A Burmese court finds 33 farmers living next to a Special Economic Zone guilty of criminal trespass, a ruling seen by activists as a blow to land rights in a country with a rising demand for property for industrial use.
Land Lead Story Mandalay Division News
Police forcibly broke up a sit-in last night, when they cleared farmers, who were protesting land grabs, from a site in central Mandalay. The farmers had been occupying the protest[…]
The introduction of more productive crops is a key strategy for helping vulnerable communities in the Dry Zone.
Some 350 farmers from Burma’s Mandalay Division are facing court cases related to land-grabbing, most of them brought since Aung San Suu Kyi’s government took power a year ago, lawyers and activists said Thursday.
Farmers Lead Story Mandalay Division News
In central Burma’s harsh dry environment, drip-irrigation vegetable gardens help hundreds of families get by.
Farmers Features Lead Story News
For many small farmers in southern Shan State, where roughly one-quarter of all of Burma’s soybean is grown, harvests have declined in quality and volume, putting pressure on livelihoods.
Many farmers in Arakan State suffer from the lack of labour, low mechanisation and poor market access for farm produce.
Farmers Land Lead Story News Shan
Farmers locked in a land dispute with Burma’s armed forces pledged to renew their fight after being released from jail on Friday, in a case testing leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s resolve to challenge the military’s economic interests.
At a remote farm about two hours away from Loikaw, capital of Karenni State, farmers scrape out raw opium from the poppies they’ve grown.
Scores of farmers in southern Shan State’s Taunggyi township, who were facing trial after the Burmese military pressed criminal trespass charges against them over a land confiscation dispute, were sentenced to one month in prison on Thursday.
In recent years, farmers in Irrawaddy Division have come under pressure to modernise, as labour costs rise and productivity of the delta’s soil declines.
The move to help rice growers struggling with falling prices comes as farmers become the new battleground between the junta and the opposition.
Locals in Demoso say the KNPP imposes an annual tax of about 5,000 kyat per household, and that they were given a 10 October deadline to pay up.
Arakan Business Lead Story Natural resources News
Twenty-one local farmers spurn a compensation ceremony in Kyaukphyu, Arakan State, when they find that the event was being staged to conclude the matter without attempting to rectify damage to their fields.
Residents from 22 villages around the town of Tigyaing said they lost a total of 16,632 acres to land grabs by the military government between 2005 and 2008 to make way for the Tagaung Nickel Mining Project and other ventures.
Ethnic issues Farmers Land Lead Story News
A majority of ethnic farmers in Burma would prefer to share community land rather than own their title deed to a plot, according to the findings of the Ethnic Community Development Forum.
Environment Farmers Lead Story News
Last year’s floods and other extreme weather events have prompted many farmers in the Irrawaddy Delta to leave some of their land fallow.
As the government’s agricultural bank begins handing out loans to farmers, some say they have to wait too late for money that has to be paid back too soon.
Dr. Nang Pann Ei Kham heads a network of civil society groups and researchers who advocate reforming Burma’s ineffective drug control laws.
Opium cultivation remains a lucrative source of income for many farmers, but the illegal industry is facing renewed scrutiny in the Asia-Pacific region.
2015 Elections Interview Lead Story News Politics
Sai Hso Harn spoke to DVB about contesting the regional assembly seat in Langkho, Shan State, and his time running an NGO to provide training for farmers.
Farmers Lead Story Natural Disasters News
Farmers in flood-hit Burma face a scramble to replant damaged paddy fields in the next two weeks to avoid food shortages.
2015 Elections Land Lead Story News Pegu Division
More than 400 candidates from three new political parties devoted to representing Burma’s farmers will contest seats in the upcoming November election.
Farmer’s rights advocate Su Su Nway has been jailed in Pegu Division after being charged with trespassing.
Irrawaddy Division Land Lead Story News
Local farmers from the Irrawaddy delta staged a protest rally on Friday, demanding the return of land they claim was confiscated in 1999-2000.
Residents from Malakyun and Gonchein villages are demanding compensation for the farmland destroyed by the company’s operations.
As many as 500 villagers protested in front of a township court after three of their peers were sentenced for their part in a symbolic “plough protest”.
Farmers in Shan State are owed a huge sum of money after their trading partners were arrested back in China.
Farmers express their wishes for land, seized by the Burmese army more than 20 years ago, to be returned to them.
One of the accused farmers said they had received permission to punch the holes in the embankment that caused the fishery to flood.
