CATTI,E INSURANCE IN BURMA 5 1 



zone, where soils are heavy and weeds strong and where cattle are also 

 used for timber extraction, the buffalo remains in favour, but the village 

 herds are still Uable to terrible epidemics of rinderpest. 



The S3^stems of cattle tending differ widely in the wet and dr>' zones. 

 In the southern wet zone the grazing ground system is the rule. Each vil- 

 lage has an area, generally uncultivable, allotted to it for grazing purposes, 

 and in this area the village cattle have to pick up a precarious living. In 

 many cases these areas are in the rains seas of mud, covered with a trampled 

 growth of coarse muddy grasses. They provide the best possible means for 

 spreading infectious disease and the cattle that have to exist on them 

 naturally have an excellent chance of dying from disease, starvation, or 

 exposure. The mortality in such districts is very high and many cultivators 

 regard four years as the working life of an imported beast. It is probable 

 that a premium of 15 per cent would not cover the risk in this part of the 

 country. In the northern wet zone the area of " jungle " available for grazing 

 is as a rule much larger and there is a certain amount of segregation during 

 grazing. Violent epidemics are unusual except from the unusually infectious 

 disease of rinderpest. These jungles, however, contain a danger from which 

 the southern grazing ground is free and that is wild cattle — bison, deer and 

 pigs from which anthrax and other diseases are undoubtedly communicated 

 to tame cattle. If insurance be ever extended to the northern districts a 

 high rate of premium will be necessary. In the dry zone districts the custom 

 is that draught cattle, which are almost entirely btdlocks, are stall fed, while 

 cows and calves are grazed in herds in scrub jungle near the villages. The 

 stall fed draught cattle are carefully fed and housed and seldom suffer 

 » from epidemics. The breeding herds are tended with much less care and 

 suffer from scanty fare, bad housing and dirty pens. In a season of drought 

 the cows and calves die in large numbers. Disease also kills them off in 

 quantities. Except in a few very restricted areas cows are not used by the 

 Burmese for milking purposes and it is somewhat surprising that with the 

 treatment they get they produce such good draught stock. 



In view of the above conditions it was obvious that the first experiments 

 in insurance must be restricted to draught cattle, and to such cattle only 

 in selected dr>' zone districts where the stall feeding and careful tending 

 of such animals was the rule. The Registrar of Co-operative Societies sug- 

 gested the adoption of a system whereby animals would be valued half- 

 yearly and insured for a half-year at a time, and it was decided to hmit 

 the experiment in the first instance to five adjacent districts, i. e. Mandalay, 

 Shwebo, Sagaing, Kyaukse and Meiktila, in all of which such statistics as 

 were available showed that violent epidemics of infectious disease among 

 draught cattle were unusual. 



Co-operative cattle insurance was discussed at the Provincial Agri- 

 cultural and Co-operative Conference held at Mandalay in 191 1, after six 

 mutual co-operative cattle insurance societies had been formed, and it 

 was resolved that insurance was desirable and feasible and that the scheme 

 should be proceeded with. In the period between July 191 1 and June 1912 

 seventeen, and in the year 1912-1913 thirty-six societies were formed. It 



