Message of the Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council in Commemoration of Peasants Day

Mar 06, 2003
 

Esteemed peasantry,

The 2nd of March has been marked as the Peasants Day in honour of the entire mass of peasantry in the whole Union of Myanmar. On this auspicious day, I would like to wish spiritual and physical well being of the farmers and success and development of their work.

The State Peace and Development Council has been endeavouring for development of various economic sectors of the State, with the aim of building the Union of Myanmar to become a new, modern and developed nation. In doing so, it has been giving priority to the success and development of the agricultural business, which is the nation’s basic economy. The agricultural enterprise is the most basic economy of the State as well as the main livelihood of the rural areas, home to the majority of the nation’s population.

The State has laid down and implemented the five rural development tasks to bring progress to the whole nation beginning from the basic sector.
As the rural people represent more than 70 per cent of the nation’s population, the following factors stand as the fundamental requirements for development of the socio economy of the rural people:
— To improve the rural roads linking villages and villages and the roads linking towns and villages;
— To supply clean water for irrigation and drinking and other purposes in rural areas;
— To improve the education standard of the children of the rural people;
— To provide cent-per-cent health care programmes for the rural areas and to raise the health standard;
— To develop agricultural, livestock breeding and production sectors leading to rural economic development.

The State bodies, State service personnel, social organizations, national entrepreneurs, wellwishers and local people, are harmoniously striving with greater momentum for simultaneous implementation of the above factors. The State has been systematically distributing advanced agricultural techniques, and high-yield and quality strains to the places having favourable climate and soil and water conditions for agriculture to help boost the yield of crops. It has been building a large number of irrigation facilities with added momentum to supply adequate amount of water for irrigation within a short span of time. And up to the end of February 2003, the government built 143 dams, spending a total of K 59,412.38 million. The dams are now irrigating over two million acres of crops.

In addition to the dams, various means have been sought and practically applied to supply water for agriculture. River water pumping stations, underground water tapping stations and mini dams have been built the length and breadth of the nation. A total of 265 river water pumping projects have been implemented in 12 states and divisions, irrigating about 300,000 acres of cultivable land. They were implemented in various places of the nation to irrigate a large contiguous stretch of land. The slash-and-burn method which has been practised in the highland regions of Myanmar can cause environment degradation, forest depletion, loss of soil, and change of weather. Besides, the method has made the ethnic races of the hill regions to live as nomads, having no permanent settlements; and has also posed as a barrier hindering both their socio-economic progress and regional development. The Highland Reclamation and Cultivation Committee has been formed, and highland reclamation and cultivation projects, in which slash-and-burn method will be replaced by terrace farming, have been laid down and are being implemented towards realization of a modern agricultural and production system, ensuring surplus food for the rural people of the highland regions and improving their living standard, enabling the people of hill regions to live in permanent settlements; eradicating cultivation of poppy for opium, and preserving and protecting the natural environment. Thus, I would like to urge the local people of the regions to take part with might and main in the task in the interest of the nation and theirs.

Esteemed peasantry,

Furthermore, arrangements have been made to ensure that the benefits of the drive to strengthen and develop the national economy, raise the living standard of the national people, and develop the health, education and social sectors of the citizens not only reach the rural areas, home to the farmers, but also all remote border areas. At present, the internal and external destructive elements in collusion with neo-colonialists are making attempts and floating fabrications and rumours to disturb peace and stability of the State, destroy the developing economic foundations, spoil the success of the border areas development drive, break up the national unity and slow down the pace of narcotics elimination programmes.

The destructive acts must be reacted and warded off with the unity of the entire people, and the entire mass of national races including the peasants who will have to harmoniously strive for emergence of a peaceful, modern and developed nation in accord with the Myanmar saying, which goes, “Unity brings national peace and prosperity”.

In this regard, you, the peasantry, will have to endeavour together with the entire national people for successful implementation of the State’s political, economic and social objectives for national peace and stability and modernization and development, warding off internal and external destructionists, for rapid development of the agricultural sector which not only plays a key role in the national economic, but also directly concerns you.