The freedom to farm one’s land as one chooses, as manifested in basic choices about what crops to grow, what agricultural products to produce, and when to fallow fields, is an assumed freedom held by many agriculturalists. In the Burma context, government restrictions on crop choice, production systems, and the ability to fallow land create a different environment for smallholders. Chapter IV of the Farmland Law of 2012 prohibits the growing of alternative crops and the fallowing of land without government permission; Chapter X requires applications for permission to grow alternative crops. In addition, the limited definition of “farmland” in Chapter I, along with an overly complicated land classification system, limits what types of production systems may be adopted, and leads to difficulties in relation to livestock production and development of land-based aquaculture. To better understand what is at stake with these prohibitions in place, this brief first explores the basis for the right to agricultural land use freedom, examining economic issues, international rights movements, and climate change issues. It then looks at the right to crop selection, delving into the economic issues involved, including the land tenure security benefits of crop choice and the agricultural benefits of crop diversity, as well as legal and ecological issues. Third, it examines the basis for the right to fallow, again looking at the economic effects of fallowing, as well as the cultural, legal, and ecological issues involved.
Concluding that the freedom to select one’s crops and what agriculture products to produce and to fallow one’s land is advantageous for farmers and for the broader sustainability and productivity of Burma agriculture, the paper then describes recommended amendments to the Farmland Law, and by effect to the Form 7 restrictions on smallholder utilization of land. This discussion of suggested amendments is grounded in elements of the 2016 National Land Use Policy (NLUP), offering amendments to the restrictions on crop selection and fallowing, as well as to other elements of the Farmland Law that impact the rights of women and customary users. These suggested amendments conclude with recommendations for the elimination of criminal penalities for breaches of the law’s use restrictions, and the overall decriminalization of practices that may run counter to the Farmland Law.