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Amid indicators of disaster on the Myanma Agricultural Growth Financial institution, farmers behind on mortgage repayments have been threatened with land seizures, whereas financial institution workers are being squeezed by each the regime and the resistance.
By FRONTIER
U Phoe Tote prepares his rice fields for planting below a gentle monsoon rain. Regardless of the serenity of the delta surroundings, he’s stuffed with nervousness about his funds.
Earlier this yr, the 53-year-old needed to borrow K2 million (almost US$1,000) at excessive rates of interest from a casual lender in his village in Ayeyarwady Area’s Danubyu Township so he might repay a mortgage from the Myanma Agricultural Growth Financial institution.
The financial institution has historically been a lifeline for thousands and thousands of rice farmers, who take out low-interest loans for each the wet season crop, harvested in August or September, and the winter crop, harvested round February. These loans, issued at a hard and fast per acre price, should be repaid inside a yr or farmers are denied future funds.
Like different state-owned enterprises and authorities establishments, the MADB fell below the army’s management after it overthrew the elected Nationwide League for Democracy in a 2021 coup. Phoe Tote and lots of others initially refused to pay again their loans in protest.
“I shouldn’t must pay the junta cash that I borrowed from the federal government that I elected,” Phoe Tote advised Frontier.
However the MADB wrote to farmers’ representatives in February this yr warning that if individuals refused to repay loans taken out earlier than the coup, the financial institution would seize their land possession paperwork, referred to as Type 7, that are held as collateral.
“I resisted as a lot as I might. However after they mentioned they might seize my land, I used to be afraid as a result of it’s all I’ve,” Phoe Tote mentioned.
The farmer had taken out a complete of K1.5 million, together with an emergency COVID-19 top-up mortgage of K250,000, in 2020 to cowl the 2 annual crops on his 5 acres. MADB demanded he pay again your entire quantity plus three years’ curiosity of K225,000 and one other K225,000 as a positive for breaking his contract.
When he repaid the financial institution in February, he anticipated to have the ability to take out one other mortgage for the wet season crop, which MADB had introduced can be issued from Could 18. However by the tip of June, Phoe Tote and lots of different farmers had been nonetheless ready empty-handed.
Farmers blacklisted
The dearth of loans this yr is seemingly due each to punitive blacklisting and a money scarcity.
“This yr solely farmers who repaid the loans annually [since the coup] acquired the seasonal mortgage,” mentioned Phoe Tote. “It’s widespread for the financial institution to problem loans shortly to the farmers who had been the primary to repay their loans, so we waited as a result of we had taken three years. We thought we is likely to be final on the record.”
“After ready for a very long time, we requested a financial institution consultant who replied that we’re on the blacklist,” he mentioned.
Phoe Tote says that to plant the wet season crop and repay the casual lender, he had no selection however to promote one acre of his land for K5 million.
“Aside from the cash I want for paddy, I additionally must pay again my mortgage. Promoting some land is my solely possibility. I really feel like I’m abandoning my very own baby. It’s a very powerful determination, however I don’t wish to get caught in a mortgage lure,” he mentioned.
Frontier interviewed 12 farmers in Ayeyarwady, Yangon and Bago areas and Rakhine, Mon and Kachin states and solely two had been in a position to entry loans this yr, whilst pro-military media retailers report day by day that MADB township branches are issuing many loans.
Farmers from Mogaung and Mohnyin townships in Kachin advised Frontier that even individuals who paid their money owed on time weren’t getting new loans.
“We submitted our names to the financial institution, however no discover has come,” a Mogaung farmer mentioned. “I haven’t heard of any farmers who acquired the wet season mortgage this yr. The financial institution advised us it could problem contemporary loans to those that had paid again totally, nevertheless it hasn’t.”
With Myanmar’s economic system in disaster, the failure to pay again loans isn’t at all times political, however even those that are destitute are being punished.
“Two-thirds of farmers are in arrears. There is likely to be a couple of who refuse to pay as a result of they help the boycott, however most can’t pay as a result of truly they don’t have any cash,” mentioned a village tract administrator in Danubyu within the Ayeyarwady delta.
Beneath stress from all sides
After the coup many unusual individuals participated in public boycotts, refusing to pay again authorities loans, taxes or electrical energy payments with a purpose to deny income to the brand new army regime.
These campaigns had been supported by the parallel Nationwide Unity Authorities, appointed by elected lawmakers ousted within the coup, which has additionally inspired farmers to not pay their loans.
Daw Noticed Noticed was elected to the Ayeyarwady regional parliament as an NLD candidate in 2020, and after the coup joined the NUG-affiliated Committee Representing Ayeyarwady Hluttaw. She urged farmers to proceed to withstand and never pay the junta, regardless of the threats and intimidation.
“This can be a type of mushy revolution towards the army dictatorship,” she advised Frontier. “I wish to say thanks to the farmers who’re resisting. The revolution will quickly be victorious. I wish to encourage them to maintain boycotting.”
However the regime has responded with a heavy hand.
A 2013 regulation for the safety of farmers’ rights, which stays in impact, means the junta has no authorized authority to confiscate land from farmers who default on loans, however this hasn’t stopped it from threatening to take action.
In Thabaung Township in Ayeyarwady, farmers from 5 village tracts had been summoned by a bunch of junta officers – together with a significant within the military, the township administrator and MADB workers – and compelled to signal agreements to repay loans by June.
“They threatened to take motion if we didn’t pay, saying they might confiscate our Type 7 and put our wind up for public sale. So, the farmers needed to search for new loans from exterior sources to repay the financial institution,” U Nay Myo*, a Thabaung farmers’ consultant, advised Frontier.
MADB workers are additionally below growing stress from the cash-strapped regime to recuperate loans, however face threats from resistance forces on the similar time.
An MADB supply in Ayeyarwady advised Frontier that in the course of the financial institution’s 70th anniversary celebration, held at its headquarters in Yangon on June 1, administrators gave awards to branches that collected repayments on time and in full.
Branches which have fallen behind in accumulating money owed, in the meantime, face stress “from above”, mentioned the supply, who requested to not be named. “Headquarters complains to the regional chapters which complain to the district heads, after which right down to the township branches.”
The MADB has additionally dismissed employees who joined the mass strike of public servants referred to as the Civil Disobedience Motion, whereas different workers have resigned out of concern of being focused by armed resistance teams. In February, the Myaing Township department in Magway Area was burned to the bottom, and two months later, the Wakema Township department in Ayeyarwady was bombed.
The Ayeyarwady Dolphin Folks’s Defence Power, one of many teams that carried out the bombing, mentioned they focused the financial institution as a result of it had threatened to confiscate land from native farmers in the event that they didn’t repay their loans.
“We wish to warn the supervisor and workers of the financial institution, the ward directors and everybody else that in the event that they proceed cooperating with the junta, we’ll take efficient motion once more,” a spokesman for the resistance group advised Frontier.
The threats and assaults appear to be having the meant impact, with some staffers saying they might quite resign than danger making floor visits.
One lady, who had labored for MADB for 12 years in Mandalay Area, advised Frontier she resigned after she was ordered to verify family lists in a village the place her uncle, a junta supporter, had been assassinated.
“Simply two weeks after my uncle was killed, [the manager] put my title down to go to villages and examine family lists,” she mentioned. “I requested the supervisor to rethink, however she refused and mentioned I needed to give up if I didn’t wish to do it. So, I give up.”
MADB within the pink
There are rising indicators that the financial institution is dealing with a disaster, each from a scarcity of money and personnel.
A township department supervisor in Mandalay Area, who requested to remark anonymously, advised Frontier that the regime’s Ministry of Finance and Planning had briefly “merged” MADB with the Myanma Financial Financial institution. She mentioned this “consolidation interval” is a results of MADB’s money scarcity.
“They referred to as it a merger of the 2 banks, however in actuality, the MADB is now below the MEB,” she mentioned.
The banks labored collectively earlier than the coup, however below a special association. The MADB would announce a nationwide mortgage determine, and the MEB would switch the full quantity to the MADB’s central department. The MADB would then distribute the cash to farmers by means of township branches and proceed disbursing funds till your entire finances had been spent.
However now, the MEB has a tighter grip. Township MEB branches switch funds to their MADB township counterparts, and when loans are repaid, the MADB should deposit the cash with MEB on the identical day.
“It looks like we’re servants of the MEB,” the township supervisor mentioned. “It makes extra work for MADB workers.”
The MADB supply in Ayeyarwady Area mentioned a scarcity of personnel makes the burden even heavier.
“So many workers are leaving, making a labour scarcity that provides to the workload of the remaining workers who don’t get a good wage,” he mentioned, referring to the essential month-to-month wage of K190,000.
Precise figures for what number of employees have resigned or been sacked should not accessible, however in December final yr MADB marketed 200 vacancies for all its 220 township branches. RFA reported two months after the coup that MADB’s Yangon head workplace had dismissed 60 workers for becoming a member of the CDM. The township supervisor in Mandalay Area mentioned two of her eight crew members have left for the reason that coup and had been by no means changed.
In the meantime, farmers say the loans MADB does supply are not ample as a result of hovering prices of inputs like fertiliser, seeds and gas. The financial institution points loans of K150,000 per acre for the wet season crop and K100,000 per acre for the winter crop, with a most of 10 acres per farmer.
Eight of the 12 farmers interviewed by Frontier mentioned even when a mortgage had been to change into instantly accessible for the wet season crop, they wouldn’t trouble taking as a result of it could solely cowl one bag of fertiliser per acre.
Ko Myo Thant, a Maubin Township farmer in Ayeyarwady, mentioned a bag value about K30,000 earlier than the coup. “Now one bag of fertiliser is round K140,000. We calculate the general funding value for one acre at over K300,000, so farmers don’t need the financial institution’s loans anymore,” he mentioned, including additionally they don’t wish to take care of the “boastful” financial institution workers.
‘All our labour is only for the mortgage firm’
Ko Aung Tun, an affiliate fellow on the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute who has revealed analysis on Myanmar agriculture, mentioned farmers are being pushed to take out riskier loans from casual sources.
“I don’t suppose that any outdated business-as-usual system of mortgage mechanisms can work on this extremely risky atmosphere. Now farmers are taking excessive curiosity loans from exterior sources as a substitute of by means of formal mortgage mechanisms, placing their investments at appreciable danger,” Aung Tun advised Frontier.
Ko Than Win Htun, a farmer in Danubyu, mentioned some microfinance firms are stepping in, demanding land titles as collateral.
“We purchase fertiliser on credit score at non-public outlets with a month-to-month curiosity of three p.c. On high of that we want more cash for different inputs. So, farmers are borrowing from the non-public sector,” he mentioned.
Money-strapped farmers are additionally slicing inputs as a lot as they will, as an illustration by halving the quantity of fertiliser per acre, on the danger of decrease rice yields.
“If the yield falls then all our labour within the fields is only for the mortgage firm,” Than Win Htun mentioned. “However we are able to’t miss mortgage repayments as a result of they might seize our Type 7 and our land.”
Daw Mya Win, a farmer in Ayeyarwady’s Hinthada Township, mentioned it’s faster to get cash from native mortgage sharks than the MADB. So, many individuals at the moment are taking out casual loans first, then utilizing their MADB loans to pay again their preliminary loans with curiosity. This dangers making a debt cycle.
“State-led intervention is required to treatment this disaster,” mentioned Aung Tun. “However one factor is for certain: farmers who don’t see the cost-benefit of their farm work will migrate elsewhere, as they’ve been doing.”
Than Win Htun says he can not make sufficient cash from his farm to help his household, in order that they’ve needed to tackle further work to make ends meet.
“My spouse has opened a home-shop promoting some groceries, and I breed rooster and pigs to make some cash. If we solely relied on farming, our household would starve. It’s not simply our household. Most farmers within the villages are discovering different methods to outlive,” he mentioned.
*denotes a pseudonym for safety causes
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