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Food Shortages in Chin State
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Bamboo flowers bring starvation, devastation and suffering to Chin Land
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Chin Human Rights Organization believes that at least 120 Chin villages along the Burma India and Bangladesh border approximately 50,000 people or roughly ten percent of the entire population of Chin State may be directly affected by the ongoing famine.
Chin State is suffering a severe reduction in their harvest and food production following the mass flowering of bamboo throughvast areas of the state. Communities are primarily dependent on traditional agricultural systems and the flowering of bamboo is causing massive shortage of food.
Bamboo is the main vegetation in much of southern Chin State Mizoram, India. The present area of Chin State covers 13,907 square kilometers and roughly one fifth of that area is covered with bamboo. Bamboo flowering occurs in every 50 years in Chinland (Chin State). The mass flowering of bamboo is usually followed by an explosion in the rat population, leading to decimation of basic crops and paddy fields in the area.
Usually rats give birth twice a year but when the bamboo is flowering they can give birth dozen times in a year, as the bamboo flowers give them good nutrition to support their reproduction. Rats eat anything they can find and they eat every kind of crop. They eat not only crops, also have been found to eat bamboo matted floors inside houses and have even destroyed home materials. The destruction of crops has resulted in severe food shortages.The Chin people always depend on their own crops. Maize and rice are their major food. This year, families that use to reaping 200 to 400 tins of the paddy can only reaping 20 – 40 tins of paddy. a person eats approximately 12 tins (180 kilogram) of rice per year. There are many families who lost their entire crops. Additional environmental condition, such as heavy rain fall, has caused maize to rot.
 the SPDC continues to ignore the situation move to futher exacerbathing
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The Chin’s traditionally shares the things they have with those who do not have anything. This is how some people of Chinland now can live sharing food for the day today. Some of the villagers have left their village and migrated to Mizoram, India and Bangladesh because they can no longer survive.
Chin Human Rights Organization is calling on the State Peace and Development to allow unhindered humanitarian relief effort in Chin State and to help the communities suffering starvation and famine meet their basic needs. But the SPDC continues to ignore the situation a move that further exacerbates the situation. Moreover, families in Chin state have to pay over 200, 000 Kyats a year to the military junta in mandatory donations, fines and taxes.
To read the other articles in the April 2008 please click on the links below:
Mission Impossible
People's Stories: When living off the land is no longer possible
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