This article examines changing contexts and emerging processes related to “land grabbing”. In particular, it uses the case of Laos to analyze the driving forces behind land takings, how such drivers are implied in land policies, and how affected people respond depending on their socio-economic assets and political connections.

In 2008, three sugar companies were awarded nearly 20,000 hectares of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) in Oddar Meanchey province. The new research finds that associated land grabbing totaling more than 17,000 hectares has affected more than 2,000 families. Of these, 214 families were forcibly evicted. Meanwhile, at least 3,000 hectares of the misappropriated land has been used for logging rather than sugar plantations, according to the report, ‘Cambodia: The Bitter Taste of Sugar’, commissioned by ActionAid and Oxfam GB.

The type of agrarian structure employed to produce tropical commodities affects many dimensions of land use, such as ownership inequality, overlapping land rights and conflicts, and land use changes. I conduct a literature review of historical changes in agrarian structures of commodities grown on the upland frontier of mainland Southeast and South Asia, using a case study approach, of tea, rubber, oil palm and cassava.

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Half a decade into the global land rush, land-intensive investment throughout Southeast Asia continues to confront social and environmental issues such as land conflict and improperly regulated forest conversion. This study uses publicly available financial and spatial data to examine the geography of land-intensive investment in Southeast Asia, and to identify the limits imposed by problems with data availability.

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION: An exclusive new analysis reveals that the Government of Myanmar has allocated at least 5.2 million acres and plans to allocate another 11 million acres of Southeast Asia’s last remaining biodiversity-rich high-value forests to make way for large-scale, private agribusiness projects that often never materialize. Many of these forest areas overlap with historical land claims made by Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups who will now permanently lose their land, further enflaming decades-old armed conflicts with the national government.

In this report, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) outlines the findings of its recent survey of households forcibly displaced by the Thilawa Special Economic Zone development project in Burma. The Japanese government and three Japanese companies partnered with the Burmese government and a consortium of Burmese companies to develop the site, a project that will require the relocation of nearly 1,000 families in total. PHR’s findings cover phase one of the project, during which 68 households were displaced.

FIRST PARAGRAPH: The historical weight of the political culture of development in Burma – now more commonly referred to as Myanmar – must not be discounted during the democracy-neoliberal reform era. National development discourse and practice in Myanmar has combined elements from monarchical patronage and military authoritarianism after decades of ruling military dictatorships where the military-state ‘knows best’ for its people.

The Bangkok-based Sino-Thai company Choern Pakard Group (CP Group), Asia's largest and most prominent agro-food/feed corporation, has led an industrial maize contract farming scheme with (ex-)poppy upland smallholders in Shan State, northern Myanmar to supply China’s chicken-feed market. Thailand, as a Middle-Income Country (MIC) and regional powerhouse, has long-tapped China’s phenomenal economic growth and undersupplied consumer demand.

ABSTRACTED FROM OPENING PARAGRAPHS: Land confiscation is one of the leading causes of protest and unrest in Burma, having led to the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in recent years. It also undermines Burma’s fragile peace processes. The 2008 constitution and subsequent laws are used to legitimize arbitrary land confiscation, deny access to justice, and perpetuate an environment of impunity.

Successful development experiences have demonstrated the greater efficiency achieved with a growth strategy based on small and medium-scale farmers (SMFs). This study is sought to identify potential agribusiness models for enhancing inclusive growth through NGOs partnerships with SMFs in Myanmar. The paper illustrates that agricultural sector in Myanmar is characterised by already high land inequality and landlessness, and low productivity of most SMFs.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: This working paper is an examination of current land formalization processes against the backdrop of Cambodian history and the political economy of land and agrarian change. I... critique the land property right formalisation processes at play under the current land reforms. I present their rationales, mechanisms and influences on Cambodian peasants. I then detail the dynamics of land differentiation in the central rice plain and reveal how it has initiated a large migration to the peripheral uplands.

Rural change in Cambodia manifests itself in rapidly declining land availability for the smallholder sector, posing the question of how farmers may be able to deal with limited access to land. In this paper, we discuss with a case study village and household livelihood strategies of smallholders currently operating under land-constrained conditions. Based on an integrated assessment of a smallholder village in Kampot province, we illustrate in quantitative terms how land shortage is creating problems of surplus generation and liquidity issues in monetary and non-monetary flows.