Lao PDR

Research Priorities

Market-driven alternatives to shifting cultivation in upland regions

Improving health and production of village pigs, cattle and fishing operations
Losses from diseases of livestock have a major impact on villager income in upland Laos. Rapidly spreading viral diseases are important, given the position of Laos as a major livestock transit route. A cluster of projects is assessing the risks of livestock movement in transferring disease, improving the diagnosis and management of rapidly spreading viral diseases such as FMD and CSF, improving access to animal vaccines, and understanding the impacts on human health. Improved production systems are being developed to increase income by improving survival and growth rates in pigs and cattle, including studies on the assessment of approaches to adoption of new technologies. Policy, diagnosis and vaccine issues are necessarily addressed centrally (in Vientiane), while the focus for fieldwork is in the northern provinces.

Incomes from forestry and agroforestry
Laos plans to increase its forest coverage from less than 52% now to 70% by 2020, to safeguard the country’s water resources and enhance rural livelihoods. The government is encouraging the planting of high-value trees such as teak and eucalypts, both to increase forest cover and improve rural incomes, of which about 40% currently comes from forest products. ACIAR’s Laos forestry projects explore the use of teak-based agroforestry systems and other means of enhancing livelihoods associated with forests and forest industries. Priorities include enhancing agroforestry systems, improving timber processing and marketing, and developing payments for environmental services from sustainably managed smallholder plantations.

Improved food security and profitability of farming systems through diversification

Rice-based lowland cropping systems
The study on rice-based farming systems builds on 15 years of work supported by ACIAR and Lao–IRRI on varietal introduction, assessment and management for upland and lowland environments. The main project is designed to improve the productivity and profitability of the lowland rice-based systems, and to pursue diversification in suitable locations by adding non-rice crops under irrigation in the dry season. The main strategies include intensifying rice production systems by increasing the number of crops grown on the same land each year following the main rice crop, and introducing potentially more-profitable crops such as maize, soybean and other grain legumes where there is access to irrigation. Many rice-based systems are intricately linked to livestock production, and hence targeted work on improvement of livestock production will maximise overall farming system productivity. Policy research relevant to rice production and trade is also needed to underpin institutional arrangements for food security.

Horticulture
Current work in horticulture aims to develop technical and R&D capacity in biosecurity, plant quarantine, and pest and disease diagnosis as part of a regional Mekong initiative to develop a core of skills and a technical network within government and associated agencies in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

Improving riverine and culture fisheries productivity
Fish, predominantly from riverine and reservoir capture fisheries, is the main animal protein source of the Lao people. A recently completed cluster of projects developed technological packages that can, with village community participation, optimise yields from culture-based fisheries practices in floodplain depressions and reservoir coves, and contribute to the sustainable management of riverine fisheries in Laos. A major focus of current work is to develop fish-passage technology and capability to allow movement of fish past low-level barriers such as weirs and flood-control structures.

Adapting Lao farming systems to climate change

Climate change is already having a negative impact throughout Asia, with evidence of increasing temperatures and projections of an increase in monsoonal rainfall in some countries. In Laos the most significant threats related to climate change are considered to be flooding at the end of the growing season before the rice harvest and mid-season drought spells after planting. A 5-year collaborative research program addressing climate change, including in Lao PDR, was initiated in 2009. The emphasis is on adaptation to climate change based on water management in lowland rice-based cropping systems of two districts in Savannakhet province.