Author : Xayasinh Sommany

Summary : Traditional upland agricultural practices and shifting cultivation play an important role in food security and social welfare for many households in northern Lao PDR. Nowadays, land use system has been changing from shifting cultivation to monocropping as rubber plantation, which has been booming and expanding into many agricultural areas. The policies of rubber plantation are challenges to food security, recovering of shifting cultivation, and poverty reduction in northern Lao PDR. Agricultural land for food crop production such as upland rice and paddy rice field have also decreased over time, affecting the food security for many households. The aims of this study were (1) to assess the impact of cropping system changes on food insecurity, (2) to compare livelihood assets and food insecurity among different household types, and (3) to identify the future coping strategies for food security.

The research methodology of this study employed the participatory rural approach (PRA) method to investigate and assess the impacts on household livelihood to food insecurity in rubber plantation at household level. Firstly, the PRA was employed to formalize the focus group discussion (FGD) for finding the location of farm, key indicators of food insecurity, and the number of farmers for three farm types:
(a) upland rice farm with other crops (UR), (b) upland rice with rubber plantation (URRP), and (c) rubber plantation (RP). After that, a purposeful or criterion-based sampling method was used for selecting the sampling size in each farm type. Sixty households were selected for in-depth interview in each farm type with a total of 180 households.

The result of this study found that lands declined on upland rice, paddy rice field, maize, job’s tears, wild vegetables, and raised livestock. Results found that agricultural land declined over 65 percent of the total land use in Namor and Xay districts. Land use found were RP areas (35%), URF (30%), and maize and job’s tears (32%). Whereas, the potential of food crop production has declined due to introduction of RP.

The household livelihood assets determined the potential of farmers to solve the periods of food shortage. The study found that five livelihood capital such as human capital, natural capital, financial capital, physical capital, and social capital were slightly different among three farm types. Upland rice with other crops farming type (UR) had household expenditures on foods LAK 11.50*100,000 less than upland rice with rubber plantation farming type (URRP) LAK 12.48*100,000 and rubber plantation farming type (RP) LAK 33.94*100,000. From these outcomes of household livelihood assets such as rice production, livestock, home garden vegetable, maize, and job’s tears were their potential staples to cope with risk of future food insecurity.

Food security has been facing problems as shown in proportion of food sharing. These were: (1) rice production found in UR was at 58.4 percent and URRP at 41.6 percent, (2) vegetables were grown in URF at 69.2 percent and URRP at 30.8 percent,
(3) non-timber forest products (NTFPs) were shared roughly above 30 percent in each farm type, and (4) livestock was raised in two farm types (UR 88.4% and URRP 11.6%). RP only gathered food from NTFPs. Household livelihood assets were classified into five livelihood capital such as human capital, natural capital, financial capital, physical capital, and social capital, which had slight differences among three farm types.

Thus, upland rice farming with subsistence agriculture farming had greatly applied coping strategies such as multiple alternatives to produce other crops. This provided good source of income for the purchase of food to meet their household consumption needs. In addition, land management had importance to support for food availability and food access in the region. Therefore, loss of food crop production areas, decline of biodiversity, and risk of rice production could affect food security of agricultural households in this province.