Myanmar's Badly Conceived Agricultural Policies are Compounding the Countries Already Dire Food Situation
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar's badly conceived agricultural policies are compounding the country's already dire food situation.

In recent years, Myanmar's reclusive military rulers have plowed large tracts of rice- and vegetable-growing land to plant jatropha -- an inedible plant used for making biodiesel. Soldiers in the country's 400,000-strong army are routinely instructed to be self-sufficient and do so by simply seizing food from farmers. And villagers in the highland regions are often given rice strains requiring expensive fertilizers that they can't afford, according to academic researchers and nongovernment organizations.

Now, the folly of such policies is becoming apparent in the wake of the cyclone that devastated the country last weekend.

United Nations World Food Program officials say the storm wiped out much of Myanmar's midyear rice harvest and add that grain stockpiles are dwindling because of the military's jatropha drive. That makes it likely Myanmar's plans to export rice this year to other needy nations such as Bangladesh will be scrapped.

The military regime's opaque decision-making and often bizarre policies could jeopardize prospects for Myanmar's longer-term recovery, analysts and diplomats suggest. In particular, the regime's mismanagement of agriculture has badly eroded the country's food-security cushion -- despite claims by the government, before the cyclone struck, that Myanmar would produce enough rice this year to double its exports.

"We can't blame Burma for being hit by a cyclone, but we can point to their policies for making a longer-term recovery much harder," a senior Western diplomat in Yangon says, referring to the former name of Myanmar.

For example, the military regime used to require that all rice farmers give a portion of their harvest to the army. That policy was formally abolished in 2003, but it survives in practice thanks to a government directive that army battalions should strive to be self-sufficient -- effectively giving soldiers a license to loot, critics say. Myanmar has also been bringing in strains of hybrid rice from China, but has failed to provide the additional fertilizer those strains need to flourish.

The most notorious example of errant policy making reflects the fascination of 75-year-old junta leader Senior-Gen. Than Shwe with biodiesel as a way to break the country's dependence on expensive imported oil.

In December 2005, the battle-hardened commander kicked off a nationwide campaign to grow jatropha, a squat, hardy bush that yields golf-ball-sized fruit containing a sticky, yellow liquid that can be made into fuel. His drive was similar to initiatives in other parts of the world, including the U.S., which encouraged farmers to grow corn, palm oil or other crops for biofuel and which are now facing criticism for driving up the price of food.

India, China and other countries grow jatropha on scrubby land where food crops can't survive. But researchers say that in Myanmar, some of the country's most fertile land has been converted to cultivating the shrub.

"This was the whitest of the junta's white elephants," says Monique Skidmore, a professor at the Australian National University and an author of two books on Myanmar. "It goes to show how [the generals] have no concept of how to properly run the country, especially in the aftermath of this cyclone."

It isn't clear how much of Myanmar's arable land has been converted to jatropha cultivation. Organizations such as the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization warned the government about the risks of farming jatropha on land that could be used to grow food. But Gen. Than Shwe's goal was to set aside an area the size of Belgium to grow jatropha -- a huge commitment for Myanmar, which is roughly the size of France.

In 2006, the chief research officer at state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise said Myanmar hoped to completely replace the country's oil imports of 40,000 barrels a day with home-brewed, jatropha-derived biofuel. Other government officials declared Myanmar would soon start exporting jatropha oil.

Despite the military's efforts, the jatropha campaign apparently has largely flopped in its goal of making Myanmar self-sufficient in fuel.

In many places, the farmers didn't understand what it was they were supposed to be farming, and the crops failed. What's more, jatropha turned out to be harder to refine into biofuel than the junta expected. Faced with a shortfall of fuel, Myanmar began stepping up its conventional oil imports last year just as global crude prices began to spike.

That led to rising food and transport costs and, ultimately, contributed to a pro-democracy revolt led by Buddhist monks, which the military brutally crushed last September, killing at least 31 people.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@awsj.com

Editor's Note:
We would like to point out that these policies are first and foremost promoted by the west. Now when convenient the west becomes a critic. View a typical report from the west for the Govt. of Thailand just next door.
Jatropha Curcas Agriculture to Industry in Thailand.pdf