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Stir-fried or grilled, Vietnamese can’t seem to get enough of Cambodian rat meat, and the global influenza outbreak as well as recent heavy rains have proven a boon for both consumers and exporters.
– Extracted from Ek Madra, “Flu fears, rains buoy Cambodia rat exports to Vietnam”, Reuters India, 18 May 2009.
Long-time readers will know that I have an interest in the episodic rat “explosions” that occur in parts of Burma and northeast India. In those areas the rats are an unwanted pest causing untold economic, ecological and social problems. I suppose the logistics of harvesting the rats of, say, Mizoram and sending (Warning: image contains rat tails) them to Vietnam are beyond even the region’s most enterprising entrepreneurs. Any logistically-minded readers care to comment on the possible expansion of this trade? According to the Reuters report:
In Vietnam, rat meat is something of a delicacy….more than 35 tonnes of rat meat a day was imported from Cambodia. Cambodian officials said they did not keep records of this aspect of bilateral trade but reckoned the figure was realistic…Live rats sold for $1 per kilo and dead ones — used for feeding crocodiles in Vietnam — went for $0.37, officials said.
As an aside, readers hoping to catch up on the rat situation in northeast India will find this article about a recent “red alert” has some key details. The “mautam” continues in parts of the region where the explosive part of the bamboo-rat cycle is not over yet.
Regarding readers’ suggestions about logistics issues: If on-the-ground Chinese or Indian traders have not figured out a way to make the rat trade work, it’s just not profitable. Anyone not blinded by PC knows that these guys will find a way through *anything* to make a dollar if it can in fact be done. The notion that academic / NGO type readers of this site might have some panoptic epiphany which squares the circle (in the real world, no less!) where traders of said ethnicities have not is laughable.
But I’ll bet that somwhere in whatever the Cambodian equivalent of Joma Cafe is, an NGO CV-Padder is thinking to him/herself ‘Free Range Rats!’ and is doodling up a branding/marketing plan involving my tax dollars.
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Woah there, my crabby capitalist friend. Where in this glorious free market utopia (which just so happens to border on racism and neo-Orientalism) is there room for the market controls, state restrictions, and closed borders that exist in the ‘real world’ you claim to represent?
Unfortunately, the situation in Myanmar is slightly more nuanced than your assumption that if “on-the-ground Chinese or Indian traders have not figured out a way to make the rat trade work, it’s just not profitable.” In Chin state, Myanmar, there isn’t exactly a hopping international trade industry, and the government doesn’t exactly tend to let many foreign traders in areas of ‘unrest’. And if the free market is the solution to famine, then can you please explain Ethiopia, North Korea, or China during the Cultural Revolution?
Yes – famines are typically caused by misguided and deluded top-down state policies. So when those policies are still in place (as they are in Myanmar), the solution is not as simple as some Chicago School free-hand-of-the-market-solves-everything equation.
Contrary to your anti-NGO posturing, I think that Nicholas’ suggestion is quite intriguing, and might be of interest to an organization like the World Food Programme, who are probably the largest ‘trader’ of food (as well as providor of food aid) in Chin state currently, and actively seeking out livelihood projects to provide those suffering from famine a source of minimal agency in deciding their own fates. Unfortunately, in the real world, sometimes authoritarian regimes mean that UN Agencies need to provide solutions so that people do not die of hunger.
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“And if the free market is the solution to famine, then can you please explain Ethiopia, North Korea, or China during the Cultural Revolution?”
Que?
I think you mean the Great Leap Forward, but anyway:
Obviously none of the above had anything whatsoever to do with free markets. They were self-induced.
If your point is that there is nothing the free market can do about famine caused by vicious Stalinist/Maoist left wing regimes which do not permit free markets, then you have a point, of sorts.
But to say that there is no free market in basic food stuffs and consumer items in any of the countries the *article* talks about at the present time is silly… Laws are there to be broken and just about anything can go anywhere for the right price (often not all that much). Supply/demand always finds a way – except in the most Stalinist or Maoist of states… and the present ragbag of unpleasant SE Asian Governments come nowhere near this level of regimented, *organised* evil.
Of course the average NGO worker wouldn’t know a great deal about subverting the local customs or business regulations, because NGOs tend to do those kind of things by the local book – largely because they need to keep their noses squeaky clean as far as the nitty gritty goes, so can’t be used against them if they offend someone powerful. Plus, it’s all Other People’s Money anyway, so why not?
It’s a strange state of affairs when it becomes impossible to state obvious apparent truths without being called ‘racist’ or having the shade of late great fraud Said brought down upon one’s head. I cannot imagine that anyone could live for any length of time in SE Asia and *not* come to the conclusion that if there’s a way to get the money / good through, some local Chinese or Indian businessman has not figured it out already. Increasingly one might add Koreans to the list. Japanese tend to do well at the mega corporation level… e.g. certain companies have had the right Thai families in their pockets for two generations now. However, it’s rare to find individual Japanese entrepreneurs on the ground in other countries – Japanese are just too Company Oriented still. However, when one does find one, can be sure he/she is a very interesting character.
I understand that observations such at the above can never be published in journals for a variety of reasons… but nevertheless they happen to be true. Certainly not inconveniently true for me. Just true. Part of the fascinating world we inhabit. Can’t quite understand why anyone would have a problem with this.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say on this topic. Back to rats, Folks!
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“… and the present ragbag of unpleasant SE Asian Governments come nowhere near this level of regimented, *organised* evil.”
Really? The thing is, I think that one could easily argue that the tatmadaw/SPDC holding power currently in Myanmar gets up to those levels you are describing [just type the country’s name(s) into Google News and you can read about this week’s Stalinism-like show trial in Yangon].
In my comments, I was trying to interject some Burma content into the debate as the article was referring to NM’s previously published pieces on the rat/bamboo explosion in Chin state / Northeastern India that began last year. I am not claiming to understand the Vietnam/Cambodia rat trade and I have no knowledge about Indian/Chinese traders there.
And by the way, good response on the ol’ racist equation, but if I’m to agree with you about name-calling, then I think its just as saddening a state of affairs to blanket criticize all NGO/UN workers/academics as “CV-Padders” scheming up new ways to waste your tax dollars.
And you are dead-on about NGOs acting by-the-book of the country they are working in. This is especially so in Myanmar (see: my recent article here and Nang Gor’s discussion here here ) where any NGO acting outside the lines would be swiftly booted out of country. Many NGOs ‘humanitarian’ (however that is defined) mandate takes precedence over the creative market solutions that you have mentioned. Which is exactly why I think that Nicholas Farrely’s suggestion is intriguing: enlarging market knowledge about a potential export, building capacities of locals to engage in trade – these are all programs that I could see easily being accepted by the reigning forces in Myanmar.
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A good response, so I’ll just make one more reply.
A good deal of my contempt for NGOs relates to my having observed their actions in Thailand. It’s an endless source of amusement to me that NGOs tend to cluster (in the Thai case) in the most interesting and pleasant parts of the country, as opposed to the poorest. I doubt (e.g.) Roi Et is full of Ivy League resume padders (sorry :)). Chiangmai certainly is. Funny that.
However, I unreservedly accept your excellent point that in the case of the Burmese Junta, NGOs are one of the few forlorn hopes for the populace. So I had best be internally consistent and apply the dictum that one’s enemy’s enemy is a friend. To the extent that NGO workers do their bit to alleviate the tyranny of this truly vile regime, more power to them!
And if multidisciplinary cross border rat trade research helps in this, more power to it too! 🙂
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