BRITISH INDIA. 



CATTI.E INSURANCE IN BURMA. 



by A. E. English, I. G. S. 

 Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Burma. 



After some six years' experience in the introduction of co-operative 

 credit into the various districts of Burma it became clear that one of the 

 chief causes of indebtedness was the loss of plough cattle by death from 

 disease or accident. In accordance with the obvious fact that insurance 

 providing for the replacement of cattle so lost, and for the evolution of a 

 spirit of corporate responsibility for the tending of cattle, was preferable 

 to the mere granting of credit to replace such dead beasts, efforts were 

 made to discover a simple and suitable system of insurance of plough 

 cattle suitable for Burma. 



The matter was complicated because Burma has a variety of climates, 

 crops, crop seasons, cattle and systems of cultivation and methods of 

 cattle tending. Speaking broadly there is the southern wet zone where rice 

 is cultivated in the rains (June to November), where the rainfall varies 

 from 80 to 150 inches and where it is never cold ; then there is the northern 

 wet zone comprising five hilly districts where the rainfall averages 80 in- 

 ches and rice is the main crop, and where there is a distinct cold season; 

 and between these there is the central dry zone with a rainfall varying 

 from 15 to 40 inches, liable, where not irrigated, to serious droughts and 

 having for two or three months a very high temperature (100 to 115 

 degrees. F.). In this dry area there is a large variety of crops. On the 

 uplands are grown cotton, sessamum, ground-nut, jowar etc. in the rainy 

 months (June to November) ; sugar-cane, rice, onions and pulses are grown 

 throughout the year under irrigation; and pulses, potatoes, chillies, and 

 other miscellaneous crops are raised in alluvial land along the river in the 

 dry weather (November to April). 



In the north and south wet zones the buffalo was till recently the prin- 

 cipal draught beast. In the Delta districts, however, the buffalo's suscepti- 

 biHty to rinderpest has brought about an ever extending use of bullocks, 

 and there is now a large annual export of bullocks bred in the dry zone to 

 IvOwer Burma for ploughing and carting purposes. In the northern wet 



