The Myanmar government is developing a plan to redistribute vacant or fallow plots of land to rural landless people willing to farm the land.

The Union Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Dr. Aung Thu told The Irrawaddy on Monday the government had obtained US$4.19 million from the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT)—a multi-donor fund established in 2009 to improve the lives and prospects of smallholder farmers and landless people in rural Myanmar—for the plan.

“We’ll start the plan within one or two months to provide land to landless people,” Dr. Aung Thu told reporters in Naypyitaw, adding that state and regional governments were already holding meetings.

The minister said authorities in Magwe, Mandalay, and Sagaing regions and Chin State had proposed suitable land for a trial project with LIFT but his ministry had not yet decided where to begin the pilot.

LIFT donors include the United States of America, Britain, Denmark, Australia, France, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and funds are managed through the UN Office for Project Services (UNFOPS).