Of the more than 5.213 million acres allocated from the start of the 2010-11 financial year to the end of 2012-13, only 1.197 million, or 23 percent, has actually been planted, the data shows. In Sagaing Region, just 3.7pc of the 533,000 acres given out have been planted, while Yangon tops the table with 95.1pc planted.

“The justification by the Myanmar government [for industrial farms] is about increasing agricultural productivity to increase exports,” said Kevin Woods, a Southeast Asia research analyst for the Transnational Institute. “That is clearly not being achieved.”

The data also confirms anecdotal reports of a dramatic increase in land concessions under the new government, although concessions were regularly doled out by the military regime. According to separate figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, 1.94 million acres had been awarded to January 31, 2011.

Beyond the problem of land sitting idle, land rights activists say the data is concerning because it contradicts new agriculture bylaws that state that companies granted land concessions must fulfill certain quotas for planting and cultivation in order to keep the concession. The trend is indicative of the corruption and lack of oversight that continues to define land issues in Myanmar, especially in rural areas, they said.

Activists have never heard of a single case of an agri-business firm being forced to relinquish unused land.

“This data really concerns me. The government needs to increase their efforts to look at how [land rights] can be improved for small holder farmers … [and] to do that they must have a proper policy and appropriate law,” said U Shwe Thein, chair of the Land Core Group, a network of land-focused non-government organisations.

The law states that land concessions that remain unused after three years must be returned to the government. However, several land rights activists interviewed for this article say they have never heard of a single case of an agri-business firm being forced to relinquish unused land.

In a report released earlier this year by the Environmental Law Institute said that “while exact information remains difficult to obtain, over the last 20 years, several hundred thousand hectares across Myanmar have been allocated to hundreds of companies”.

While no official statistics exist on what percentage of concessions given by the military government have been planted, anecdotal reports from rural areas say much of it remains unused.

With the figures showing three-quarters of land concessions are not being used for agriculture, there are now concerns over what the companies are doing with the land. Mr Woods suggested the large concessions may be a pretense for large companies to exploit other natural resources in the area, such as timber.

The government’s policy of giving land concessions to large-scale industrial farming projects across the nation has long been criticised for the human and other costs it inflicts on communities.

Kachin State and Sagaing and Tanintharyi Regions have both the highest numbers of land concessions by acre and the lowest proportion of planted land. All three regions have experienced a significant number of disputes between local populations displaced by concessions and the companies that have received them.

These are lands that have been actively farmed for generations and this land is being given to big companies legally under the current land laws.

As many independent groups, including LCG, have documented, civilians living in areas awarded to agribusinesses are often coerced into giving up their land through empty promises of compensation or outright intimidation and violence.

“The main thing that should be realised is that people’s lives and livelihoods are behind this data. These are lands that have been actively farmed for generations and this land is being given to big companies legally under the current land laws,” Mr Woods said.

While U Shwe Thein said the farmland law passed in 2012 included many provisions that improved on the old land management system but there are still gaps that leave small-scale farmers vulnerable to eviction.

Despite repeated attempts by The Myanmar Times, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation could not be reached for comment. However, in an interview earlier this year, director general U Kyaw Win affirmed that his department is committed to large-scale agriculture concessions and will continue to facilitate such projects.

Read the original article here.