cultivation had been the main change
driver in land use around the three villages. Leading contributors to these land use changes were bothold- and new- settlement farmers who were living in the villages.
In the mid-1990s, much of this area was demarcated as a logging concession zone by the Cambodian
government, and part of the forest was selectively logged by contractors until the early 2000s.
Subsequently, some degraded and intact upland forests, which had been originally or newly occupied orpurchased from local occupants,(A) 2003(B) 2014

had been opened up by old- andnew-settlement farmers to growcash crops. Then, the Cambodian
government designated the easternarea of the three villages as a
Wildlife Sanctuary zone in 2016
after

the

internationalorganizations successfully lobbied
Surveyed villages
Other villages

the government, although the
REDD+ pilot project which had
been attempted to be introduced
there since the mid-2010s still
remained in planning, even in the
beginning of 2018.

Figure 2. Land cover change from early 2003 to early2014 around the research site.
Source: True-color band combination of (A) Landsat 5 TM taken in
February 2003; and (B) Landsat 8 taken in January 2014. (Cited from
Kurashima et al. 2014. Prey Long Wildlife Sanctuary zone, which was inplanning in 2014, was designated there in 2016).

2. Data collection and interpretation methodology
The data for this study were obtained primarily from the household survey conducted in the latter half

of 2013 based on information from 2012. In addition, village leaders were interviewed in 2013 regarding
the land use history and villager livelihoods. In total, 146 households, over 30 percent of the total
households in each village, were surveyed for this study. This is comparable to the ratio surveyed by
McKenny et al. (2004), although that study surveyed only 85 households due to the smaller number ofhouseholds in 2003. To facilitate comparisons between the two surveys, many questions were similar to
those used in McKenny et al. (2004). Also, some data accounting methods, e.g., the value of riceproduced for household consumption was factored into household income, were used here to correspondwith the data interpretation by McKenny et al. (2004)

Results
1. Changes in average household income and percentages obtained from each source
Real average household income has increased notably during the nine years (Table 1). The increases
derived primarily from higher income from the cultivation of Other Crops and Business/Wage Labor.
The contribution of Other Crops to the average total household income was 12 percent in 2003, which
was much smaller than those from Rice, Resin and Other NTFPs. However, the contribution from Other
Crops was 43 percent in 2012. Similarly, the Business/Wage Labor proportion was very small in 2003
but increased notably by 2012. The combined income from cultivation of Other Crops andBusiness/Wage Labor comprised two-thirds of the average total household income in 2012.
Correspondingly, the income contribution from Rice declined during this period.

50

Table 1. Average total household incomes and income sources in 2003 and 2012.
20031

20122

(N = 85)(N = 146)

Target Year

Mean

Percent

Source of income

1

Mean

of total

Percentof total

(USD)

(%)

(USD)

(%)

Rice

199

37

93

10

Other crops

66

12

412

43

Livestock

32

6

29

3

Resin

116

22

156

16

Wildlife

20

4

27

3

Other NTFP

91

17

3

0

Logging

NA

-

11

1

Business/
Wage labor

92Fishing

4

1

NA

-

Total

538

100

957

100

226
(176/50)

24

McKenny et al. (2004). 2Kurashima et al. (2014). The income values for 2012 are adjusted for inflation between

2003 and 2012 (2003 = 1; 2012 = 1.789).

2. Comparison of the income and structure of the highest and lowest 25 percent of householdincome groups in 2012
To analyze the imbalance of income and structure among households in 2012, we focused on the lowest
and highest 25 percent of household incomes (Table 2). We clarified the average total household incomesof these two groups, as well as the sources and percentages of the factors in total household incomes.
The results demonstrate that a large total average income gap exists between the two groups, and thatsuch a gap primarily comes from the difference in the proportion of income acquired from Other Cropsby the households in the two groups. The group with the highest incomes earned over half of theiraverage total household income from Other Crops, and earned five times the percentage more from
Other Crops than did those with the lowest incomes. Moreover, three-fourths of the average total
household income of the high earners came from cultivating Other Crops and Business/Wage Labor.

51

3. The most important reason for the income gap between the highest and lowest 25 percent ofhousehold income groups
Cassava was the most extensively planted Other Crop. Cashew nuts were the next most planted but
occupied much smaller areas (Kurashima et al. 2014). These crops were cultivated for sale rather thanhousehold consumption. The highest 25 percent of earners had noteworthy growth in the proportion ofincome derived from these cash crops, particularly cassava (Table 3). In contrast, the lowest 25 percent
of earners was very different. The lowest 25 percent of earners had much less income from cassava
cultivation than did the highest 25 percent of earners, due primarily to lower benefits per household andsmaller farm holdings per household, rather than insufficient work at commercial cultivation (Table 3).
Table 2. Average total household incomes and sources in 2012 for the lowest and highest 25% ofhouseholds.
Target Year

Lowest 25%
Mean

20121

2012a1 (Nominal incomes)(N = 146)(N = 146)

Highest 25%

Perce
nt

Mean

of

1

Highest

25%

25%

Mean

Mean

of total

total
(USD)

Percent

Lowest

(%)

(USD)

(%)

(USD)

(USD)

Rice

52

21

117

5

93

210

Other crops

22

9

1,199

53

39

2,146

Livestock

0

0

81

3

0

145

Resin

75

30

266

12

134

475

Wildlife

21

8

18

1

38

31

Other NTFP

3

1

7

0

5

13

Logging

2

1

17

1

4

31

25

135

1,005

76

Business/
Wage labor(37/3

Fishing

NA

-

NA

-

NA

NA

Total

251

100

2,267

100

448

4,056

30

9)

562
(520/42)

Kurashima et al. (2014). The income values for 2012 are adjusted for inflation between 2003 and 2012. For the

method, see Note 2 in Table 1; the 2012a values are nominal incomes without any adjustments.

Table 3. Upland farm holdings and cassava cultivation in 2012 for the lowest and highest 25 percent ofhouseholds.

2012a1

Target Year

(N =146)

Lowest 25%

Highest 25%

97

100

Mean

2.6

5.4

SD

1.8

4.3

Minimum

0.0

1.0Median2.0

4.0

Maximum

9.0

24.0

65

92

Landholding/ Cultivation

Upland Farm-holding households (%)
Area (ha)Cassava-cultivating households (%)
Value per household (USD)
Input cost: mean (median)

191 (0)855

Output value: mean (median)259(150)

2,750 (1500)

68 (0)

1,895
(900)

Benefit: mean (median)

1

(230)

Kurashima et al. (2014). The 2012a values for input cost, output value and benefits are not adjusted.

Discussion and Conclusion
As Chomitz et al. (2007) pointed out, agricultural lands are expanding and the pressures of deforestation
are increasing in frontier areas. These characteristics of the areas cause the prerequisites of better
REDD+ activities that differ from those in two other areas, i.e., core forests and forest-agricultural
mosaics, both of which are under more stable land uses than in the frontiers, even though each belongs
to different stages of forest-agricultural land transition.
Based on the results of our case study related to agricultural household income and structure in
Cambodia, frontier farmers, particularly poorer households, can have more incentives to further expand
their arable lands for cash crop cultivation into forests. Differently, from core forest areas, commercial
farming has grown popular even for the poorest households in frontiers. Nevertheless, poorer households
receive much less benefit from their farming than richer households. Most poorer households own
smaller areas of arable land than richer households. Also, few poorer households hold enough monetarystock to improve their existing arable lands with low productivity. Consequently, poorer households arelikely to consider expanding their lands into forests as a rational option for them to earn more income
than the status quo.
53

In frontier areas where groups of farming households have these incentives to encroach upon forests
next to their smaller and less productive arable lands, REDD+ project developers need to determine andestablish effective support activities for motivating the farmers to leave the forest alone. Then, whatpractical options do the developers can have? In order to consider this question, we should reexamine
forest-agricultural land transitional stages again. Since commercial farming is already prevailing on thefrontier, unlike in core forests, REDD+ project developers need to consider how more efficient andproductive agricultural practices can be pursued for the farmers, particularly poorer households, under
the farming system. For instance, support to encourage the land-intensive cultivation of higher valueadded crops, as well as the exploration of more expensive non-timber forest products using advanced
technologies, can be options to reduce the motivation of frontier farmers to destroy the forest.
If REDD+ project developers underestimate the actual situations related to farming systems and adopt
support activities that fail to match the local realities that frontier farmers experience, the support isunlikely to motivate the majority of members to embrace alternative practices.
References
Angelsen, Arild and Rudel, Thomas. 2013. “Designing and Implementing Effective REDD+ Policies: A
Forest Transition Approach.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 2013, 7, 91–113.
https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/res022
Chomitz, Kenneth; Buys, Piet; Luca, Giacomo and Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Sheila. 2007. At Loggerheads?
Agricultural Expansion, Poverty Reduction, and Environment in the Tropical Forests. World Bank
Policy Research Report, World Bank. Washington, DC, USA. 284 p.
Kurashima, Takayuki; Matsuura, Toshiya; Miyamoto, Asako; Sano, Makoto; Tith, Bola and Chann, Sopal.
2014. “Changes in Income Structure in Frontier Villages and Implications for REDD+ Benefit Sharing,”
Forests. 2014, 5, 2865-2881. https://doi:10.3390/f5112865
McKenney, Bruce; Chea, Yim; Tola, Prom and Evans, Tom. 2004. Focusing on Cambodia's High-Value
Forests: Livelihood and Management. CDRI. Phnom Penh. Cambodia. 120 p.

54

Trans-boundary Connectivity and Contributions to Rural Development
A Case Study on the Cambodia-Thai Borderland
Kobayashi Satoru*

Abstract
This paper explores the dynamism of trans-boundary connectivity as an important factor for ruraldevelopment observed in the landmine-infested area of the Cambodia-Thai borderland in 2014-16.
Disorderly burying of landmines in the area during the Cambodian civil war from the 1980s to thebeginning of the 1990s caused serious environmental pollution. In the last half of the 1990s, international
assistance for clearing landmines started in the area when local residents faced fundamental difficulties
in post-conflict rural development. This paper will focus on the case of Ta Saen commune, Kamrieng
district, Battambang province and reviews the development process of the rural community since theend of the 1990s. First, how trans-boundary connectivity in a geographical sense contributed to the ruraldevelopment of the area since then is explored. Second, the unique nature of trans-boundary connectivity,
going beyond geography, is examined in the work of Mr. Takayama Ryoji, a Japanese expert inlandmine clearance, as a major driving force for positive transformation of the local society. In
conclusion, the significance of trans-boundary connectivity as an analytical perspective for studying
development phenomenon in developing countries in an era of globalization is illustrated.

Keywords: Connectivity, rural development, globalization, borderland, trans-boundary____________________________________*Associate Professor, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Email: kobasa@cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp55

1. Introduction
This paper explores the development process of a rural community in the Cambodia-Thai border area
since the end of the 1990s as an illuminative example of rural development in the era of globalization1.
Cambodian society suffered from severe warfare and totalitarian state rule under the Pol Pot regime in
the 1970s. A period of rapid development has emerged since the beginning of the 1990s. The flow ofassistance of goods, money and information, which were supplied through foreign aids and investment,from the capital Phnom Penh to the provinces, pushed forward rural development. Foreign direct
investment for garment factories marked the start of industrialization in the capital at the end of the
1990s, attracting the young rural population as a labor force since then (e.g. Derks 2008). National
economy indicators such as the GDP per capita have been demonstrating continuous development forover a decade. However, the reality of rural development, where local residents voluntarily utilize
resource and connectivity for bringing progress into their livelihoods, is different.
More concretely, this paper will illustrate the nature of glocal dynamism in rural development in theera of globalization by examining how trans-boundary connectivity contributed to the ruraltransformation of a community in the Cambodia-Thai borderlands in recent years. The concept of transboundary connectivity has two meanings in this paper. The first indicates the cross-border flows ofgoods, knowledge, capital, etc., which transcend geographical boundaries between nations. This flow is
the basic perspective for studying rural transformation as part of the worldwide process of globalization;“the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and worldspace” (Steger 2013: 15). The second is the concept of trans-boundary connectivity for indicating
people’s willingness to transcend their own domain to the outside, which is rarely seen in the verticaladministration that modern organizations like government agencies employ2. Feelings of care for others
motivate trans-boundary actions in this sense. As will be described in the coming sections, the1Parts of the descriptive analysis of the development history of a community in the Cambodia-Thai border area,
which will be introduced in this paper, had written in previous Japanese essays by the author in a different way(Kobayashi 2015, 2017).
2This conceptualization of trans-boundary connectivity must coincide with the concept of trans-disciplinarily,
which emerged as new mode of knowledge production in recent years. This association will be refereed in the
concluding part of this paper.
56

development work of one Japanese NGO worker, Mr. Takayama Ryoji, which enabled the successfulprogress of livelihoods of local residents in the research area, embodies the trans-boundary connectivity
in this sense. Elaborating the flexibility and scalability of Mr. Takayama’s work will deepen theunderstanding of the potential of foreign aid agencies for positively changing rural livelihoods, which
are connected with the outside world in multiple ways.

2. Research Site
This paper focuses on Tasaen commune,
Kamrieng district, Battambang province 3 .
Battambang province is located to the west ofTonle Sap Lake and the east of Thailand. The
province has a vast rice growing area in thelowlands and a farm area along the border withThailand including the Kamring district. The
majority of people living in the district engage

Figure 1. Research area

in cash crop farming today. However, the area
had no agricultural production in the beginning of the 2000s. Severe battles between the central
government of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge guerrilla forces repeatedly occurred in the region in the
1980s and the first half of the 1990s. In 1996-1997 Khmer Rouge soldiers started to form villages forearning their living in the area4.
Tasaen commune is located at the north end of Kamrieng district, which is on the Thai border. A control
point in the commune enables small-scale cross-border trading. The local residents can access larger
border trade points in the Kamrieng and Phnom Preuk districts via the highway, which was paved in
2014. The commune has six villages. Three of them, located along the highway, were formed by former

3

The information and data in this paper were collected through fieldwork in 2014 and 2015.

4

Some Khmer Rouge soldiers were said to have been around the area since 1985, but they were moving aroundso that no one settled down there for a long time.
57

Khmer Rouge soldiers in the 1990s. They also accepted relatives of their families and some farmers
from neighboring provinces during the first wave of migration to the area at the end of the 1990s. The
other three villages, established in 2000 and 2004, are in a sea of farmland about ten kilometers east of
the highway. They were established as development villages (phoum aphivoat) by the government todeliver agricultural land to families who reached the area from outside at that time. As the most favorable
areas for agricultural production in the commune were occupied by the families of the former Khmer
Rouge soldiers in the first three villages, the villagers who settled in the three new remote villages far
from the main road had little room for expanding agricultural land to cultivate.

3. From battlefields to agricultural lands
The development history of the area after the battles ceased could be divided into four phases, according
to the information gathered through the research. Firstly, the families of the former Khmer Rougesoldiers who started to earn a living in the area at the end of the 1990s encountered a serious
environmental problem: the huge numbers of landmines and explosive remnants of war in the area
(Davies and Dunlop 1994; Roberts 2011). The local residents said in the interviews that they first cleared
the landmines themselves by burning the fields and checking the ground surface with their naked eyes,
but the contamination was too severe for them to resolve. A number of accidents due to landmines
occurred after 2000 when the local residents started agricultural cultivation. Finally, the Cambodian
Mine Action Center (CMAC), the government organization for resolving landmine issues, started towork in the area in 2005. Based on the CMAC plan, landmine clearance, which included international
assistance teams, started operations in the commune in 2006. The local residents recalled that 60
landmine-infested fields, each covering 1 hectare, had existed in the commune in that year. The
commune chief explained in interviews in 2014 that 90 percent of those fields were cleared by 2013 byprofessional staff5.

5

The commune has been free of landmine accidents since 2011, but the mechanization of agricultural cultivationin recent years has resulted in increasing fear of accidents caused by anti-tank landmines.
58

The second phase of development history was the soaring production of cash crops, which was
assisted by both the environment and geography of the area. The families of the former Khmer Rougesoldiers who settled there in 1997 cut down trees and sold the timber to Thailand6. In 1998, they began
to burn forests and plant crops including sesame, mung beans, soybean and corn used for animal feed.
The Cambodia-Thai border area is rich in soil fertility, guaranteeing high productivity without using
fertilizer. In addition, the socio-geographical position of the commune was an advantage for cash crop
farming. All production materials for farming were imported from Thailand at first and the products
were sold to Thailand in return. After cultivating corn and beans in rotation for years, cassava wasintroduced to the area in 2004, whichbecame the most popular crop anddominant in the area since 2014. The
local households in the commune havebeen enjoying a relatively better socioeconomic life due to cash crops incomparison with rice-growing areas inCambodia.
Figure 2. Cassava fields in Tasaen commune
The third phase of development was ashift in agricultural land use, which
occurred at the end of the 2000s when agroup of local residents started to change
the crops from single year crops such as
cassava and corn to perennial crops suchas longan and mango. Three factors
supported this shift; the first was the

Figure 3. Longan trees planted in Tasaen commune

transfer of skills of fruit cultivation from6

It is well-known that the trade of timber between the Khmer Rouge and Thai companies was seen in the
Cambodia-Thai border area in the 1980s.
59Thailand. Local residents launched fruit planting based on the information and experience they obtained
through cross-border communications with Thai farmers during the 1980s and 1990s. No governmental
policy was involved in the process; past conflict provided the opportunities for this skill transfer acrossborders. The second factor was the proximity to Bangkok, the trading center of the regional economy.
Most of the locally produced fruit in Tasaen commune would be exported to China via Bangkok fromthe beginning. Without this existing business network centered in Bangkok, the local residents could
not determine to shift their crops, even if they had known of the stable demand for tropical fruit in the
Chinese market. Finally, the third driver was the qualitative change in land ownership. Since 2012, theCambodian government advanced land registration. The border area was one of the main targets so thatmost local residents in Tasaen commune had obtained land certification7, which provided a favorablesocial environment for planting perennial crops, not single-year crops8.

4. Mr. Takayama and Japanese factories
The final phase of the development history of the commune was the introduction of off-farm jobs at theend of the 2000s. Interestingly, a Japanese mediator, Mr. Takayama Ryoji, initiated it9 . He visited
Cambodia as an officer of the Japanese Self Defense Force, which worked in peacekeeping operations
under the United Nations Transitional Authority of Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1992-93. After retiring in
2002, he joined Japan Mine Action Service (JMAS), a Japanese NGO specializing in landmine clearance.
Mr. Takayama came to Tasaen commune in 2006 to clear landmines. He established mutual trust withlocal authorities and villagers through his work clearing landmines. Moreover, Mr. Takayama started to

7

The purpose of the land registration project was to obtain political support from the rural population. Therefore,
places with conflicts or the possibility for conflict were prioritized.
8

These features and the shift to fruit cultivation could be observed in other regions of the Cambodia-Thai borderarea such as Veal Veng district, Pursat province, according to the fieldwork of the author in 2015-16.
9

There is the autobiographical work on Mr. Takayama in Japanese (Takayama 2010). In addition to this,Shimoyachi-Yuzawa (2012) is helpful to understand the feature of Mr. Takayama’s activities in Tasaen Commune.
60

work for other community development
projects such as constructing schoolbuildings and wells for daily livelihoods.
However, his multiple endeavors for thedevelopment of the rural community in
Tasaen commune was criticized by thecommittee of JMAS in Tokyo as
superflux services. The gap between Mr.
Takayama and his colleagues in Japan

Figure 4. Mr. Takayama and his landmine clearance team

finally resulted in his resignation fromJMAS.
In 2010, he finally established his own
NGO for working much more flexibly.
Furthermore, Mr. Takayama successfully
brought three Japanese factories from his
hometown, Ehime prefecture on Shikoku
Island, Japan, to Dey Kraham village,

Figure 5. Workers at a Japanese factory in Tasaen commune

one of the three villages formed by theformer Khmer Rouge families. The first factory was established in 2008; two other factories were built
in 2011. All the factories have been manufacturing paper craft products for the Japanese market such as
sticky notes, envelopes and special paper for Japanese calligraphy. Over 250 villagers, mostly young
women, were hired by the factories at a salary of 200-300 USD per month in 2015.
The process for the companies deciding to build factories in the commune must be closely examined.
In addition to the interviews with Mr. Takayama and some Japanese staff working at the factories in thecommune, the author visited Shikokuchuo City and interviewed one key person, Mr. Kawai, who first
determined the construction of a factory in Tasaen commune. Mr. Kawai was at J.P.C., a papercraftcompany, and assumed the responsibility for managing the international expansion of operations. The
company tried to expand operations abroad in the beginning of the 1990s due to rising production costs61

in Japan. Then, the company built the first factory overseas in a suburb of Shanghai, China in 1995-96.
The company built the second and the third factories in rural areas of China in the following years as
well. However, according to Mr. Kawai, the fragile political atmosphere between Japan and China in
the 1990s created concerns about stable operations 10 . This made Mr. Kawai start searching for analternative site outside China in 2005. After visiting special economic zones in the Philippines, Vietnam
and India, Mr. Kawai saw on the TV news one day in 2007 that Mr. Takayama would hold a photo
exhibition at a department store in Matsuyama City, Ehime prefecture. He went to the exhibition and
met Mr. Takayama, which started the process. The location of Tasaen commune, which ensured smoothconnections and flows of production materials, products and technology transfer through the transboundary economy provided a positive impression for Mr. Kawai. In the end, he considered investingin Tasaen commune more reasonable and attractive; he decided to build the factory there11.
Considering the process of this investment from Japan to Tasaen commune, it is interesting to noticethat Mr. Takayama and Mr. Kawai had different perceptions on the reasons for investing. Mr. Takayama,a facilitator and mediator of community development, always emphasizes a spirit of volunteer service
when he talks about Japanese factories in the village. However, Mr. Kawai explained in the interview
that: “The company does not expect a direct return from the investment in Tasaen. The company
calculates benefit/profit in total, which includes the factories in China.” That is, the establishment offactories in Tasaen commune was to pressure the Chinese counterpart, the central production base of
the company, not to seek short term profit generated directly from operations in Tasaen commune. This
was a win-win situation for the Japanese companies and Mr. Takayama as they implemented social
investment.

10

Mr. Kawai also said that the difficulty of conducting business in China had another reason. According to him,
every local business owner would try to monopolize the business with J.P.C. in China by all possible means,disturbing the business relations with other partners in China.
11

In addition, Mr. Kawai said that the cost for building a factory in Tasaen commune was inexpensive for thecompany. According to him, the cost of about 5 million JPY could be covered by the personal budget of thecompany president. The small size of the initial investment is a key to understanding the decision of these
papercraft companies.
62

5. Concluding remarks
As globalization is an uneven process, a glocal perspective paying attention to connectivity whileworking with local dynamism is imperative for understanding rural communities today. Supposing
transformation of rural communities and livelihoods taking a single route everywhere in the world isincorrect. At the same time, external connections and the role of external people in communities mustbe paid attention because they can cause unexpected dynamism in rural communities.
The rural transformation in Tasaen commune described in this paper shows that multiple connections,overlapping accidental encounters and progress brought about the steady development of the local
community since the end of the 1990s. First, the organizational tackling of landmine clearance enabled
agricultural production12. The richly-endowed local environment, offering fertile soil and large-scale
agricultural land holdings, provided the foundation for agricultural expansion. In addition, the transboundary economy contributed to the rapid development of agricultural production in Tasaen
commune 13 . Finally, Mr. Takayama’s multiple approach to the community brought about off-farm
opportunities in the commune. He visited there to assist with environmental rehabilitation, but by andby launched various development projects. It successfully invited Japanese factories that brought about
very positive progress for rural livelihoods in recent years. Interestingly and importantly, the series ofassistances and achievements was originated from his sincere care to rural people, which moved from
one to the next in a trans-boundary way and not based on causal reasonings or vertical command
structure. The breakup with JMAS in the early stage of his involvement to the community development
was the symbolic turn of his activities in this sense.

12

The shift in the political atmosphere contributed to the development of the commune as well. The area was notincluded in the Cambodian government’s development projects in the 1990s. The landmine clearance project was
the only case of involvement of the government in local development. However, the Cambodian government
started to pay attention to the development of the border area after the conflict in 2008-2011 with Thailand
concerning the ownership of the Preah Vihear Temple. This definitely caused the governmental project ofconstructing road networks in the border area including Tasaen commune.
13

The commune having established access to electric power, which was supplied by wires extended from Thailand,in 2004 illustrates the uniqueness of the border area.
63Mr. Takayama’s story is interesting not only because it illustrates a reality of rural development in adeveloping country under globalization but also because we can learn plenty of thought-provoking
insights from it. For instance, his way of working with rural people in Cambodia probably request
researchers who are working in the fields of development study, including the author, to reconsider
approaches to people and communities as objects of study. Mr. Takayama repeatedly told to the author,
when he recalled the progress of his activities in the community, that one of the keys for his story is not
to be afraid of sticking out of one’s main discipline to neighboring fields. Reflecting on oneself, although
there is a growing academic discussion for demonstrating the importance of “trans-disciplinary”
approach for producing practical knowledges for a human society14, most of academics are not dare totranscend conventional walls between disciplines. In other words, his story might convey the illuminate
power for asking researchers and students to break traditional walls among scientific disciplines andmake one step forward.

References
Derks, Annuska. 2008. Khmer Women on the Move: Exploring Work and Life in Urban Cambodia,
University of Hawai‘i Press.
Davies, Paul and Nic Dunlop. 1994. War of the mines: Cambodia, Landmines and the Impoverishmentof a Nation, Pluto Press.
Roberts, Wade. 2011. Landmines in Cambodia: Past, Present, and Future, Cambria Press.
Gibons, Michael et al. 1994. The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science andResearch in Contemporary Societies, SAGE Publications.
Shimoyachi-Yuzawa, Nao. 2012. Linking demining to post-conflict peacebuilding: A case study of
Cambodia. In Assessing and Restoring Natural Resources in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, ed.
D. Jensen and S. Lonergan. London: Earthscan.
Steger, Manfred B. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press.

14

The author is currently reviewing the actual scope of trans-disciplinary approach in the scientific studies of ruraldevelopment by reading pioneering works such as Gibbons et al (1994) and Suga (2013). The conclusion of thispaper will be rewritten as an extended version after the thorough examination of the approach.
64

Takayama, Ryoji. 2010. Jirai Shori toiu Shigoto: Kambojia no Murano Fukkoki (Work called
landmine clearance: Notes on the Reconstruction of a Cambodian village, in Japanese),
Chikuma Syobo.
Suga, Yutaka. 2013. Atarashii No no Gakumon no Jidai he (Toward a new Era in Grassroots
Scholarship: Linking Knowledge Production and Social Practice, in Japanese), Iwanami
Shoten.

65

Extension Approach of Bangladesh Agricultural University:
History and Current PracticeSalim Muhammad*, Ando Kazuo** and Uchida Haruo***

Abstract
The Bangladesh economy is traditionally and predominantly agricultural. In the 1950s, the Pakistan
government recognized the importance of education and research in agriculture and allied fields andindicated the problems connected with the development of agricultural education and research. One
result was that the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) was established in 1961 under therecommendation of a National Education Commission of Pakistan, following the pattern of the land
grant universities of the United States with financial aid from USAID. The USAID collaboration linking
with Texas A&M University provided the initial support for capacity building through professional
advisers, manpower development, laboratory equipment and more. The American government tried to
introduce the experience of the land grant university for East Pakistan then. However, the initial idea
was later converted into the BAU Extension Approach.

Keywords: Extension Approach, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Land Grant University, BAUEC____________________________________*

Professor, Department of Agronomy, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.
Email: msalimafa@yahoo.com**Professor, Department of Practice-oriented Area Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto
University, Kyoto, Japan***Affiliated Professor, Department of Practice-oriented Area Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies,
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan66

Introduction
The great Mughal Emperor Akbar introduced the teaching of agriculture into education in India in the
middle of the 16th century. He also introduced the Bengali calendar on the basis of the agricultural season.
In British India, agriculture was included in the Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce in1870 during the period of Lord Mayo. Then in 1880, the Famine Commission first recommended an
independent Department of Agriculture. Dr. John Augustus Voelcker, Consulting Chemist of the Royal
Agricultural Society of England was sent to India to report on improving Indian Agriculture. He
submitted his report in 1891, recommending the lines along which agricultural improvement, including
agricultural education, was possible. Ultimately, the Bengal Department of Agriculture was establishedin 1906, followed by the establishment of an agricultural research laboratory at Tejgaon, Dhaka in 1908.
Agricultural education started with the establishment of an agricultural school in 1922 (Khan, 1990,
141-44). This article describes the history and current practice of the BAU Extension Approach.

Discussion
Establishment of Bangladesh Agricultural University: Higher education in agriculture started with theestablishment of a college, the Bengal Agriculture Institute, at Dhaka that started educating students in
1941. The college acted as an affiliated Faculty of Agriculture of Dhaka University until theestablishment of Bangladesh Agricultural University. Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) wasestablished in 1961 under the recommendation of a Pakistan national education commission in thepattern of the land grant universities of the United States with financial aid from USAID (Fig. 1). The
land grant university, or land grant college, is an institution of higher education in the United States
designated by a state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 (Ando et al., 2018,
83-84). The Morrill Acts funded educational institutions by granting federally controlled land to thestates for them to sell, raise funds and establish and endow land-grants to teach agriculture andmechanical arts. The Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas, later renamed Texas A&M
University, for instance, was established in 1878 under the provision of the Land Grant Acts. Ultimately,67

most land-grant colleges became large public universities that today offer a full spectrum of educational
opportunities in the USA.

Fig. 1. Bangladesh Agricultural University

Initially, it was assumed that students with rural backgrounds would get preference for admission
to BAU and return to the villages and work with the farmers after completing a degree in agriculturalsciences. The main mission of these graduates would be to teach farmers about improved farming
practices and motivate the farmers to adopt modern farming practices. It was also planned that, likethe land grant universities of the USA, the BAU would be entrusted to conduct agriculturaldevelopment in the local districts. In the USA, each state has an agricultural university establishedthrough the land grants that is responsible for conducting agricultural development in the state. This
was the main essence of establishing BAU. Unfortunately, the linkage between agricultural education,
research and extension in Bangladesh was weak. Although BAU was established in the pattern of theland grant universities, it did not grow in that pattern. BAU did not even receive proper government
patronage and was denied some of the functions it was expected to perform.
Establishment of Bangladesh Agricultural University Extension Centre (BAUEC): After one and half
decades since inception, BAU took the initiative for generating and transferring technologies to thefarmers to reorient its teaching and research programs in the context of Bangladesh in this new
dimension. To perform this job, the Bangladesh Agricultural University Extension Project wasestablished in 1976 and subsequently named the BAU Extension Centre (BAUEC) to connect rural

68

residents with BAU (Google, 2018). The other government departments and NGOs are also considered
for active collaboration in research and extension programs with this center.
BAUEC has the following objectives:

1) To evolve an extension approach called the BAU Extension Approach that will be
replicable all over Bangladesh with necessary local adjustments.
2) To help the BAU teachers and students to obtain practical experience in farmers’ fields.
3) To organize training programs for farmers and extension workers.
4) To motivate and organize farm family members to improve their standard of living byadopting innovations disseminated through BAUEC.
5) To establish linkages with different GOs and NGOs to develop the farm, home andcommunity.
Important Featuers of the BAU Extension Approach

1. Extension activities through organized groups.
2. Extension programs covering all the individuals in a village.
3. BAUEC has its lowest unit at the grass-root level: para (a village neighborhood).
4. BAUEC has its field office at the village level.
5. Members of Village Development Societies (VDS) become the dealers of agricultural

materials including fertilizers and pesticides.
6. Farmers participate closely in program planning and other agricultural developmentwith the BAUEC field workers and other officials.
7. Farmers receive on-the-spot training.
8. Farmers receive quick solutions to their farm problems as different subject matter
specialists are involved with BAUEC.
9. The members of Village Development Society and Village Women Association (VWA)

practice the habit of saving as a provision gives some incentive to those who save more.

69

10. Farmers in the BAUEC project area have the privilege of obtaining the know-how ofmodern agricultural development by different types of visits to experimental stations
and also by interacting with different categories of visitors from Bangladesh and abroad.
11. BAU teachers, students and research specialists are also involved in BAUEC activities
and frequently visit the BAUEC villages as per the regular schedule.

BAUEC activities: BAUEC organizes different types of societies such as Village Development Societies,
Para Development Societies (PDS), Village Women Associations, and Landless and Marginal Farmers
Societies (LMFS). Each society generates funds to ensure continuous capital increases and profit sharing(Sobhan and Karim, 1995, 3). Figure 2-5 shows different BAUEC activities.

Fig. 2. Students and teachers are listening to farmers’

Fig. 3. Raising vegetables at the school compound by the

problem

students in the school compoundFig. 4. Animal vaccination program

Fig. 5. Exhibition of the farmer’s produce

A learning by doing program includes the students raising vegetables in the school compound. The
students raising vegetables in the school compound by themselves obtained nationwide publicity
thanks to Bangladesh Television. As a result, a great number of schools have implemented this70

program across Bangladesh. Different government, semi-government and non-governmentorganizations have adopted this program as a development activity.
One of the most important BAUEC activities is to organize a training program for village women,
BRDB cooperators, field extension workers and farmers. The broad areas in which these training
programs are conducted include fruit and vegetable cultivation, fish culture, poultry rearing, cattle
rearing, goat and beef fattening, fodder preservation, tree plantation and intensive vegetable cultivation
with nutritional consideration.
BAUEC organizes demonstrations of different high yielding variety crops that have been improvedby BAU and different research institutions. BAUEC society members receive different types of training
regarding livestock, poultry rearing and fish cultivation. As the follow-up program for the training,
BAUEC supplies calves, eggs, chickens, hybrid cocks and fish fries to them. To protect the cattle andpoultry from diseases, BAUEC provides vaccines and arranges vaccination whenever necessary.
BAUEC organizes cock-exchange programs by withdrawing local breeds of cocks from the village anddistributing improved cocks to the farmers to improve the poultry breeds.
One of the main BAUEC objectives is to help farmers improve their health, nutrition and sanitation.
To complement these activities, BAUEC supplies tube wells with the help of UNICEF for providing
pure drinking water and implementing programs on kitchen gardening and mini-ponds for fish culture.
BAUEC supplies latrines to farm families with the help of the Department of Health for improving theirsanitation.
One important BAUEC objective is to help the BAU teachers and students to obtain practicalexperience in the farmers’ field. The BAU students usually use the BAUEC villages as their field
laboratory and perform the following activities:

1. Practice how to conduct benchmark surveys.
2. Motivate farmers during surveys.
3. Identify diseases and vaccinate the livestock and poultry in the village.

4. Motivate farmers towards adopting new technologies.

71

5. Conduct research, along with their teachers, in the villages on aspects of agriculturaland rural development.
6. Conduct research, along with their teachers, in the villages on aspects of agriculturaland rural development.
7. Be equipped with information on different aspects of agriculture and related issues.

Conclusion
Most of the Bangladesh farmers are subsistence farmers and have very limited resources. They produce
diversified products to meet their consumption requirements and other household needs. A farmer raises
field crops, homestead vegetables, trees, cattle, poultry and occasionally fish. Off- and on-farm activities
help to supplement cash requirements. Here, all the components are linked together and aimed at
improving household welfare. Due to intensive land use and intensification of multiple farm components,
the farming system of Bangladesh is highly complex. For addressing complex agricultural scenarios,
BAUEC evolved a holistic approach to link all components of the farmers to meet their different needs.
To achieve this, BAUEC organized different types of groups such as Village Development Societies(VDS), Para Development Societies (PDS), Village Women Associations (VWA) and Landless andMarginal Farmers Societies (LMFS). The extension approach of the Bangladesh Agricultural University
through BAUEC plays an important role in achieving sustainable agricultural development in its projectvillages.

References
Ando, Kazuo, Haruo Uchida, Muhammad Salim and Yoshio Akamatsu. 2018. “University’s Potential
to Cope with Depopulation and Abandoning Farming: Lesson from Bangladesh Agricultural
University Extension Centre (BAUEC)”. Research for Tropical Agriculture. 11 (Extra issue 1)
83-84.
Google. 2018. About BAUEC. httpsps://sites.google.com/site/bauextensioncentre/extra-credit72Khan, Ashraf Ali. 1990. Agricultural Education in Bangladesh-some historical highlights, Agricultural
and Rural Development in Bangladesh-A Review of Related Studies, JSARD Pub. No. 19. Editedby Yoshihiro Kaida. 141-44. Japan International Cooperation Agency, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Sobhan, Mohammad Abdus, and Karim, Muhammad Rezaul. 1995. BAUEC Extension Activities andits Achievements. Bangladesh Agricultural University Extension Centre.
WIKIPEDIA. 2018. Land-grant University. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university.

73Gross National Happiness Development Center
Wangdi Sonam＊

Abstract
The idea of happiness and well-being as the goal of development has always been part of the
Bhutanese political psyche. While this has informed Bhutan's development endeavors during the earlypart of the modernization process, it was not pursued as a deliberate policy goal until the 4th DrukGyalpo His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck introduced Gross National Happiness (GNH) to define
the official development paradigm for Bhutan. The goal of Gross National Happiness is built on thepremise of the essential goodness of people and that the Bhutanese people will be able to bring out thebest in themselves.
Universities in Bhutan and elsewhere can be powerful instruments in influencing the minds andhabits of people. The GNH Development Center can assist the community in developing businessincubators and small business centers. The Center can provide a platform for both the students and thecommunity to enrich their knowledge about their culture and tradition by bringing historical orculturally oriented events and social venues to a community. These include hosting art shows andfestivals, concerts, sporting events, food venues, and many other public attractions. The Center and its
purpose, in essence, will provide opportunities to learn and promote alternative GNH developmental
approaches at the local level with the ultimate goal being the happiness and wellbeing of the people.
The Center will also provide a unique opportunity for students and the local community to exchange
experiences on strategies for translating wellbeing frameworks into practice.

Keywords: Culture, happiness, traditions, university＊

Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Sherubtse College, Kanglung; Royal University of Bhutan
Email: somwangdi.sherubtse@rub.edu.bt
74

Introduction
The origination of the concept and Bhutan’s ownership of this noble idea makes it fitting and importantthat Bhutan continues to advance this concept. Even though every language seems to have a word forhappiness or satisfaction, and people from all cultures apparently have no difficulty in understanding its
meaning; albeit with slightly different nuances, the idea of happiness defies precise definition. Dependingon the context and perspective, happiness may be understood in a variety of ways. Over approximately thelast fifty years since its introduction, Bhutan has ensured that GNH has been the unifying force behind all
policy formulation, and has shaped the country’s five year planning cycle; ensured moving GNH frombeing a development philosophy to a core component of Bhutan’s development strategy, seeking to strikea balance between GNH’s four foundational pillars: environmental conservation; sustainable socioeconomic development; preservation and promotion of culture; and good governance.
We believe that, if the basic global development purpose were changed from the pursuit of profit to the
pursuit of higher wellbeing in all its dimensions, the true level of happiness in the world would certainly
increase. The Fourth King announced that Bhutan would pursue “happiness” in its path towards
development, rather than merely measuring progress through growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Well-regarded in Bhutan for his visionary and many progressive actions as a King, His Majesty
recognized that GDP did not consider the ultimate goal of every human being: happiness. Whileconventional development models stress economic growth as the ultimate objective, the concept of Gross
National Happiness is based on the premise that true development of human society occurs when materialand spiritual development complement and reinforce each other. Thus, Gross National Happiness (GNH)
was born as a development philosophy in Bhutan.
International interest in Bhutan and the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) have seen
remarkable growth over the past decades. For instance, Kyoto University in collaboration with Sherubtse
College played a vital role over the past decade in capacity building and understanding depopulation, rural
75

development, cultural aspects and national heritage conservation. Thinking of these issues, the Center was
designed to function under the joint initiative of Sherubtse College and Kyoto University.
Universities express the needs of a community, society or nation, devoted to fashioning its intellect. As
an institution of higher education, a university is dedicated to the pursuit and propagation of knowledge, tothe study and clarification of values, and to the advancement of the interests of the society and the nation
at large. Society also looks up to the university as the source of knowledge and wisdom (Thakur S
Powdyel). A strong and growing synergy between higher education and community development thus
already exists. Communities where host colleges and universities have been able to positively leverage thepresence of these institutions have stabilized and accelerated the growth of the local economies. Throughactivities and initiatives including research, consulting, promoting and advocating GNH’s best practices,and higher education has facilitated economic growth at the local level.
The goal of Gross National Happiness is built on the premise of the essential goodness of people andthat the Bhutanese people will be able to bring out the best in themselves. The universities in Bhutan andelsewhere can be a powerful instrument in influencing the minds and habits of people. Depending upon
the region, the GNH Development Center can assist the community to develop and grow in the following
areas:•

Serving as a conduit for research and development•

Developing business incubators and small business centers•

Preserving and promoting culture and many other initiatives.

Serving as a conduit for research and development:
The GNH Development Center will seek funding, engage faculties and students in high-quality research,and contribute to work in finding solutions to the many development challenges related to GNH. We
expect the Center to be the think-tank of the local community and its development in diverse fields. The
76

Center will engage university faculties to participate actively in the issues affecting the local community,
conduct studies of immediate concern to the community and provide leadership in educating andempowering the people.

Promoting Entrepreneurship, Business Incubation and Small Business Development
Universities in Bhutan are already establishing and assisting startups in colleges in collaboration withgovernment agencies. The GNH Development Centre can thus play a role in fostering entrepreneurship in
the local community through the faculties and students by offering entrepreneurship classes and training.
The government, in its work to shift the business paradigm, has started an economic stimulus plan with thedual purposes of empowering people and ensuring balanced equitable socio-economic development.

The GNH Development Center, collaborating with the community, can work to develop andempower small businesses in the community, creating a climate that supports small businessgrowth. The Center can encourage citizens and young graduates to create businesses rather thanseek employment by working and investing in the growth and development of small businesses in
the local community, which will facilitate economic self-reliance for Bhutan and build GNH
business culture from the ground up.

Preserving and Promoting Culture and Tradition
Due to modernization, our country’s culture and tradition are at risk. The Bhutanese thus have a strong
and immediate need to uphold their culture and traditions because this is a key way for the Bhutanese tosustain their unique identity. Culture and tradition for the Bhutanese embody their pride in being able toremain a sovereign nation in between the two most populous countries in the world: China and India.
In the colleges of the universities in Bhutan, the dimension of promoting and preserving traditional
culture is very strong and is seen as an educative asset that contributes to developing student creativity,77

cultural identities and intercultural understanding. Therefore, the Center can provide a platform for boththe students and the community to enrich their knowledge about their culture and tradition by bringing
historical or culturally oriented events and social venues to the community, including hosting art shows
and festivals, concerts, sporting events, food venues and many other public attractions. These events can
include talent from outside of the area as well as student shows rich in culture and tradition. The Centerand its purpose, in essence, will provide an opportunity to learn and promote alternative GNH
developmental approaches at the local levels where the ultimate goal is the happiness and wellbeing of thepeople.
The Center will also provide a unique opportunity for students and the local community to exchange
experiences on strategies for translating wellbeing frameworks into practice. It will help bring about a reappraisal of what matters. In time, quietly but surely, the Center will propagate GNH as a practice in thevillages and amongst the common people and facilities to achieve the national goal of Gross National
Happiness.
The Gross National Happiness Development Center will have three sub-branches: the Community for
Population and Development Research; Community for Archaeology, History, Culture and Traditions; andCommunity Development and Extension. There will be one overall coordinator for the Gross National
Happiness Development Center, who will be appointed for one year based on rotating between the twocoordinators for the Community of Population and Development Research and the Community for
Archaeology, History, Culture and Traditions.

78

The Center will bring together actors and agents of development, including scholars, researchers,
leaders, villagers, students, policymakers, practitioners, intellectuals and academics to explore andexamine issues and problems at the grassroots level. The Center will also provide a creative platform forcross-cultural exchanges to revitalize indigenous cultures and encourage innovative researchcollaborations and best practice models to design the framework for the operationalization of GNH. The
study of measuring community vitality is relatively new and little work has been conducted on it.
For meaningful development and community vitality, emphasizing the quality of life of the community,
progressing beyond the economic aspects, is clearly important. Research has shown that an increase inmaterial well-being over time does not increase the happiness of the people. Excessive focus on material
development has even led to a diminished sense of community in some developed nations. Therefore, thisCenter will focus on the determination of methods to maximize the wellbeing and vitality of thecommunity, as well as to revitalize moribund communities. The Center will examine interactions andrelationships within and, to some extent, across communities. The Center will also emphasize dimensions79

of community vitality, such as volunteering, social cohesion, safety, creation and development in therespective target areas.
The following are the mandates and plans of the Center.
1.

VisionBecome a center of excellence in happiness, rural development and wellbeing, andpreserve the National Heritage and Cultural Identity2.

Missioni.

To emphasize GNH at the grassroots levelii.

To study migration trends in Bhutaniii.

To adopt some of the villages at Kanglung Gewog

iv.

To conduct historical research to archive in the National Heritage and Cultural Identityv.

To study depopulation in Eastern Bhutanvi.

To influence social, economic and development policies through social researchvii.

To establish institutional linkages at both national and international levels

3.

Governance structure and membership

3.1 Executive Committee
The Centre shall be managed by an executive committee consisting of the following
members:
S.I NoMembers

Responsibilities

1

President

Advisor/Convener

2

Dean of Research and Industrial Linkage

Chair

3

Coordinator

Member Secretary

4.

Dean of Student Affairs and Dean of Academic Affairs

Members

5.

Five Faculties

Members80

3.2

Administrative staff
The Center shall have a minimum of one research associate and one adjunct professor in
the future. The research associate will be either an honors student or a full-time employee.

4.

Thematic Areasi.

Population, development and healthii.

Governance, economic growth and poverty

iii.

Local monuments and artifacts

iv.

Traditional tools and materialsv.

Tangible and intangible culture

Reference
Phuntsho, Karma. 2013. The history of Bhutan, Random House India.
Schroeder, Kent. 2018. "Gross National Happiness." In Politics of Gross National Happiness, pp. 21- 31.
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

81

The History, Necessity, and Potential Role of the Community Development Centerof the University in Myanmar
Nilar Aung* and Thein Htun**

Abstract
Community development is a key program in Myanmar's extension education that was created todevelop economic and human resources as well as physical, natural and cultural resources in thecommunity. The university mission is to be public institution dedicated to learning, teaching, research,and community service. With the mission as a starting point, input was solicited from the communityand goals were created. Aims and objectives of community development center (CDC) can vary basedon the region to region. During the period of the Myanmar Socialist Programme Party, youth
organizations were organized in states and divisions including the universities organizations
implemented community development sports, arts, and social welfare training. During the military
government, the community development center was established as the Human Resource Development
Programme. According to the Myanmar Education Sector Panorama, June 2012 a plan existed toestablish community development center at universities and degree college between 2012-2015 tocontribute to regional development. With the new democratic government, now is the best time tomodify the plan and move forward the community development center adjacent to each and every
university. The development potentials of CDCs at universities in Myanmar are available humanresources with multiple disciplines, facilities such as rooms, computers, and internet access as well as
infrastructure and communications skills; and to share the research-based knowledge from each andevery university located in the regions across Myanmar.

Keywords: Community development center, Regional development, Universities*Professor, Department of Geography, University of Yangon, Myanmar**Pro-rector (retired), Cooperative University, Thanlyin, Myanmar.
82

Introduction
The Ministry of Education is the main education provider in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar andfunctions with the vision of creating an education system that will generate a learning society capableof facing the challenges of the Knowledge Age. The Ministry of Education is implementing short- andlong-term education development plans to upgrade the education standards and develop a lifelong
learning society. The implementation of the education development plan has gone beyond enhancement
the quality of higher education and promoting diversity, to also markedly increased accessibility to bothbasic and higher education.
In rural education extension, community development is vital programs. To be successful academic
researchers and planners need to be able to recognize and define what is (and what is not) encompassedin the community and economic, social and other development. A related issue is to be able to identify,
categorize and distinguish among the many specific educational thrusts possible for community andeconomic development programs. Myanmar has 173 higher education institutions. Among them, 66
institutions are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education while 97 institutions are under 12other ministries. "Among the 163 Myanmar universities in 2012, more than one third of them (66) are
under the Ministry of Education, followed by 61 under the Ministry of Science and Technology and 15
medical universities under the Ministry of Health. The remaining ministries have between one and five
universities, resulting in insufficient focus on agriculture and other important topics."
For example, to contribute the knowledge obtained from agricultural and other research to farming
community, the one and only agricultural university is located in central Myanmar. This university is
unable to cover the whole country for sharing knowledge. As an agricultural country, Myanmar shouldhave community development centers established in universities and college especially those which arelocated especially in rural areas. By doing so, the researchers from universities and college can conduct
more research based on their community needs they can share the knowledge directly and effectively
with the community and their research will be more applicable.
The networks of learning centers, community learning centers could define the role of higher
education institutions in fulfilling community needs.
83

The establishment of community development center at universities and degree college can becontributed to regional development Myanmar Higher Education Sector Panorama, 2012).

Potentials for Community Development
In this research applies the exploratory method to explore the history and necessity. The secondary datasuch as the numbers of universities research accomplished by researchers from various disciplines fromdifferent universities and education development plans were obtained from the Department of Higher
Education. The primary data was collected using semi-structured interviews with planners, andresearchers to learn their views and opinions on the community development center. Some focus group
discussions were conducted with
University

What are theCommunity

Community needs?

Development Center

Physical Assist,

good experiences in community

Human resources,

Infrastructure,development works.

various discipline

technologies,

Facilities

Economic and Social,
Discussion

and Cultural Assistsresearchers, and people who had

To sustain existing levels of
economic

activities

andcreateadditional economic activity within
theMultidisciplinary Research,
Results

community,

the

major

challenges and opportunities ofexisting businesses are needed to be

Figure 1. Findings and Suggestions

understood.

Tocreateeconomic

Source; own draft

enterprises

using

locallyappropriate

management of natural, historical and cultural resources the following are necessary.
• Developing heritage, cultural and ecotourism opportunities• Considering the environmental consequences of development activities

Myanmar higher education institutions are reinforcing their role as a center for creating anddisseminating knowledge in the local communities. They are defining the services, skills, and84

knowledge that they could provide to the rural areas and communities in which they are located andstrengthen linkages with local and rural communities and contribute to their development. They are able
to harness technology to act as a driving force in the delivering of knowledge and skills. They also
conduct research on local resources and identify educational programs they can offer using the networksof learning centers, community learning centers and other means available. Community-based humanresource development is being activated in order to buttress development of the local residents ' lifelong
learning and promote the growth of local industries. As a task of the thirty-year long-term education
development plan for fiscal year 2005-2006, higher education institutions were assigned to open
community development center to facilitate their services to the community. The centers offer courses,
perform 31 researches and offer consultancy services needed by the regions in which the institutions arelocated.
The university campus environment should support and facilitate the mission of the university. The
planning process began with the mission of the university as a public institution dedicated to learning,teaching, research, and community service. With the mission as a starting point, input was solicited fromthe community and goals created. Aims and objectives of community development center (CDC) in
universities can vary based on the region to region. The three primary types of community development
center are economic resources (businesses, jobs, and so on) human resources (the skills and othercontributions of the people living in the community) and physical, natural and cultural resources (theresources of the natural environment as well as those that are man-made, such as streets and hospitals).

85

History of Community Development Centers in Universities
During the period of the Myanmar socialist program party, youth organizations lead community
development in sports, arts, social welfare training and more.
During the military government, the community development centers shifted into the Human Resource
Development Programme. In Myanmar higher education sector panorama 2012, the establishment ofcommunity development centers at universities was planned to contribute to regional development.
Table 1. Current Research Centers in Myanmar Universities
Source: Education Atlas of Myanmar.2018

Sr.

Name of the Research

University

Location

Universities Research

University of Yangon,

YangonCentreYangon Region

Kamayut Township, Yangon

Aquaculture Research

Mawlamyine

Set Se Village Tract, Than Phyu

CentreUniversity,

Zayat Township

Station1

2

University

campus,Mon State
3

4

Marine Science Research

Pathein University,

Makyee Area, Shwe Thaung Yan

CentreAyeyarwady Region

Sub-Township

Biological Resources

Pathein University,

Pathein University campus, No. 3

Research andAyeyarwady Region

Ward,

Marine Science Research

Myeik University,

Myeik University Campus

CentreTanintharyi Region

Biotechnology
Development Centre
5

Myanmar higher education institutions are reinforcing their role as centers for creating anddisseminating knowledge in local communities. They are defining the services, skills, and knowledge
that they can provide to rural areas and the communities in which they are located and strengthen
linkages with local and rural communities and contribute to their development. They are able to harness
technology to act as a driving force in delivering knowledge and skills. They also conduct research on
86

local resources and identify educational programs they can offer using the networks of learning centersand community learning centers and other means available. Community-based human resource
development is being activated in order to buttress the development of the local residents' lifelong
learning and promote the growth of local industries.
As a task of the Thirty-Year Long-Term Education Development Plan for fiscal 2005-2006, higher
education institutions were assigned to open community development centers to facilitate their services
to the community. The centers offer courses, perform 31 researches and offer consultancy services
needed by the regions where the institutions are located.
As an endeavor to enhance learning opportunities that transcend the limitations of place and time, eEducation was launched in Myanmar on January 1, 2001. By harnessing information andcommunication technologies, learning opportunities are being increased for citizens wherever they are
in Myanmar, regardless of their age, genders experience, and educational qualifications, thereby
facilitating Myanmar becoming a learning society able to face the challenges posed by the Knowledge
Age.

Necessity and Potentials of Community Development Centers

Community development is a key program in national extension education. Extension
educational programs are to develop the economic human physical, natural and cultural
resources in community. The university campus environment should support and facilitate themission of the university. The planning process begins with the mission of the university as apublic institution dedicated to learning, teaching, research, and community service. With themission as a starting point, input was solicited from the community and goals were created. These
goals can vary based on region to the region. There are three primary types of resources as follows;• Economic resources—businesses, jobs, and so on.
• Human resources which are the skills and other contributions of the people living in thecommunity87• Physical, natural and cultural resources which are the resources of the natural environment aswell as those are man-made, such as streets and hospitals

Figure 2. Spatial Distribution of Universities in Myanmar
Sources: Socioeconomic Atlas of Myanmar,2018

Although Myanmar is an agro-based county and over 65 percent of the total population lives in rural
areas, Myanmar has only one agricultural university, which is in Yezin, central Myanmar. The
Ayeyarwady Region is the rice bowl of Myanmar, and the region has 29 percent of the rice producing
areas and 14 percent of the population. The three universities in the Ayeyarwady Region are Pathein,
Mubin and Hinthada, but they have no research centers for agricultures.
Research centers for farmers are needed to be established in universities to share and contribute theknowledge gained from research. Farmers are now facing less profit on their farms because of theirinsufficient knowledge for recording costs and benefits, seeds, and amounts of fertilizer and pesticide88used, training is required. The limited knowledge on how to overcome the impact of climate change
needs to change with their changing environment, especially in cropping patterns, seeds, technology andthe insufficient knowledge of market conditions and value chains. This knowledge needs to be sharedwith farmers who only sell to middlemen. The insufficient knowledge on systematic seed selections,soils, and methods render the total benefits very low in agricultural income.
Now is the best time to renew community development center in universities in Myanmar because
shifting the resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy is necessary. Universities areprimarily located in rural areas with different geographic features and locations as well as different
community needs.
Different community needs are found including vocational training skills training and social
entrepreneurship. Multidisciplinary research should be emphasized more on the development ofagricultural practices, climate smart agriculture, climate-resilient rice varieties and economies. Human
resources from different disciplines of universities, infrastructure, and facilities, one aspect of thesuggestions of teachers are major reasons to establish community development center in universities ofMyanmar. The plans and strategies of the Myanmar higher education sector are to fulfill the educational
goals of the country in the new century. The plan for community development centers is enormous
contributions to develop qualified human resources and reaching out to local communities to equip themwith advanced skills and knowledge.
The education promotion programs include building a robust higher education system to serve
Myanmar, in order to become a modern and developed nation. Community development center can
provide Myanmar citizens from different areas with quality education, advanced skills and knowledge
that they need. Community development center can create strong foundation for the pursuit of lifelong
learning while simultaneously nurturing the cultural roots and identity of Myanmar.

89

References
D. H. E. 2012. Myanmar Educational Sector Panorama, Department of Higher Education.
Hla Htun Aung. 2003. Myanmar: The Study of Processes and Patterns, National Center for Human
Resource Department, Yangon, Myanmar.
Kraas. F. 2018. Socio-economic Atlas of Myanmar
LIFT. 2012. Baseline survey results, July 2012. Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund, Myanmar.

90

Field practice and services for rural areas provided by students in the Faculty ofRegional Collaboration, Kochi University
Ichikawa Masahiro*

Abstract
In rural Japan, depopulation and aging have severely increased. Universities in Japan are expected tocontribute to resolving these problems through education and research. In Kochi University, a new
faculty, the Faculty of Regional Collaboration, was established in 2015. This paper explains thecurriculum, which consists of many hours of field practice, the problems found so far in the educationand the relationships with rural areas where fieldwork practice is conducted.

Keywords: depopulation, aging, service learning and contribution to regional problems byuniversities____________________________________*Professor, Faculty of Regional Collaboration, Kochi University, Japan
E-mail: ichikawam@kochi-u.ac.jp
91

1． Introduction
Problems in rural areas in Japan: Population in Japan, after peaking in 2008, started decreasing. The
elderly population, which starts at 65 years old, is approximately 34,591,000, accounting for 27.3
percent of the total population. In 2005, the lowest birth rate of 1.26 was recorded. After that, although
the rate has increased slightly to 1.44, it is still low. The number of births recorded annually wasapproximately 977,000. This was the first year after 1899, when statistics started being recorded, thatthe number fell below one million.
Especially in rural areas, depopulation and aging have severely increased. Problems include
abandoning agricultural management and silviculture fields as well as collaborative work deterioratingin the community. Population migration from rural to urban areas such as Tokyo continues and somerural communities have started disappearing. Today, taking countermeasures against these problems isurgent.
Universities roles: Formerly, research and education were mainly expected of universities. Excellent
research was conducted and the results reflected student education. As the problems mentioned above
have appeared, however, university contributions for resolving them has been expected, which are to
conduct research on those problems and develop human resources to contribute to resolving them.
Kochi University, first among universities in Japan, established a new faculty to contribute to resolving
such regional problems: the Faculty of Regional Collaboration. This paper examines the education
methods and curriculum in this faculty.

2. Education in the Faculty of Regional Collaboration
Kochi University was established in Kochi Prefecture on Shikoku Island (Fig. 1), a remote area of Japan,
in 1949. In Kochi today, depopulation and aging have severely increased. Until 2014 Kochi University
had five faculties: Humanities, Education, Sciences, Medicine and Agriculture. The entire university
had approximately 5,000 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. In 2015, given the crisis inrural areas mentioned above, the Faculty of Regional Collaboration was newly established withapproximately 60 first year students.
The Faculty of Regional Collaboration works to produce leaders with management skills in regional
92

collaboration. The skills consist of comprehensive understanding of local communities, planningcompetency and practical skills for collaboration. The prospective new leaders are to identify, analyze
and integrate complicated regional issues, and to address them by promoting collaboration between
people and organizations across primary, secondary and tertiary industries. After graduation, students
are expected to promote regional collaboration with extensive knowledge of industries from agriculture
to marketing.
The distinguishing characteristics of the curriculum are to foster students with the abilities mentioned
above using substantial time for field practice. Students from the first year to junior year spend over 600
hours on field practice.
In the field practice, the first-year students are expected to understand the natural, social and cultural
conditions and the regional problems in the community they are assigned (Photograph 1). For example,
in a particular rural village or town, the students help with agricultural work; attend collaborative work
such as road cleaning; and help to implement events such as sports festivals and agricultural fairs.
Through these activities, they become familiar with local residents and understand the conditions andproblems in their communities.
In their sophomore year, students create plans to resolve the problems (Photograph 2). Discussion
with local residents is held several times during the planning process. After a initial plan is created, asmall-scale trial is implemented and the plan is then improved according to the results.
In their junior year, students implement the plan in full scale (Photograph 3). Projects conducted by
students so far have been establishing a farm restaurant utilizing fresh agricultural products and beautiful
scenery, organizing a chorus group in a village and a mini-concert inviting a brass band from theuniversity, and photographing newly-weds against the background of a beautiful flower garden. The
students conduct many projects, utilizing the rich resources in the communities they are assigned.
In their senior year, based on their experience from the field practice, students conduct research andanalyze the regional problems for their theses.
Students use several sites for their field practice around Kochi Prefecture (Fig. 2). The sites go beyond
the agricultural community to include fishing communities as well as regional urban area such as Kochi
city.
93

The curriculum of the faculty consists of field practice and lectures to learn basic knowledge andtechniques needed for fieldwork and facilitating the understanding of the situations of the communities.

3. Issues so far in the Faculty
The period for understanding the regional issues may be insufficient. According to the current
curriculum, in the second semester of the first year, the students conduct fieldwork to understand thesituation and issues in the community they work on. This may be insufficient time to understand thecommunity and issues there within a single semester as the students have little fieldwork experience andknowledge. In the next semester, insufficient understanding would result in problems for creating plansto resolve regional problems.
For example, depopulation and aging in rural areas are deep-rooted issues relating to surrounding
issues such as politics, economy and nature as well as the conditions such as society and culture.
Becoming familiar with and understanding those conditions require time. Deep knowledge and insightof teaching staff are also required.
Only three years have passed since establishing the Faculty. Hereafter, the teaching staff must improvethe curriculum and create a regional philosophy.

Kochi Prefecture

Figure 1. Location of Kochi

94

Practice fields

Koretom o (sub urban
tow n)
Social w elf are anddisaster prevention

Choja m ountain village
Aging anddepopulation

Mountain, sea, town, village.
Every field is our class room

Kurioshio tow n
Processing f ishery products

60 students in aclass are divided to
5-6 areas

Yutorisuto Park
Tourism and green industry

高知市 Kochi-city
Activation of com m ercial
streets

Nishigaw aAgriculture processing

13

Figure 2. Communities the students are assigned in Kochi Prefecture

1st grade: Understanding the works and life in villages
Service learning

Photo 1. First year student field practice95

3rd year: Memorial photograph in a flower garden in mountain village
Utilization of beautiful landscape as a mountain resource

2nd year: Presentation of proposed plan and discussion with local people

Photo 2. Second year student field practice.

Photo 3. Third year student field practice96

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) by Students and Young Scholars of Bhutan inJapanese Depopulated Area: Its Implication for Challenging Global Issue
Akamatsu Yoshio*

Abstract
Depopulation is one of the biggest issues for many rural communities in Japan. Although Japanese
government and local people have struggled to overcome the depopulation and relevant problems forseveral decades, clear solution to the problem has not been proposed yet. Recently, depopulation or rapid
out-migration in rural area is starting to be observed commonly in many developing Asian countries andinternational cooperation would be important to cope with the problem, like a global warming.
Furthermore, positive contribution to local society by higher educational institution is increasingly
expected by local government and communities. Regarding this, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies,
Kyoto University and Sherubtse College, Royal University of Bhutan has jointly carried out theexchange learning program in Japan and Bhutan to cope with the problems since 2012. This paper
introduces the activities of exchange learning program in Japanese rural area and note perspective of the
program.

Key words: depopulation, exchange learning, community-based activities, Japanese rural area____________________________________*Affiliated Assistant Professor, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
E-mail: yoshi.akamatsu@hotmail.co.jp97

1. Introduction
Depopulation is a central problem confronting many rural communities in Japan. Although Japanesesociety achieved rapid economic growth in 1960s and 1970s, it was strongly supported by theconcentration of productive-age population into the economic and industrial centers from the ruralcommunities. Declining population and imbalanced population structure, viz. relatively few young andproductive populations and many aging population, has caused a lot of problems for rural community,
such as shortage of human resources, shrinking of local market and job opportunity, declination ofcommunity’s autonomy, deterioration of public services, and so on.
Although depopulation has come up as a concerned issue in the end of 1960s in Japan, the same issue
has started to be observed in many developing Asian countries in recent years. Bhutan is a small
mountainous country located southern slope of the Himalayas, and the country had kept a distance fromrapid modernization until a few decades ago. However, the mass rural-urban migration associated withresent rapid modernization is becoming intense anxiety for policymaker and researchers. Its seriousness
was also expressed in National Day’s address by His Majesty the King in 2016 (Bhutan Broadcasting
Service 2016). The mass out-migration of young generation, especially in eastern Bhutan, has madeaging population of rural community relatively high. According to the census in 2017, the aging rate
(age 65 or older) of the country was 5.9%. However, the aging rate of eastern Bhutan reached 7.6%
(Royal Government of Bhutan 2018). The society with an aging rate exceeding 7% is classified as an“aging society” in the definition by World Health Organization. The out-migration of young generationfrom rural communities comes up with the large area of uncultivated/fallow land in rural communities.
The rate of uncultivated/fallow land exceeded 20% in eastern Bhutan and the reasons foruncultivation/fallow mentioned by landowners were “shortage of labour” (Royal Government of Bhutan2018). Mechanization of farming is difficult for most of the community due to rugged topography sothat population drain have directly impact on farming.
It is commonly considered that minimization of infrastructural and economic gap between urban andrural communities would be a fundamental and exclusive approach to depopulation. In fact, thegovernment of Japan invested more than 800USD for improvement of infrastructure, school and healthfacilities and transportation network, and promotion of industrialization over the past four decades.
98However, recent serious situation of Japanese rural area indicates that conventional approach would be
not adequate for solving depopulation and we are requested to propose alternative approach for the
problem. Recently, positive and visible contribution of higher educational institutions to local society ishighly expected by local government and community. Especially in Bhutan, most of the Colleges arelocated in rural area and these Colleges have a strong advantage in contribution to rural society.
Regarding this, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University and Sherubtse
College, Royal University of Bhutan started exchange learning program to challenge rural development
issues, including depopulation, in Bhutan and Japan.

2. Participatory Learning and Action Program in rural area, JapanThe exchange learning program has been carried out summer and winter season in Japan since 2012.
Japan is well known as a one of the most developed countries in the world. On the other hand,seriousness of depopulation in rural area is not known from other Asian countries. Bhutanese students
and young scholars from Sherubtse College visited Japanese rural areas through the program and carriedout fieldwork by Participatory Rural Appraisal to understand current rural situations. Some groups
participated in social volunteer works, such as snow removal, to understand community facing issues
more deeply (Plate 1). The fieldwork was mainly conducted in two rural areas, Miyama-cho (Nantancity) and Miyazu city in Kyoto Prefecture (Figure 1). Miyama-cho is located central part of Kyoto
Prefecture and surrounded by mountains. Kita village of Miyama-cho is well remaining traditional
houses with a thatched roof and its landscape attracts a lot of tourists. On the other hand, most of villagesof Miyama-cho are facing depopulation and aging. Miyazu city and located in the northern part of Kyoto
Prefecture and many communities are also facing serious depopulation, like Miyama-cho. In addition to
fieldwork to understand current situation of depopulation, participants visited several organizations andindividuals who have carried out remarkable activities for against depopulation and community
revitalization. Chii Community Development Association (CCDA) in Miyama-cho is an organization
addressing local problems through community-based activities. The participants visited CCDA office
and received explanations on their activities and occasionally took part in CCDA’s activities (Plate 2 &3). In Miyazu, there are several regional and civic groups organized by local people to implement99

community-based activities. The participants were taken to the site by the members of regional or civic
groups and observed their activities with their explanation in the field. After the fieldwork, meeting orworkshop involving local people was held in Miyama-cho or Miyazu to share participants’ findings andimpressions through the program and to enhance self-awareness of involvement in the issue.

Figure.1 Location of Miyama-cho andMiyazu city, Kyoto Prefecture

Photo.1 Volunteer work (snow removal
surrounding community temple, 2015)

Photo.2 Lecture given by local people, 2018

Photo.3 CCDA’s activity (maintenance ofroadside tree, 2014)

3. Situation of depopulation in Sasari village and Kigo village
In addition to field observation, some groups carried out intensive field survey in Sasari village inMiyama-cho and Kigo village in Miyazu city. Sasari village is located northeastern part of the Nantancity and thriving in timber production from 1970s to 1980s. The basic infrastructure, such as electricity,water supply facility, paved road, internet environment and so on, is well arranged like most of otherrural areas in Japan. According to statistical data, there were 36 households and 183 populations in 1960
in the village (Publication Committee of Chii village History 1998). However, the household and100population of the village was 19 and 11, respectively in 2014. The survey group found that the populationof the village reached its peak in 1960 and then sharply dropped down during the period of rapid
economic growth. More than 50% of population declined from 1960 to 1971. The decline rate of
population was comparatively lower after 1970s but getting higher again last a decade because of natural
decline of aged population and small population in the village. The population of aged 60 or older
accounted for 69.6% in 2011 and most of villagers’ children lived and worked in urban area of Osaka,
Kyoto or Shiga Prefecture. There were four aged persons lived in the village alone in 2014. They werestill active and communicated well with other villagers, but there was serious concern about who canlook after them when something happens, such as emergency, when they stay alone in house or outside.
Aging of the community population made it difficult to maintain individual daily physical works as wellas community works, such as maintenance of irrigation and community temple.
Kigo village, Seya area of Miyazu city, is a mountainous village getting heavy snowfall in winterseason. Seya area consists of five villages including Kigo village and its population declined from 1357
in 1930 to 114 in 2010 (Miyazu city office 2015). Like the case of Sasari village, there was sharp declineof the population from 1960 to 1970. The decline of the population in Seya area was attributed to not
only strong economic pull factors but also push factor of natural environment, i.e. heavy snowfall in
Seya area. Especially, tremendous heavy snowfall in 1963, called Sanpachi-gousetsu, caused extensive
damage to many houses and it triggered mass out-migration from Kigo and surrounding villages in Seya
area. The heavy snowfall is still serious problem for the communities. In 2016, there were fivehouseholds in the village and these all families were in-migrant from urban areas. The original villagers
have already migrated from the village and the most of farmland have been abandoned (Ando et al.
2016).

4. Community-based activities in Miyama-cho and Miyazu city
Besides the struggle of central and local government for depopulation and relevant problems,
community people have also taken action for community revitalization with strong awareness of crises
for their community. Here, author introduces two examples of community-based activity taken by ChiiShinkokai in Miyama-cho and Utsukushisa –tankentai in Miyazu city.
101i) Chii-Shinkokai in Miyama-cho: Chii Community Development Association (CCDA), called ChiiShinkokai in Japanese, was established in 2001 to promote community-based development andrevitalization for community by community people. Various activities have been planned and practiced
by CCDA involving community people and relevant organizations. Community events, such as sports
festivals, autumn harvest festival and cultural exhibition, have been held to provide fun for local people
and strengthen community bond. The village beautification program by local women was implemented
to encourage women’s participation in the community revitalization and utilize women’s high sense forbeautification. On the other hand, some events, such as sweetfish festival, exchange program of school
kids and green tourism programs, have been organized to encourage the interaction with urban people
and let urban people know about the good points of living rural community and richness of naturalenvironment (Plate 4). To cope with increase of human-wildlife conflict, zoning project between
residential and forest area was implemented. Furthermore, CCDA has provided a hands-on learning
opportunity for university students through volunteer work and interaction program in the aging anddepopulated communities of Chii area. Some Bhutanese groups also participated in the activities in
winter and shared their experiences and impressions with university students. Besides planning andpracticing of revitalization activities, CCDA office also provides some local governmental services, suchas issue of residency certificate and collection of insurance fee. The central office of Nantan-city is
located about an hour’s drive from Chii area by car and representative service of the local government
office by CCDA have relieved inconvenient accessibility to public services for the community people.
ii) Utsukushisa-tankentai in Miyazu city: The local expeditionary group called Utsukushisa- tankentai
is one of the civic groups in Miyazu city. The group was established in 2001 by Miyazu citizens andthey dealt with local revitalization through re-discovery and re-evaluation of local treasure, means local
culture, traditions, knowledges, natural resources, and so on. Their main activity was visit to field orcommunity and re-discover local endemism which should be evaluated and handed down to next
generations. Miyazu city consists of many mountainous and coastal villages, and the group members
visited almost all of the villages and surroundings. The group members were guided by local people andthey carefully listened to their story about their life and village history. After the field expedition, theirfindings were published as a local newsletter six or seven times a year (Plate 5). The newsletters were102

distributed to every household in Miyazu city. According to the editor of the newsletter, there were big
and positive responses from the readers. In addition to the publication of newsletter, Utsukushisatankentai published several booklets and books related to local history, culture, vegetation and so on.
The book, titled Miyazu Shin-fudoki, is a collection of articles written on local culture, histories,
traditions, landscapes, and life histories from the view point of localites. In addition to field expeditions
and publications, the members engaged in volunteer works to keep the landscape clean and beautiful.
Unfortunately, Utsukushisa-tankentai has finished their activities in 2015, but their experiences andfindings have passed to other groups and utilized for revitalization activities. For an example, Miyazu
city established Eco-Tour Guide Group to encourage local ecotourism, and Utsukushisa-tankentai’s
findings were used in some pages of eco-tour guidebook. Some hidden visiting spots found throughexpedition of Utuskushisa-tankeitai were started to maintain by other groups or individuals as a new
tourist spot to encourage local ecotourism.

Photo.5 Newsletters published by Utsukushisatankentai

Photo.4 Rural experience program of urban
kids in Chii (2016)

5. Perspective of the Exchange Learning Program
Depopulation is a deep-rooted issue and it would be difficult to find out clear and immediate solution.
However, the exchange learning program based on PLA has provided comparative view point of
depopulation between Bhutan and Japan to re-think on the approach to it. Most of Bhutanese young
scholars were very surprised at the gap between well-developed rural infrastructures and reality ofdepopulation in Japan, and one Bhutanese scholar mentioned that depopulation seems to be rooted not
only in economic factors in rural area, it would be also rooted in people’s mind-set to rural area and its
103

values. In fact, conventional approach to rural development is preferentially focused on infrastructuralinvestment and improvement of economic condition. On the other hand, intrinsic value of rurality was
kept behind. However, recent activities by CCDA and Utsukushisa-tankaintai are laid weight on reevaluation of rural community and local resources rather than straightforward materialistic or economic
development. This kind of approach, unexpectedly, akin to the concept of Bhutanese development,
called Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNH preach on importance of holistic approach bycombination of material and spiritual development to improve human welfare and happiness. CCDA
and Utsukushisa-tankaintai’s approach to rural community would give concrete hints for
implementation of GNH in practice in rural area of Bhutan. On the other hand, many questions about
GNH or “happiness” were asked to Bhutanese students and scholars by Japanese local people. The
concept of GNH is actually getting popular among Japanese communities. In fact, there are some local
governments applying the idea of GNH to their development plans. Although the scale of the program
is not so large, steady place-based exchange learning involving interaction with local people enhance
participant’s self-awareness of involvement in the issue and it would be connected to their new approachand action in their place for the future.

Reference
Ando, K. et al. 2016. Depopulation and Abandoning Farming Problems as a Global Issue: Bhutanese
Scholars' Comparative Experience in Japan, Summer 2016, Research for Tropical Agriculture, Vol.9,
Extra issue2, 19-20
Bhutan Broadcasting Service. 2016. His Majesty addresses the Nation., Bhutan Broadcasting Service(2016, December 18), retrieved November 26, 2018 from Bhutan Broadcasting Service website
http://www.bbs.bt/news/?p=64599
Miyazu city office. 2015. Statistics of Miyazu city, Miyazu: Miyazu city officeOhno, A. 2005. Introduction of environmental sociology of mountainous village: genkai-shuraku andcooperative watershed management (Sanson-kankyou-syakaigaku-josetsu: gendai sanson no genkaishuraku-ka to ryuuiki-kyoudou-kanri). Tokyo: Rural Culture Association Japan
Royal Government of Bhutan. 2018. 2017 Population & Housing Census of Bhutan, Thimphu: National104

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Publication Committee of Chii village History. 1998. Chii village History (Chii-son Shi), Nantan-city:
Publication Committee of Chii village History105