Course:RES510/2023/Swidden, Rubber, and Agroecological Possibilities in Upland Laos

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Introduction and Purpose of Study

English: Karst peaks and green paddy fields under a stormy sky, South view from the top of Mount Nam Xay, during the monsoon, in Vang Vieng, Vientiane Province, Laos.

Global food insecurities remain a critical developmental issue with as many as 783 million people facing chronic hunger (World Food Programme, 2023). While the reasons behind food insecurities remain complex, they are bound to deteriorate further if we fail to address the problem of increasing land degradation. Land resources, such as soil, water, and biodiversity, provide the foundation of the well-being of our societies and economies[1]. However, ecological factors such as droughts and pests, along with current practices and (mis)management of these resources, are threatening the health and survival of humans, plants and animals.The rapid decline of soil health and ‘underground’ biodiversity is due to an attitude of neglect by the industrial agricultural revolution and intensification of the last century[1]. When land is degraded, food production is compromised, increasing food insecurities and malnutrition, forcing displacement and relocation.

At the core of this issue lies an urgent need to transform our food and agricultural systems. Currently, global food systems are responsible for 80% of deforestation, 70% of freshwater use, and are the single greatest cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss[2]. At the same time, these systems are clearly falling short of providing nutritional sufficiency for present and future populations. By applying a social-ecological lens, this study will analyze the case study of Upland Laos. Several factors situate Upland Laos as a site of change, transition and complexity, coupled with food insecurity. The region has a historical and cultural reliance on swidden agriculture but international sentiments frame swidden as a morally and agriculturally bankrupt activity. Additionally, external interests into Laotian agricultural lands from international actors such as China has the potential of exacerbating land degradation while simultaneously skewing local governance. Not only is the socio-political mosaic of Laos complex, but the country also remains especially susceptible to the effects of climate change, with nearly every province having been designated as under high risk[3].

This case study will explore and highlight the social and ecological factors of Upland Laos, their influence on land degradation, and the interplay with food and economic security. The study will assess and evaluate the potential of various acroecological pathways that could make Laos a more resilient food system. By engaging with the agroecological examples in Upland Laos we hope to supplement the findings of the ongoing EAT Lancet 2.0 report. The EAT Lancet 2.0 report serves as an update to the previous edition, building on its findings and enhancing its focus on diversity in local and regional diets. The report will also suggest interventions for more secure and equitable food futures. Hence, the lessons learned from Laos may provide important insights into how we can optimize, organize and plan transitions towards these futures, grounded in an improved understanding of the drivers and barriers to systemic agricultural change and the benefits and costs associated with existing and hypothetical land recovery and agricultural options.

In addition we will present background on Upland Laos including its geographical, political and socio-cultural characteristics. This background is crucial in contextualizing the matters discussed in the remainder of the report. Afterward, we share our core analysis which is split into three distinct sections. The first section dives into the legacy of swidden, focusing on its historical importance to Upland Laos, the villainization of the practice due to perceived environmental impacts, and a growing understanding that the practice could have a place within future Laotian agricultural systems. The second section looks at agricultural intensification, focusing on the transition from swidden to more conventional systems producing rubber, banana, and maize for regional export. Additionally, we discuss the role of the actor network in facilitating research and policy among upland communities, taking notice of the varying positionality and objectives of involved parties. The third section provides an overview over present and future challenges to Laotian food systems, focusing on the significant external influences of China and climate change. Finally, we will adopt a prescriptive lens and evaluate different agro-ecological pathways for Laos, including pathways and potential interventions, to shift towards a more just, sustainable and resilient system.

Upland Laos–Geographically, Politically, and Ethnically Distinct

Distribution of ethno-linguistic groups in Laos, the 4 main language families.

Around 70% of Laos is mountainous, with the Luang Prabang Range in the north and the Annamite Range in the south making up most of the uplands. The terrain is rugged with the highest mountain top at 2800 meters[4]. The climate is broadly divided between tropical in the lowlands and temperate in the highlands. It is strongly influenced by the Indian Ocean monsoons, with a rainy season from May through October and a dry season from November to April. The mountains of Laos catch this heavy rainfall and funnel it down into the Mekong River, which marks the country’s western border with Thailand. The Mekong is an exceptionally productive river, supporting the largest inland fishery in the world. It also undergoes intense seasonal variations in flow, with periodic flooding.

The uplands of Laos support a mosaic of montane rainforest, subtropical dry forest, and moist deciduous forests, large areas of which have been converted to agriculture. The entire country is part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot and supports extremely high floral and faunal species richness and endemism (CEPF). Several flagship conservation species persist in the uplands, including tigers, Asian elephants, sun bears, and seven gibbon species.

The majority of the Laos population are settled in the southeast of the country and belong to the Lao-Tai ethno-linguistic group[5]. They predominantly inhabit the lowland valleys, especially those close to the Mekong River basin, where their main agricultural livelihood is irrigated rice cultivation. The two largest ethnic groups in the uplands are the Mon-Khmer, who are primarily in the mid-altitude regions and make up 23% of the population, and the Hmong-Lu Mien, who mainly inhabit the highlands and constitute approximately 10% of the population. Both groups have historically practiced shifting cultivation. In the far northern uplands of the country, close to the Chinese border, are swidden farmers belonging to the Chine-Tibetan ethnicity who make up 1% of the population.

Historical Context

The last two centuries brought invasions, colonial rule and war to Laos. During the 18th century Laos was invaded by neighboring Burmese, Siamese, and Vietnamese powers. At the turn of the 20th century Laos came under the colonial rule of French Indochina[6].  The war between France and Vietnam, from 1946, extended into Laos and helped the communist Pathet Lao strengthen, supported by the Viet Minh. As French rule ended in Southeast Asia in 1954, Laos became independent, with the Pathet Lao having de facto control of the north, and the rest of the country ruled by the royal government. Political instability and a civil war followed, and Laos was then engulfed by the Vietnam war from the mid-1960s.  

Laos was a strategic location for the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Pathet Lao in the north were supported by North Vietnam and Soviet Union, whilst the US backed the incumbent Laos government and army. Consequently this officially neutral country suffered significant bombing until the war ended in 1973. The Pathet Lao gained control in 1975, with the USSR providing significant amounts of aid to the country until the demise of the Soviet Union[7]. Laos remains a single party state under the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party.

Core Analysis

Legacy of Swidden Agriculture in Laos

Slash and Burn, or swidden, agriculture in Laos.

To understand Laotian agricultural transitions it is vital to deconstruct the legacy of swidden. Swidden, also called shifting cultivation or slash-and-burn agriculture, is a widely practiced farming system across the humid tropical and subtropical upland regions of Latin America, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia [8]. Swidden involves clearing forested areas of trees and burning the leftover vegetation to break down the plant biomass. This process returns nutrients to the soil and improves soil fertility. Farmers then plant crops, typically upland rice and maize. Other secondary foods such as cassava and banana are planted, or cash crops of sugarcane and cardamom[9]. After one to three years of farming, the plots are left untilled and unsown (fallow) for five to twenty years to allow the soil to regenerate from nutrient depletion. From there on, farmers will move to another plot of land and repeat the process[10]. Swidden has been practiced in Laos for thousands of years and remains a widespread agricultural practice. In general, Laotian swidden practices are centered around the cropping of upland rice. While there is uncertainty in the total land area for swidden in Laos, satellite   remote sensing methods estimated a total extent of 6.5 million hectares which equates to roughly 27% of all Laotian land. Further on, it was estimated that 943,000 people practice swidden across the country[11]. Swidden is especially prevalent in the Uplands, being particularly well adapted to the region’s socio-geographic context. Firstly, the region’s low population density has historically ensured that long fallow periods can be maintained to ensure proper soil recovery. Secondly, the mountainous topography of the Uplands means that a large proportion of fields are located on steep slopes (greater than 20%)[8]. This topography complicates irrigation processes necessary for more intensive agricultural practices such as permanent mono-crop fields.

The Villainization of Swidden

From a historical perspective, swidden has through its thousand-year long legacy proven itself as an ecologically sustainable agricultural method. However, aligned with the global environmental agenda in the mid-20th century, a strong anti-swidden narrative emerged from scholars, governments and NGOs. This narrative framed swidden as a major driver of tropical deforestation and a wasteful and unproductive use of agricultural land that hampered development, caused land degradation and reproduced poverty[11]. The general argument was grounded in the belief that, in order to reconcile food production and conservation, societies must maximize crop output through intensification methods including irrigation, fertilizers, and high-yield varieties, in order to leave enough space for protected areas with minimal human presence[12]. As a result, a concerted global effort aimed at pushing cultivators away from swidden emerged among policymakers.

These narratives started emerging in Laos as the civil war ended in 1975 with the newly formed Lao People’s Revolutionary Party government hoping to eradicate swidden to make way for modern and sedentary forms of agricultural production[11]. In general, two overarching narratives drove this development. Firstly, a socio-economic narrative outlined how reducing swidden would improve food security and facilitate food exports (progressing past subsistence), thus gradually uplifting the quality of life of Laotian citizens. Secondly, an environmental narrative highlighted how eradicating swidden would ensure improvements to forest cover, soil fertility and reduce emissions from the agricultural sector [13]. Degradation in the uplands was viewed as particularly insidious because soil erosion would wash sediment downstream into the Mekong River, damaging its fisheries [14]. The data used to justify these claims were dubious and motivated to some extent by the government’s desire to assert power in the Uplands. This does not mean that swidden did not cause land degradation, but that the narratives portrayed by international environmental assessments did not always align with local observations[14].

Nonetheless, systematic efforts were initiated by the Laotian government to push farmers away from swidden, marked by increasingly institutionalized forest management practices. This development is best exemplified by The Land and Forest Allocation (LFA) Policy, implemented in 1996. The LFA implemented a delineation of territory at community levels, distinguishing between forests and non-forest. Additionally, the policy further limited swidden cultivation by implementing ‘quotas’ on how much land households could use for rotational swidden cultivation[15]. Although initially considered a progressive policy because of its formal recognition of communal rights to the forest, the LFA came with a range of undesirable effects[16]. The policy was implemented in approximately 50% of Laos villages, greatly altering collective customary land tenures through the conversion of fallows into forestry reserves. These forests were effectively ‘closed-off’ as they were restricted from agricultural use and foraging. These attempts at limiting land degradation through limiting access to swidden lands compromised the livelihoods of many subsistence farmers and forced them to either relocate or shorten fallow cycles. The latter worsened soil degradation, causing lower yields and exacerbating food insecurities[17]. These implications are exemplified in the town of Phongsaly where the fallow lands per family dropped from 21 to 7 hectares, and forcing a reduction in fallow times from 12 to less than 6 years. The effects of the policy was felt especially by poorer farmers as wealthier farmers had the financial capacity to invest in permanent cropping zones thus increasing their income[18]. Increased food shortages was another implication of the policy with rice shortage being experienced by 60% of the households for three months a year on average compared to ‘only’ 20% with 0.5 months a year on average before the introduction of the LFA[18].

The Duality of Swidden

The failure of the LFA highlights the shortcomings of previous institutional responses to address land degradation and food insecurity in Laos. The legacy of swidden demonstrates that the practice must not be demonized. Rather, the shortcomings of swidden have been expressed through contemporary socio-demographic and institutional contexts. With modern global drivers of change in Laos, including population growth and changes in land use and tenure, the historically sustainable swidden system has become less tenable through forcing farmers to either expand the area they cultivate or shorten fallow periods. On the flipside, as demonstrated by historical context swidden can, under the right circumstances, be environmentally sustainable and even possibly carbon neutral. It can also be economically productive, providing enough rice for subsistence livelihoods [11].

The discourse around swidden has evolved substantially over the last several decades, with the environmental impacts of swidden now recognized to be more nuanced than previously thought. Researchers have begun to appreciate the practice’s many socio-economic benefits[19]. For example, through burning plant biomass farmers are able to enhance soil nutrients without the need of manufactured fertilizers which disrupts natural nitrogen cycles and can cause local water pollution and soil erosion [20]. Furthermore, the early successional stages of unused fields were dominated by grasses that provided fodder for small-scale cattle grazing. Even the so-called “fallow” stage of forest regeneration, framed as wasteful land use, actually offers essential contributions to people’s livelihoods, allowing for the plantation of tree crops among the regrowing trees and serving as a suitable growing zone for many medicinal plants. Together, these ecosystem services portray the fallows as a managed forest garden. These ecosystem services provide a variety of well-being needs, especially for those with secure ownership[21]. Since swidden systems typically involve a diversity of annual and perennial food crops, cash crops, and medicines they can provide farmers with income while supporting food security and buffering against market and climate volatility. Often, forests in their original and fallowed states were spaces for the combined husbandry of plants, trees, and animals, supporting the mixed cultural, nutritional, and economic needs of local communities. Additionally there has been a growing realization that the environmental degradation caused by swidden is far less dire than a different type of slash-and-burn agriculture, in which huge areas of tropical forest are cut down for industrial-scale production of soy, cattle, and oil palm for global markets in countries like Brazil and Indonesia[22]. Proponents of land-sharing techniques argue that, while swidden may produce less food per acre than intensified agriculture, the co-benefits it confers to biodiversity conservation and human well-being make it a more sustainable system [23]. Hence, it is vital to acknowledge the duality of swidden as an agricultural practice, leveraging the practice’s strength while addressing its shortcomings within the current socio-demographic context. This is especially the case with swidden once again on the rise after a couple of decades of decline [24].

Agricultural Intensification

Tortuous dirt road in wet paddy fields and green hills in Vang Vieng, Laos

As previously established, Laos is host to a resource driven economy, composed primarily of smallholder agriculture with 58% of Laotian citizens working in agriculture, dropping from almost 90% in 1991[25]. Agricultural intensification began to increase in the 2000s, following the introduction of anti-swidden policy and an influx of foreign capital entering the local markets[26]. Laotian government programs focused on “turning land into capital,” rewarding agricultural efforts that focused on intensified land management, ushering in plantation based systems that borrowed from conventional agricultural methods, that until that point were unusual within the country[26].  Over the next several decades a number of transnational agro-corporation and global supply chains penetrated historically subsistence-swidden communities, leading to cash crop booms and widespread adoption of high-demand, potentially high-volatility commodities, such as rubber. Replacing swidden without careful monitoring accelerates rates of deforestation, soil degradation, slope erosion (especially in the upland regions), and pesticide pollution[26]. Short term gains in productivity and income that came with intensification and conventional farming, have ultimately led to a fall in yields, disrupting a system that had served the needs of locals under less economic and population pressure. The crops that saw concentrated expansion at the turn of the millennium were primarily maize, rice, cassava, coffee, banana, and rubber, the last most discussed in this case study for its role as a transition away from failing swidden agriculture in particular. This discussion of intensification will not focus closely on the role of swidden in producing degraded lands; that is integrated elsewhere in the study and heavily in the literature at large.

Cassava, rubber, banana, maize, sugarcane, and coffee are the primary agriculture exports from Laos (livestock exports to Vietnam top all of these, but mostly beyond the scope of this paper), destined for China, Thailand, and Vietnam[27]. Following successful marketing of natural rubber, Chinese and Vietnamese investments pushed the industry into overdrive, an acceleration that was not accompanied by regulatory policy. What began as a means for supplemental income for upland farmers grew to overshadow the interests of locals, which when paired with the long-term temporal requirements of rubber meant farmers were increasingly bought out of their own land when the overhead became crippling. In addition to rubber farming putting pressure on farmers, this era of foreign export driven agriculture placed stress on local soils and ecosystems. As of 2022, there were 180,000 hectares of rubber plantations in Uplands Laos, 60% of the country’s total land allocated to such use; only 30% of that land is still held by Laotian farmers themselves[28].

This boom is unlikely to be constrained to only rubber; both banana and maize are rapidly expanding, being pulled by new market demand in Chinese markets (banana) or Thai livestock lots (maize), both are also seen as a pathway from poverty for many low income farmers[29]. For farmers facing pressure to abandon their traditional farming methods, these industries are appealing, riddled with incentives, and facilitated by huge multinational companies, easing the pressure of resource and knowledge acquisition.

Actor Networks

As Laos enters a regional trade market, a number of groups from a plethora of sectors have asserted interest in participating; Castella et al.[30] call this the actor network, involving farmers, traders, experts, NGOs, cooperatives, research institutions, and governments (among others). These groups exert considerable influence on how knowledge mobilization plays out, as well as the development of policy and support networks. A key area for improvement identified by the authors is in the collaboration of these groups, as not many spaces have emerged for equitable exchange. In producing agroecological futures, it is critically important that practices and lessons be accessible, bolstering the voices of parties not solely focused on agribusiness. Agroecological applications *must* be tuned to local needs and contexts, inspired by the actions of local people and the practices they hold dear. The legacy of decision making is not well suited to meeting these needs, as the gap between research and applications on the ground is notoriously wide, especially in places lacking functional frameworks that mandate collaboration between stakeholders (and considers local people as a stakeholder). If there is any hope of enacting the promising interventions posed by ongoing research on agroforestry in the region, research such as this should be continued and integrated into the various stages of development. Figure 3, below, exemplifies just a few different actors over the past two decades, and the degrees of overlap. Sharing connections, lessons, losses, and wins could transform the effectiveness of the interventions discussed in this paper.

A self-declared interest of Laos is to leverage their Agriculture Development Strategy to modernize and meet industrialization as well as food security goals. Their more specific benchmarks are the following:  

  1. increase agricultural production,
  2. improve and enhance agriculture competitiveness in terms of quality, through
  3. enforcing standards and regulations, and
  4. guarantee food security and safety through compliance with basic sanitary and phytosanitary standards” [27]

These goals are lofty, but achievable with proper collaboration and care. Social ecological systems research often focuses on capacity for transformation; by utilizing the skills of each involved member, and providing time and resources to best capitalize, interventions (like those below, also discussed by Castella et al. 2022[30]) for agroecological transformation are on the horizon.

Beyond the actor network mentioned here there are several important considerations in achieving desirable futures for Laotian agriculture, namely foreign market investment and climate change, discussed next.

Laos China Railway train; one example of an influx of Chinese investment into the region.

Contemporary and Future Drivers of Change

There are two current and future contextualizing pressures on Laos which exert their influence on land use and agricultural practices, and therefore food security and nutrition.  One is the Government’s willingness for economic partnering, especially with China, and the other is vulnerability to climate change impacts.

China: Economics, Infrastructure & Land Use

For the last twenty years China has been an important partner for Laos with the government welcoming the Belt and Road Initiative.  The investment has been major infrastructure projects, including a $6 billion high-speed railway to southern China.  No country in the world has a higher debt to China and it is unclear how Laos will make repayments, but a land for debt arrangement seems likely along with other sovereignty compromises [31][32].

Other countries also have strong ties which include land use and rights.  Over the last fifty years Laos has built fifty hydro-electric dams.  Thailand has provided backing for four in ten hydropower projects, four times that of China[33].  The electricity provided to Thailand is the largest export.

China, Japan and Vietnam also have interests in Special Economic Zones, which are a dozen areas with significant tax incentives and special legal arrangements, their purpose being building connectivity with other countries, attracting their people and businesses.  These developments have necessitated the resettlement of thousands of Laos people and, in the case of China for two zones in the far northern border, it is seen as ‘dissolving borders through economic integration’[31].

The Laos state policies to ‘Turn Land into Capital’[34] and the ensuing government programs to resettle upland people for hydropower and other development projects has forced farmers into areas where they have less agricultural land[35].

China: Opium & Rubber

Papaver somniferum, or the opium poppy.

Pressure from the UN, China, the US and other foreign donors encouraged the Government of Laos to prohibit the production and possession of opium in 1996[36].  In 2004, China formally signed the Opium Replacement Programme (ORP), which promotes the rubber monoculture and challenges adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers by locking them into production through quotas.  China’s largest land investment in Laos is rubber and ‘a tool for civilizing the remote borderland’[37].  The ORP created the rubber market for Laos, including processing and traders[38].  The Government of Laos views rubber as sustainable development – an alternative to opium, a replacement for swidden and a commercially beneficial crop[36].  Rubber was a way to replace shifting cultivation, with land zoning facilitating cooperation between Laos farmers and Chinese companies, whilst China subsidized agribusiness in Laos[34].  

Large rubber plantation in Vietnam

Rubber is a particularly intransigent monoculture.  The trees take seven years to mature and peak in production at twenty years, locking-in the crop for a long time before any returns are realized[38].  Although one advantage for farmers is that once the crop is producing, the ability to retain latex harvests for future sale is more flexible than for foods that might deteriorate or respond adversely to weather fluctuations.  Another reflection of China’s control is that the rubber trees in northern Laos are clones from Chinese varieties that require grafting; they cannot be grown from seeds[38].

Sustainability drivers have the potential to produce rubber with more ecosystem functions.  Recent analysis of rubber agroforestry has been shown to improve carbon and nitrogen retention, to reduce sediment run-off while maintaining the yield of latex [39].  Demand for sustainable rubber is also increasing.  A sustainable rubber exchange has been set up and tire and car companies are seeing the consumer appeal of FSC rubber[40].  With the influence of China, it is also beneficial that the 19th five-year plan, 2021 to 2025, has moved away from GDP measures and is more sustainability focused on ‘green development’.  Nevertheless, experts in the field see sustainable rubber as ‘exceedingly difficult’ and it would be more effective to highlight the harmful socio-environmental impacts to address and limit unsustainable practices[41].

Climate Change

The World Bank considers Laos one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and with nearly every province having been designated as under high risk[42].  The vulnerability is not that the physical effects of climate change will be more extreme for the country, but due to the exacerbating pressures of poverty, malnourishment and high exposure of poor and marginalized communities[43].  From extreme heat affecting outdoor laborers to reductions in rice yields, both directly affecting health, climate change will add to the lack of adaptive capacity in a country where inequalities have been widening in the 21st century[43].

A major observed effect of climate change is the disruption to rainfall.  Upland rice is entirely rainfall dependent and higher yields are associated with sufficient rainfall in the main part of the rainy season from June to August[44].  Upland rice yields have not distinctly improved between 1990 and 2020[24] – associated with shorter fallow periods in swidden.  Under climate change the onset of the rainy season has been earlier and the amounts more erratic[45].  This change makes it more difficult for farmers to know when to plant and how to manage and prepare swidden [46] and has led to off farm activity and off-farm work.  There has also been droughts, especially associated with the peak of El Nino around December, which was particularly severe in 2015 to 2016 when rice seedlings dried out and there was damage to thousands of hectares of upland rice and fruit crops[43].  More intense precipitation periods, including tropical storms, are expected under climate change, leading to flash flooding, landslides and soil erosion.

The effects of heat and high humidity will be felt directly by people and crops and an increase in the annual probability of heatwaves is expected due to climate change.  Reductions in yields is expected for rice and subsistence rain-fed agriculture and heat mortality, with outdoor laborers especially vulnerable[43].  Malaria and dengue outbreaks are expected to increase.

To adapt agricultural practices to climate change would be beneficial.  A recent study has shown that mechanisms such as drought tolerant crops and intercropping were much less used in Laos compared with neighboring Vietnam[47].  The authors suggested that reduced adaptive capacity at farm level was a factor and that providing farmers with information on adaptation measures could assist adjustment decisions  Acknowledging first and foremost the social roots of vulnerability and the necessity for political-economic change is noted in the literature[48], Laos requires wider assistance and transformation in order to accommodate the inevitable and unavoidable pressures of a changing climate.

Clearing forest for rubber plantations and swidden, especially with short fallow periods, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Longer fallow periods have been shown to retain more carbon in soil than rubber plantations[20].  Initiatives such as UN REDD+ seek to reduce deforestation and the Laos government has a target to increase the current 62% of forest cover to 70% [24].  A vital consideration, recognised internationally, including at the 2005 UNFCCC meeting is that, for those lacking adaptive capacity addressing greenhouse gas emissions is challenging and ‘reducing such emissions could hamper financial benefits in developing countries... therefore, they should be compensated for such activities by wealthier nations’[35].

Agroecological Pathways Forward

Boy plowing with a tractor at sunset in Don Det, Laos

In the following sections we seek to identify pathways to preserve and (re)incorporate agroecological practices in Laos. Two global drivers of change are currently challenging pathways to a resilient and sustainable Laotian agricultural system. The first is a burgeoning population in Laos, which demands that swidden practices expand spatially or intensify temporally. Temporal intensification demands speeding up the rotational cycle by shrinking fallow periods, leading to decreased food production, declines in soil fertility, increased carbon emissions, and loss of habitat quality for forest-dependent species that rely on the biomass recovery between burning periods[44]. Recent work has shown that average fallow periods have already reduced from eight years in the 1990s to only two years by 2017[24]. As alluded to earlier, expansion is limited by the widespread protection of forest conservation areas in Upland Laos, which the government aims to expand in coming years. Additionally, the situation is further complicated by government efforts to connect remote villages to state services and markets, expanding infrastructure projects and connecting corridors that were previously self-sufficient[14]. The overall challenge of embedding sustainable versions of swidden in a changing socio-demographic and institutional context remains especially pertinent given an observed increase in shifting cultivation over the last 5 years[24]. The second main challenge is the massive intrusion of capital from China and other foreign governments, aimed at expanding rubber plantations and eradicating opium. The rubber crop boom is being driven primarily by foreign governments constructing new rubber processing plants in the uplands and investing in a corridor of both built infrastructure and land re-allocated to the production of high value export crops (rubber and banana, primarily)[27]. As the physical and financial infrastructure is put into place to facilitate expanded rubber production and exports, farmers respond by switching from swidden to newly-profitable rubber tree cultivation. This dynamic has created a positive feedback cycle rapidly driving rubber expansion and locking-in the rubber production system.

While this new era of agricultural intensification is increasing farmers' ability to make money, the transition towards rubber monoculture comes with serious risks to local agency and ecological balance. Disturbances like drought, heat waves, and pest outbreaks can all drive crop failures and are all expected to increase with climate change. As smallholders link their livelihoods to global markets through cash crop production, abandoning food crops in the process, they become vulnerable to price shocks and lose access to the safety net provided by subsistence farming. Keovilignavong and Suhardiman[49] demonstrated that in cases where agroecological methods were off the table for families, expanding economic capacity made a marked difference in local food security and dietary diversity, caused by an increased ability to pay for market foods and and exemplifying the importance of content. Even if not every smallholder farmer is able to diversify their farming method, access to capital is an important component to meeting the nutritional needs of rural citizens, especially given the crippling inflation rates that have persisted over the past few years, peaking at 40% in February 2023, the highest in two decades[50].  Although rates have since fallen (25.5% at the time of publication[50]), economic instability has pushed many communities towards food insecurities and requiring them to seek out alternative sources of cheaper, wild, or self produced foods. In some cases the only remaining response is to reduce overall food consumption, a very undesirable outcome[51]. This heightened vulnerability complicates an already difficult situation, further necessitating our recommendation to reflect on time-tested community harvesting techniques that provide variable sources for income and consumption, through fruit, vegetables, timber and other forest products, fish, and livestock. Considering the vulnerabilities of small-holder farmers to the flux of the market, these developments in practices remain vital, especially as land is being handed over to foreign actors and the unpredictable effects of climate change on yearly harvests.   

Given the serious challenges to both swidden and rubber, we are recommending a middle path for agriculture in the uplands that involves some combination of long rotation swidden, rubber plantations, forest conservation, and agroecological methods (mixed cropping in local gardens). We believe that if tuned to the needs of communities this combination of efforts will satisfy the recommendation made by the World Bank to utilize horizontal and vertical scaling (scaling up and out), ultimately facilitating efforts between rural smallholders and their collectives in order to improve access to markets, education, trade, and sustainable futures[27].

Recommendations and Prognoses for Just and Sustainable Agricultural Systems in Laos

The following section enumerates our proposed recommendations for agroecological pathways towards sustainability and food security in the uplands of Laos; not all will be applicable across all cases, but with strong actor network support and collaboration we think that co-created solutions could integrate some component of each of the following. Although our recommendations overlap we have divided them along two dimensions based on the broader characteristic of the recommendation: practical and procedural. Our practical recommendations outline the more substantive steps that should be taken to facilitate a sustainable Laotian agricultural system. In turn, our procedural recommendations address the overarching strategy that must underpin this transition, with an overall focus on equity concerns.  

Practical Recommendations

Incentivizing cultivation of both food and cash crops

Striking a balance between the cultivation of cash crops and food crops is central in building the adaptive capacity of smallholders through enabling capital accumulation without losing food security.  A recent household study in Upland Laos found that households who practiced swidden and rubber farming concurrently were more food secure, whereas those who only grew rubber under more intensified set-ups were the least food secure[52]. Table (2) illustrates the employment potential for rubber farming, relative to labor and land requirements and compared to other common alternatives (adopted from an Indonesian case study) rubber proves to have the best trade off potential[53]. As a tool for transitioning away from short-fallow farming on degraded lands, rubber may be a strong option for diversifying and maximizing income among smallholders. However, land tenure (to be discussed as a procedural consideration) and agroforestry initiatives need to catch up if these impacts are to be positive.

Cultivating both food and cash crops also increases the long and short-term adaptive capacity of smallholders. By growing a greater number of crops, farmers can improve their response diversity and buffer themselves against environmental and market volatility. For example, if a severe climatic event causes one important food crop (i.e. upland rice) to consistently produce lower yields, farmers will have a different subsidence crop to pivot to (i.e. maize). Similarly, on the off-chance that some technological breakthrough simplified the production of synthetic rubber, making natural rubber obsolete, farmers avoid the financial implications that a complete rubber lock-in (with few feasible alternatives) would entail through having the capability to adapt to changing times. On shorter time scales, growing food crops to eat and sell for part of the year allows farmers to wait to sell their rubber, which is non-perishable and easily stored, until demand is high. In many cases, mixed crop gardens in residential areas, instead of expanded agricultural activity for income, is sufficient in promoting increased food security; promoting seed sharing and knowledge for diverse crops has had promising early results in home and community gardens[54].

Finally, early (albeit limited) research demonstrates that diversified mixed crop and livestock farming improves food security, but only to a certain point (after which it diminishes, due to a loss of competitive advantage)[55]. The same paper found that smallholders were better off purchasing diverse foods from local markets; this implies that efforts to afford farmers enriched economic opportunities, while also advocating for agroecological management strategies, could have important implications in improving quality of life and nutrition in rural Laos[55].  For communities that have long lived alongside livestock, managing their forests with cattle and water buffalo, the integration of animals back into these landscapes is critically important; Laotian agriculture historically employs the lowest levels of synthetic fertilizers in the region, thriving using methods that employ natural ecosystem services[56]. Working alongside communities to understand their needs, priorities, and historical habits in planning for cash and food crop (and livestock) diversification will produce outcomes that are built to last.

Extracting the benefits and mitigating the risks posed by foreign investment

While foreign investment can lead to land grabs and displacement, we posit that demonizing Chinese investment is an unproductive approach. Chinese investment is a reality and one that will continue to shape Laotian development far into the future. Also, with Laos in deep need of capital, the production of rubber by smallholders for export to China has significant and growing economic benefits. Given this all, it is still vital to address the often exploitative nature of the rubber crop boom in Laos and Southeast Asia in general. The crop boom has faced increased scrutiny and regulation over the last decade[37]. In 2013 the NGO Global Witness released the Rubber Barons report, which named and shamed Chinese and Vietnamese agribusinesses for exploitative rubber practices in Laos and Cambodia. Due to reputational risks, government pressure and the loss of social licenses and market access, these companies collaborated with NGO’s such as Oxfam to develop sustainable rubber initiatives, regulating the environmental and social treatment of land and laborers. We believe that  these sustainable rubber initiatives have the potential to help prevent the rubber boom from entirely supplanting food production. The shift of China towards green development in its latest five-year plan also has the potential to assist in sustainable rubber development, as does the demand from companies for more traceable and sustainable commodities in supply chains and the existence of trusted schemes such as those operated by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Altering the rules of protected forests

Water reflection of mountains, hut, green rice sheaves scattered in a paddy field and clouds with blue sky in Vang Vieng, Laos.jpg

Other efforts that should be protected include the growing and gathering of non-timber forest products (NTFPs), such as mushrooms, bamboo shoots, broom grass, and fish. The ‘act of gathering’ remains a culturally important practice that contributes to social resilience. In addition, the products themselves support adaptive capacity, particularly during periods of climate instability when crops may fail[45]. New conservation areas (which are expected given Lao’s goal of expanding its protected forests) should involve community led management, or at least allow regulated community harvesting of certain medicinal and food plants within protected forest areas.

Procedural Recommendations

Improving rural land tenures

As demonstrated by the aforementioned Land and Forest Allocation Policy, protection of the public interest often goes hand in hand with reduction of local actor's control over land[57]. This must be addressed in future transitions. A central component of this broader justice-based pursuit is the protection of smallholder land tenure which is essential both for protecting agroecological practices and food security[58]. This is pivotal in the context of increasing external involvement and the subsequent risk of land-grabbing. The Laotian government retains a pivotal role in recognizing and respecting land claims of Upland farmers. These people are disproportionately vulnerable to dispossession for several reasons. First, many of these farmers lack formal written documentation of their holdings. Second, the spatio-temporally shifting nature of swidden cultivation blurs the conventional understanding of fixed private property and distinctions between agricultural and forested land. Third, waves of resettlement driven by war and government policies aimed at reducing swidden, eradicating opium, implementing infrastructure projects and culturally and economically integrating remote farmers, have frequently reshuffled land ownership over the last half-century[59]. Finally, many of these smallholders are ethnically and economically marginalized and have fewer options for recourse when faced with eviction. International corporations and the Laotian government have at times used this vulnerability to carry out land grabs of swidden farmers to convert the land to rubber plantations. Recognizing land claims based on multi-generational or community acknowledgement, even without written documentation, is imperative for protecting smallholder land rights. Research has shown that secure ownership enhances the ecosystem services and the well-being provided under swidden[21].

Defending the interests of smallholders

The Laotian government also retains a pivotal role as they dictate the rules and goals of the Laotian agricultural system. The most fundamental step they need to take is an ideological one–the government must recognize how much traditional swidden livelihoods contribute to smallholder wellbeing. While rubber brings foreign investment and infrastructural development, a transition to purely intensive plantation agriculture has huge costs for food security, cultural traditions, economic inequality, and biodiversity [60][61]. Government agencies should work to build a socio-economic context in which smallholder food production remains financially viable, and we see several leverage points they could push on. First, increasing the number of programs that provide seeds, subsidies, and credit to smallholders growing food crops with agroecological methods, so that input costs remain low. Second, implementing a government buying program that ensures that farmers can sell a portion of their crops annually to the government to ensure that remote cultivators don’t lose access to a market for food crops as the rubber market expands. It is critical to defend the interests of smallholders; though early research has shown a balance of rubber integration to bolster economic status and improve livelihood[62] the opposite has been true in Southern Laos, where communities have been displaced without fair compensation and lands are becoming degraded [63] [11]

Ensuring accountability among foreign corporations

Decentralized grassroots community efforts by smallholders have also had some success in contesting corporate land grabs for rubber. When Vietnamese agribusiness Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) attempted a land seizure in 2013, several rural villages banded together to bring forward a lawsuit against the company, with the support of the Rubber Barons report by Global Witness[64]. Without this response, the agribusiness would have displaced swidden farmers and converted an area of protected forest into a rubber plantation. Since HAGL was funded by several big European banks and feared reputational damage, it pulled out of the purchase and the Laotian government redistributed the land to the farmers[65]. Many farmers have deep attachments to their land and their traditional swidden cultural practices. The trade off in new forest-land governance cannot occur at the expense of local communities, who are too often coerced under new management schemes out of their land and livelihoods, satisfying foreign investors and shortsighted goals for development or even conservation. Hence, ensuring that foreign corporations remain accountable to local demands, through the help of NGO investigative capabilities, is crucial for preventing rubber plantations from eradicating social cohesion and ways of life in Upland Laos.

Creating a resilient actor network and institutional environment

Underpinning the feasibility of each of the proposed levers for change above is crafting the institutional environment under which such change is possible; Leinhard et al.[66] take exceptional relationships to conceptualize a collaborative space for agroecological transformation.  Figure 4 from Leinhard et al. (2019)[66] embodies one iteration of this vision, which we found particularly helpful in conceptualizing barriers to change and critical areas for improvement over the coming years.

Conclusions and Limitations of Study

In presenting this study, we would like to acknowledge that the complexity of Laotian food systems cannot be captured entirely by a secondary analysis like the one we have put together. Despite this, we hope to have captured the essence of the agricultural transition currently playing out in the region, offering a collated version of events as observed in the literature, and gesturing towards promising futures, as reported by groups employing SES approaches to their research in the region. Studying the dimensions of agro-social-ecological problems is a labor of slow learning, as these issues prove to be endlessly complex and constantly evolving (though not unsolvable!). As shown here, agricultural expansion oftentimes produces sacrificial zones to meet foreign market demands; it is our hope that Laos can navigate this transition in order to co-create a future that satisfies their growth imperative as well as maintains the rich land-based and culturally diverse set of practices that have defined the region and its people for centuries.

Beyond acknowledging the complexity of the scenario as a whole, we would like to explicitly point out a few specific gaps in the literature that we see as important for informed decision making in the region in the time moving forward.

  1. There are contradictory signals on the development of the monsoon under climate change, which could be a variation of whether an El Nino is occurring, but given the complex topography of northern Laos it would be valuable to have specific measurements and modeling carried out to inform expectations for changing weather patterns.
  2. The recent study by Mai Ha et al.[67] showed that reduced adaptive capacity was responsible for Laotian farmers being less disposed to the use of drought tolerant crops and intercropping, so further work on methods for connecting with farmers in Upland Laos would facilitate the introduction of such adaptive measures.
  3. There is a lack of clarity on historical land requirements under swidden, and what tenable land use could be under more “sustainable” swidden; an analysis of hectares needed to meet long-fallow and harvesting needs would be clarifying.
Man harvesting rice in Don Det, Laos

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  67. ↑ Mai Ha, T., Boulom, S., Yang, F., Voe, P. (2023). Factors influencing farmers’ climate change adaptation in Southeast Asia: A comparative study from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. APN Science Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.30852/10.30852/sb.2023.2101

Appendix

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This resource was created by Clare Price, Nickolas Wright, Sveinar Lunde Soldal and Vicky Lucas.It is shared under a CC-BY 4.0 International License.
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