Impacts of Myanmar's flooded rice policy monomania on smallholder land security from colonization to the present day

Although, strictly speaking, there is no differentiated tenure regime concerning irrigated land in Myanmar, the development of irrigation coincides, in most cases, to the development of flooded rice cultivation, and as such generates specific land issues. The study of the relationship between pre- and post-colonial Burmese powers and irrigation highlights the symbolic and political continuity of the relationship between irrigation control for rice cultivation and State construction. Post-colonial government intervention in irrigation can be characterized as control policies in the central plains and the Irrawaddy Delta on the one hand, and as 'civilizing' policies in the mountainous regions on the other. Although different in nature, the forms of land insecurity linked to irrigated land cultivation are nonetheless a constant. In areas of greater state control (i.e., the large irrigated areas of the plains and delta), land tenure security that could theoretically be derived from stable land tenure regimes has in reality been systematically undermined by economic constraints that were imposed in relation to the objective of increasing productivity for the State and to the detriment of small farmers. In the highlands, the introduction of irrigated rice programs has profoundly disrupted customary land tenure and led to the capture of the most fertile land by an elite.