Myanmar: Organic farming offers Kachin IDPs vital health options

May 4, 2014 | Seamus Martov, Democratic Voice of Burma
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NHKAWNG PA, KACHIN STATE — It has been nearly three years since fighting between Burma’s military and the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) forced Lazing Lu to flee her home in Kachin State’s Mahtang village. Refugee life hasn’t been easy for the 58-year-old widow and her 90-year-old mother, who share a cramped shelter in the Nhkawng Pa internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, one of more than a dozen such camps located in KIO-controlled territory along the Burma-China border.

For Lazing Lu, who has been a farmer since she was a child, losing her land was a serious blow. Even though she never had much money before the war, she didn’t consider herself poor, “we had our farm, we could support our ourselves” she explained. Today she relies on a monthly supply of rice, cooking oil and dried beans provided by aid groups. Importantly for Lu, she has been able to continue to grow some of her own fresh vegetables thanks to an organic farming programme run by a small Kachin community-based organisation, Bridging Rural Integrated Development and Grassroots Efforts (BRIDGE).