Riding the boom: Rural households' participation and livelihood outcomes associated with teak, banana and cassava crops in Northern Laos

In progress Crop booms have become feature of rural households in Laos transition from subsistence to commercial agricultural. A common feature of boom crops is generating many times more income than planting established crops, but they also create social and environmental issues. The complexities and dynamics of farmer decision-making process with respect to crop booms, the livelihood outcomes for participating households and their role in rural change in Laos and have been little studied. This thesis explores this, and the contextual factors of markets and policies, through three cases of crops booms in Northern Laos-Teak, bananas and cassava, considering the forms of smallholder household participation, associated livelihood outcomes and the views and livelihood strategies of rural households involved. Drawing on conceptual frameworks of rural change, sustainable livelihoods, diversified household livelihood strategies and farmer decision-making this study aims understand household decision-making to identify the factors that influence participation in crop booms and the outcomes of this. Field research was conducted in six villages in three Northern Lao Provinces. Mixed research methods were utilised and included semi-structured household interviews with c. 30 households in each village, focus group discussions, participant observations and informal discussions in the case study villages, interviews of key informants and document and literature review. Primary research was supplemented through field studies undertaken in conjunction with activities associated with the broader project in which this study was situated. While this research found similarities with patterns found in other boom crops in Southeast Asia each of the studied boom crops had unique and dynamic key factors that were context-dependent. The emergence of boom crops in Laos occurs mainly in resource frontiers and have been driven variously by factors external to the villages in which they have been adopted as well as factors within villages and within households. While the booms in both cassava and bananas were found to be mainly market-led, teak was a policy-led boom. Although each began with similar external and internal factors, over time these factors changed, with the strongest negative impacts found in the banana case study. The results show that households in the studied villages generally do not have a long-term livelihood horizon, they just riding the boom and following their peers. Boom crops have implications for rural households' livelihoods that are both positive and negative, direct and indirect. The roles of boom crops on rural household livelihoods were found to vary based on household and/or community circumstances. The outcomes suggest processes of both deargrianisation through which households are shifting away from agriculture, and reagrarianisation where households are (re)engaging in agriculture, but through different means. However, not all households have benefited from the crop booms, and the determining factors of this were household characteristics, particularly land and labour resources, and the way in which they participated. The results illustrate that boom crops create household differentiation, but a common outcome of boom crop participation for households in the studied villages was diversified livelihood strategies; in which households became "multifunctional', they increasingly engaged in on- and off-farm activities, a trend observed elsewhere in Laos and Southeast Asia. While rural smallholder households and their livelihoods have become connected to markets and the Lao Government policies for market integration remain a strong, there are lessons that can be drawn from this study with respect to how these policies can be more inclusive of smallholders. Bringing the perspectives and the realities of the rural households into policy design and strategies for agricultural and green economic development is essential

Village Baseline Study: Site Analysis Report for Pailom village Champone district, Savannakhet province, Lao PDR (LA02)

Data collection for the village baseline study of Pailom village located in Savannakhet Province, Lao PDR, took place from 17th -19th Oct, 2014. Focus group discussions were conducted separately for men and women. The village experienced yearly food shortage leading to hunger and malnutrition. Contributory factors included the frequent drought and crop damage from pests and diseases, poor irrigation facilities benefiting only very few farms, high concentration of salt in soil that limits crop diversification in certain areas of arable land, and increasing population that reduces the land area per person. Rice production was the main livelihood in the village but only limited during the wet season because it is mostly rainfall dependant. During the dry season, fields are left to fallow and used for livestock grazing. The government has provided emergency food aid such as rice and corn powder at subsidized cost during food shortage. , Villagers were temporarily migrating to Thailand to work as labourers in factories and in other farms. Few organizations were operating in the village, particularly working on food security and food crisis issues. Information networking for agricultural activities was mainly by individual (farmer to farmer) interaction rather than media. There was poor dissemination of agricultural information or technical support from agriculture extension workers and responsible agencies. Identified priorities in Pailom village include strengthening and promoting agricultural research extension to gather information on fertilizer management, sustainable agricultural production techniques, pest and disease management

Co-designing and scaling sustainable intensification of mixed farming systems in Laos

For over a decade, rural Lao households have been undergoing a transformation from subsistence-oriented production systems to agricultural commercialization, facilitated by a series of Lao government policies opening the economy to international markets coupled with improved connectivity. The extent and depth of this process is accelerating, particularly in upland (non-paddy) farming systems that were formerly part of a swidden landscape. Sustainable intensification of these mixed crop-tree-livestock systems (mixed farming systems, MFS) is critical for competitiveness in global markets, long-term productivity and efficiency of resource use, without undermining resilience and ecosystem services for rural households. Cassava and cattle are amongst the most recent in a series of commodity booms in which increased market demand and farm-gate prices has seen farmers engaged in a process of specialization and monocultures to capture market opportunities. This research explores MFS's policy and market context, its impacts on farming practices and the opportunities and entry points for co-designing sustainable intensification, focusing on cattle in Northern and cassava in Southern Laos. We conducted interviews with local government staff, farmers and other stakeholders in three provinces in Laos with diverse agricultural commercialization and markets. Initial results reveal the cassava boom has been driven by the high price of cassava root and chips, access to the local and global markets and the establishment of starch factories in Laos and neighboring countries; the cattle boom has been driven by government policy, high demand for cattle export to China and Vietnam and the decline of maize production and price. Farmers practice MFS based on their available inputs and labor with insufficient technical and innovation skills, although some larger landowners have adopted good practices such as crop rotation and silvopasture. The cassava and cattle booms contribute to converting forest areas into agricultural commercial landscapes and affect the availability of ecosystem services such as access to land for grazing, soil fertility, erosion control and watershed protection. To reduce negative impacts on the environment and agroecosystems, improving farmers’ technical and innovation capacities, co-design and supportive policies and regulations are needed to optimize resources. Agro-silvo-pastoral systems are crucial for this pathway

Village Baseline Study: Site Analysis Report for Ekxang village Phonghong district, Vientiane province, Lao PDR

Data collection for the Village Baseline Study for the Ekxang Climate-Smart Village located in Phonhong District, Vientiane Province, Lao PDR, took place on November 19th - 21st, 2014. Three days of focus group discussions were conducted separately for men and women. Participatory methods were used to gather information on community resources, organizational landscapes, information networks, and the community’s vision for the future. Men and women in Ekxang village had different point of views on their community’s resources. Women were focused more on the conservation and increased forest land as they are responsible for collecting the Non-Timber Forest Product. Men were more interested in the development of agro-forestry. Regarding agriculture, men were focused on rice paddies while the women were more focused on the smaller household vegetable gardens. There were several changes in community resources. Forest and pasture areas were significantly degraded due to urban development, increasing people demands, and expansion of agricultural lands since 1980s. Infrastructures for irrigation were improved 30 years ago to expand the irrigated area but only few households in Ekxang could benefit from it. Villagers experience that soil fertility has declined compared to 25 years ago. There were a number of organizations operating at the village, half of them related to food security, food crisis and natural resource management. However, linkages is not strong the organizations. Farmer-to-farmer, mobile phone and television are main sources of information that support farmers in their decision making. There is a high potential to develop ICT-based technologies in order to support climate-smart farming practices to farmers. From the farmers’ perspective, their Climate-Smart Village should be an agroforestry landscape with smart groundwater use, smart pest management and crop diversification, and smart information services

Mixed Farming Systems in the tropics, a CGIAR Initiative in 5 countries. Challenges and Collaboration in Laos

This Initiative addresses the Sustainable intensification (SI) of Mixed farming systems (MFS). By SI, we mean the production of more food on the same piece of land while reducing the negative environmental impact. MFS cover about 2.5 billion ha of land globally. In the developing world, MFS supply around 75% of milk, 60% of meat, and 41–86% of cereals consumed. These farming systems occur in nearly all agro-ecological zones, with an enormous variety of climatic and soil conditions and livelihood patterns. In SEast Asia the initiative is working in Bangladesh, Nepal and Laos. In Laos, the Initiative is focusing on two sites, one in the northern uplands where mostly maize is grown but farmers who are now transitioning into more livestock raising and fodder crops. In the southern lowlands the initiative focus on areas where coffee was the dominant crop, but recently those lands were converted to cassava. Moreover, some forests have been cleared for cassava. These changes bring along challenges and tradeoffs related to food security, poverty reduction and environmental conservation. To address these challenges, a systems approach is needed that takes into account the performance of different components of the SI-MFS and their interactions. Some farmers in both sites have been practising MFS for many years but have had limited if any support from research agencies and development projects. This workshop will discuss factors that influence farmers’ decision-making on their livelihood choices and farm practices and will be a starting point to discuss on the possibility to develop coherent innovations for the co-design of SI-MFS and support farmers and local stakeholders into a trajectory towards SI

Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment Report for Pailom Village, Savannakhet Province, Lao PDR

The Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment is part of the baseline study of CCAFS climate-smart villages in Southeast Asia. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and collection of secondary data were conducted from the village to provincial levels. The Pailom village, one of CCAFS benchmark sites, is located in Champhone district, Savannakhet Province, Laos. Savannakhet province is lowland at the western part and the upland at the eastern part. The province, including Pailom village, frequently experiences drought and crop damage from pests and diseases. Rice production is the main source of people’s livelihood. Due to lack of irrigation and low fertile soil, rice yield is low, ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 tons per hectare. The increasing population growth and negative impacts of climate change contribute to the yearly food shortage in the area. The number of migrant workers from the rural area of the province to the cities and neighboring countries, especially Thailand is increasing. There are not many organizations operating in Pailom village and it is equally uncommon to find organizations working on food security and food crisis issues. Information networking for agricultural activities is mainly established between farmers. There is poor dissemination of agricultural information or technical support from agricultural extension workers and responsible agencies. The identified priorities of farmers in Pailom village include strengthening and promoting agricultural research extension to gather information on fertilizer management, sustainable agricultural production techniques, pest and disease management, and adoption of drought and salinity resistant crop varieties and appropriate husbandry techniques