Who benefits from the agrarian transition under violent conflict?: Evidence from Myanmar

Forsyth, Tim ORCID: 0000-0001-7227-9475 and Springate-baginski, Oliver (2022) Who benefits from the agrarian transition under violent conflict?: Evidence from Myanmar. Journal of Rural Studies, 95. pp. 160-172. ISSN 0743-0167

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Abstract

Agricultural commercialization and livelihood diversification have been proposed as ways to bring economic prosperity to rural zones after long-term violent conflict. Critics, however, argue that these market-based interventions exacerbate, rather than resolve, older social divisions, and that commercialization needs to be seen as part of agrarian transition processes. This paper contributes to the analysis of livelihoods-based interventions under violent conflict by presenting research from Kachin State, Myanmar. Drawing on 276 household surveys plus interviews, the paper argues that agrarian transition has only occurred within larger landholders who have been able to increase farm size by expanding commercial agriculture onto land historically used for shifting cultivation. Smallholders, however, have been unable to expand agriculture in this way, partly because of the reallocation of agricultural land to favored investors, including Chinese banana plantations. Meanwhile, access to non-agricultural livelihoods is largely restricted to laboring in Burmese army-controlled jade mines, or to traders arriving from outside the region. These findings indicate a different outcome to research elsewhere in Myanmar that suggests agrarian transition processes can benefit landless people; and instead supports evidence elsewhere in Asia that the agrarian transition can become “truncated” if smallholders do not participate. Making the agrarian transition inclusive requires greater attention to the ethnic, and other social barriers for participation by smallholders and rural landless, rather than facilitating commercialization alone.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2022 Elsevier.
Divisions:	International Development
Subjects:	J Political Science H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Date Deposited:	05 Sep 2022 16:45
Last Modified:	06 Dec 2023 12:54
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/116445

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