As investment ramps up in Southeast Asia, poor farmers are often left out in the cold after foreign and domestic firms move to cash in on a myriad of new development opportunities.
An estimated hundreds of thousands of farmers in countries including Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia have been displaced and large tracts of land have been gobbled up for development projects.
While land concessions have been officially banned in Cambodia, their remain 700,000 landless farmers and their families, Cambodian Member of Parliament Mu Sochua told Borderless in an exclusive interview.
With nowhere left to go, many have crossed the border into neighboring Thailand, transitioning from land owners to farm hands earning around $5 per day, she said.
“Over 700,000 of them (farmers) have moved, have gone to Thailand. You can go to the border, any border along Cambodia (and) Thailand, (and see) truckloads of young men, women, sometimes a whole family, sometimes elderly,” she told Borderless.
Cambodia’s land issue stems from forced evacuations nationwide during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime. When villagers returned to their homes after the fall of the murderous regime, mass confusion over land rights ensued and remains a problem. The government has enacted a plan to distribute land titles to half a million Cambodians.
This interview is the first of a two-part interview with Mu Sochua.
Film shot by Tony Azios
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