Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
working in a rubber collective in Yunnan. The village headman and authorities went
to Yunnan to explore the possibility of planting rubber and concluded it was the
most promising alternative to shifting cultivation. They made a proposal to the pro-
vincial authorities and asked for loans for rubber cultivation, which were provided.
Many households then faced the problem of having to maintain their immature rub-
ber holdings while cultivating rice for their subsistence. In addition, a heavy frost
in 1999 killed numbers of rubber trees. Nevertheless, in 2002 23 households started
to tap their rubber, producing 22 t of latex sold to China. Many villagers have since
expanded their rubber holdings in their shifting cultivation areas, so the area for
shifting cultivation has been substantially reduced.
Currently, the total village population is 964 in 102 households, giving a popula-
tion density of 21 persons per sq. km. All the villagers belong to the Hmong ethnic
group. The average household size in the survey was 7.5 members, with 3.0 full-
time workers. The main occupation is agriculture, but there are some government
officials, teachers, village traders, and non-agricultural labourers. The level of edu-
cation varies from primary school to technical college, but the majority did not
attend school or have only finished the primary school level.
5.4
Land Resources in the Study Village
Lao farmers who practise shifting cultivation traditionally had usufruct rights to
utilise the forest land within their village territory. However, this is now subject
to the government's Land Use Planning and Land Allocation (LUP/LA) process,
which is being implemented throughout the country (Gansberghe 2005;
Tsechalicha and Gilmour 2000). This results in land-use zoning for all the lands
within a village territory and the allocation of formal use rights to individual
households in the form of Temporary Land Use Certificates and, eventually, Land
Titles. In Hadyao LUP/LA was completed in 1997. Each household was provided
with three plots of shifting cultivation land, though those with more members
could ask for more. The land use zoning defined by the district LUP/LA team is
presented in Table 5.1 and Fig. 5.2. The total area of the village is about 4,604 ha.
Agricultural land includes limited lowland areas favourable for wet rice cultivation
and upland areas that are mainly used for shifting cultivation of rice. The rubber
planted since 1994 is located in this area of agricultural land, hence it competes
with upland rice and other upland crops. Since land allocation, shifting cultiva-
tion has been practised with a three-year rotation, which results in poor soil fertil-
ity and weed competition.
With the increasing interest in rubber planting since 2002, many farmers
searched for additional land within the village territory to plant rubber or grow
upland rice. However, the remaining lands were mostly far from the village settle-
ment, requiring a journey on foot of one to two hours. Therefore, some villagers
with kinship or other connections to nearby villages accessible by road obtained
land through these connections, mostly under a crop-sharing arrangement.
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