Tun Sein, who owns 15 acres of paddy land in Mudon Township, said, “We can not hire Mon people to work. We have to hire Burmese who are from upper Burma now.”

Many Mon have shown little inclination towards working for low wages on paddy farms, and instead many have migrated to Thailand with the hopes of making a higher income.

Mon paddy owners are therefore forced to hire Burmese workers instead. Most of the paddy cultivators come from Pegu Division, Yangon Division, Irrawaddy Division and Sagaing Division.

Nai Bo, another paddy owner, from Mudon Township, explained that he pays cultivators 130,000 kyat (equivalent to 4,333 Thai Baht) per year. Most migrant laborers can make this sum in one month of working in Thailand.

Paddy cultivation usually starts after the Buddhist New Year, or Water Festival, which is celebrated in mid-April. Most land owners voiced preference at employing Mon laborers due to easy communication.

However, Nai Bo said, “Even my son does not want to work with me as I can not pay the amount he can earn in Thailand. This is why I have to hire other people.”

Many Mon people depend on the cultivation of their paddy land. However, many ethnic Mon have chosen to work in other countries in hopes of higher incomes and the ability to save enough to return home to Mon State and plant rubber trees.

An official of Myanma Agriculture Service in Moulmein said that in 2010, the authorities planned to cultivate one million acres of paddy land in Mon State (Moulmein District and Tadon District). Moulmein district planned to cultivate 505,600 acres, but was only able to cultivate 450,453 due to a shortage in the labor force.

There are 3 million Mon people in southern Burma. It is estimated by labor rights groups that around 400,000 Mon migrants are working outside of Burma, and concentrated in Mahachai, Thailand.