Agricultural Land In Southern Shan State

This research highlight presents an overview of agricultural land ownership, distribution, use, and tenure for rural households in Southern Shan State, and how this has changed compared to the previous generation. All findings are from the Shan Agriculture and Rural Economy Survey (SHARES) which was conducted during June-july 2018 with 1562 rural households in nine townships of Southern Shan State: Taunggyi, Hopong, Lawksawk, Pindaya, Mongnai, Langkho, Hsihseng, Pinlaung and Pekon. In this highlight, we use the term ‘farm households’ for households who are cultivating crops, whether or not they own land. We refer to households who do not grow crops as ‘non-farm households’. ‘Landed households’ refers to households who own agricultural land, and ‘landless households’ to households who do not own agricultural land. Furthermore, we also classify households by landholding terciles. Terciles are obtained by ranking all landed households in ascending order of landholding size and dividing into three groups with an equal number of households in each group. Tercile 1 consists of the third of households with the smallest farms, while tercile 3 consists of the third of households with the largest farms.