Major Findings

The 1993 Agricultural Census was designed to provide a comprehensive description of the country's agricultural resources on the basis of information collected from agricultural holdings. The agricultural holding, which is an economic unit of production under a single management, normally represents all the land and livestock activities of a household. However, there are also special holdings owned and operated by state enterprises and private and public co-operatives and other institutions. Some findings of major interest are given below:

(1) 244,805 acres in Kachin State were distributed among 52,966 holdings, 98.43% of total holding area were household-based land holdings. The majority of these household-based land holdings (65.68%) were small farms under 5 acres in size, and only one was large farms extending over 50 acres. Among special land holdings, 72.22% were 50 acres and above in size.

(2) 92.40% of holders were males and only 7.60% were females. 74.15% of all holders had formal schooling indicating their capability to adopt improved techniques of production and to be responsive to effective extension services. 86.55% of holders worked permanently on holdings. 42.22% of land holders had other sources of income.

(3) 31.50% of all holdings employed paid workers, 30.11% employed occasional workers, and only 9.00% employed permanent workers. A large portion of labour input was supplied by farm families. Among paid workers, the number of occasional workers was as much as 3 times greater than that of the permanent workers. special holdings however employed a comparatively larger percentage of hired labour, paid workers (38.89%),permanent workes (61.11%) and occasional workers (72.22%).

(4) A larger percentage of special land holdings used machinery and equipment than did household-based land holdings. 38.89% of special land holdings used water pumps, 33.33% used tractors, 22.22% used generators/motors, 33.33% used power tillers. Among household-based land holdings, only 3.12% of household-based holdings used huller machins. Large farms had the advantage to adopt moderm farm machinery.

(5) A comparatively larger percentage of special land holdings used agricultural chemicals, 66.67% used inorganic fertilizers, and 55.56% used organic fertilizers. The same is true with the use of pesticides and HYV seeds; 61.11% used pesticides and 55.56% used HYV seeds. As in the case of capital inputs, large farms benefited from the use of new technical kown-how and modern methods of cultivation.

(6) 36.07% of land holdings used irrigation. Rivers, creeks and canals were the important sources of irrigation;they provided irrigation to 84.86% of household-based land holdings using irrigation systems.

(7) 79.41% of the total holding area were Paddy land, 8.17% were Kaing land, and 5.94% were Ya land. Among special holdings, 41.77% of the holding area were Taungya land.

(8) 71.73% of total productive area operated by houaehold-based land holdings, and 72.63% by special land holdings were under fruits and nuts. For household-based land holdings,the second most important crop sown was permanent crops other than industrial crops.

(9) 85.68% of all land holding used draught animals. Regarding cattle and buffaloes, 56.57% of household-based land holdings owned cattle, and only 42.54% owned buffaloes. The extensive use of animal power seemed to reflect that further efforts were needed to modernize the existing mode of agricultural production.

(10) The average size of an agricultural holding was 4.64 acres. The average size of an agricultural household was 6.About one in every 2 household-based holdings had other sources of income. The average number of parcels per household-based land holding was 1.5 and the average size of a parcel was 3.12 acres. The average cultivation intensity was found to be 0.97. The proportion of land left fallow was about 6.05% .

		

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