Myanmar Agricultural Development Support Project Social Assessment Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation The Union Government of Myanmar Draft for Public Consultation i Table of Contents Lists of Acronyms .......................................................................................................................................... v Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................... vii Section 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Project ................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Objectives of the SA ............................................................................................................................ 3 1.3 Methodology ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.3.1 Sampling ....................................................................................................................................... 5 1.3.2 Free, prior and informed consultations as part of the SA............................................................ 5 1.3.3 Number of respondents ............................................................................................................... 5 1.4 Limitations of the works ..................................................................................................................... 5 Section 2: Legal, Policy and Institutional Framework ................................................................................... 6 Section 3: Sector Framework ........................................................................................................................ 7 Section 4: Geographic, Demographic and Socioeconomic Backgrounds of the Potential Project Areas ..... 8 4.1 Sagaing Region .................................................................................................................................... 9 4.1.1 The overview of the Irrigable areas in Sagaing Region .............................................................. 12 4.2 Mandalay Region .............................................................................................................................. 16 4.2.1 The overview of the Irrigable areas in Mandalay Region .......................................................... 19 4.3 Bago .................................................................................................................................................. 23 4.3.1 The overview of the Irrigable areas in the Bago Region ............................................................ 25 Section 5: Overview of the Studied Irrigation Schemes ............................................................................. 30 5.1 Ethnic minorities in project areas ..................................................................................................... 31 5.1.1 North Yama Irrigation Scheme ................................................................................................... 31 5.1.2 Project in Male Nattaung ........................................................................................................... 31 5.1.3 Project in Sin Thay ...................................................................................................................... 31 5.1.4 Project in Swa Chaung................................................................................................................ 31 5.2 Religious minorities in studied irrigation areas ................................................................................ 31 Section 6: Findings of the Social Assessment-Socioeconomic Information ................................................ 32 6.1 Farming systems ............................................................................................................................... 32 6.1.1 Land Types ................................................................................................................................. 32 6.1.2 Access to Land ............................................................................................................................ 32 6.1.3 Farmland distributions ............................................................................................................... 33 6.1.4 Crop Patterns ............................................................................................................................. 36 6.1.5 Farming Techniques ................................................................................................................... 38 6.2 Market ............................................................................................................................................... 42 6.2.1 Input Market .............................................................................................................................. 42 6.2.2. Credit Market ............................................................................................................................ 44 6.2.3 Labour Market............................................................................................................................ 47 6.2.4 Product Market .......................................................................................................................... 48 6.3 Access to Irrigation Water ................................................................................................................ 50 6.3.1 Villages with different levels of irrigated availability ................................................................. 51 6.3.2 Farming activities as per availability of irrigated water ............................................................. 51 6.3.3 Constraints in accessing irrigated water .................................................................................... 55 6.3.4 Socioeconomic differences on differences in availability of irrigated water............................. 57 6.3.5 Impact on social relations of limited water availability of irrigated water ................................ 58 6.3.6 Community water management system.................................................................................... 59 6.3.7 Community collective actions in seeking irrigated water .......................................................... 59 6.3.8 Water Tax ................................................................................................................................... 61 6.4 Access to Extension Services ............................................................................................................. 62 6.4.1 Attendance in agricultural training given by extension services ............................................... 64 6.5 Land ................................................................................................................................................... 64 6.5.1 Land Tenure ............................................................................................................................... 64 6.5.2 Issues on Land ............................................................................................................................ 65 6.5.3 Examples of land disputes that originate in the days of military regime. ................................. 65 6.5.5 Reclassification of farmland types from Ya to Le and vise versa is required… .......................... 68 6.5.6 Land Sold to Outsiders ............................................................................................................... 69 6.5.7 Land Improvements Schemes .................................................................................................... 69 6.6 Indebtedness ..................................................................................................................................... 72 6.7 Migration ........................................................................................................................................... 73 6.8 Vulnerability ...................................................................................................................................... 74 6.8.1 The vulnerable described by the community ............................................................................ 74 6.8.2 The vulnerable groups who could be covered by study ............................................................ 75 6.9 Gender .............................................................................................................................................. 75 6.9.1 Population of Women headed households ............................................................................... 75 6.9.2 Gender in farming activities ....................................................................................................... 76 6.9.3 Women and inclusion ................................................................................................................ 77 6.10 Institutions ...................................................................................................................................... 78 6.10.1 Village level institutions ..........................................................................................................