Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Continuing with the experience gained in smallholder plantations, a new
Phase 2 program of 'livelihood plantations' would be established, which would
enlist up to 2,000 additional smallholder farming families into growing pulp-
wood plantations. Based on the lessons of ITPP, under FPDP, farmers would
only be included into the project if they were located in three geographically
restricted 'clusters', within a 25 to 30 km radius. It was suggested that this would
allow for three critical masses of smallholder plots, of between 3,000 to 3,500 ha.
The clusters would each produce sufficient wood fibre to attract a value-added
processor, for example, a modern, medium-density fibreboard (MDF) factory.
Similar to ITPP, it was concluded by ADB analysts that wood markets would
spontaneously develop after a valuable plantation resource was established
(ADB 2005c: 9).
The primary objective of the FPDP project was aimed at aggressively expand-
ing corporate investments into concession-style pulpwood plantations. Critics,
including this writer, pointed out that rural Laos represents an agrarian context
where tenure rights between the state and communities are still unclear; where
state policy emphasizes rapid modernization in the context of significant local
reliance upon subsistence and common property resources, and where a vulnerable
rural population is effectively excluded from participation in the policy process by
central authorities. FPDP documents did little to assuage concerns that customary
local access to important common property resources and upland swidden fields
would be zoned for corporate-industrial tree plantations, by a para-statal corpora-
tion with a direct financial interest in doing so. There was also no effective insti-
tutional mechanism proposed which would independently represent the best
interests of rural communities, introducing a classic conflict of interest into the
LPA's mandate. The ADB's own project documents continued to refer to degraded
swidden lands in Laos as having “little or no alternative economic value” (ADB
2005c: 8), even though years of applied research in Laos had provided clear evi-
dence for the importance of such forest-land resources for rural livelihoods (e.g.
Foppes and Ketphanh 2000).
From one perspective, few real lessons seemed to have been learned from the
failure of the ITPP in the preparations for the Phase 2 FPDP. The new project pro-
posed to work around the capacity constraints of Lao forestry institutions by estab-
lishing a parallel, semi-privatized organization. The LPA would recruit its
employees from the top ranks of public sector institutions, undermining the capac-
ity of these agencies. Secondly, vulnerable smallholders in Laos would again be
enlisted into a relatively high risk tree planting project. Although a new equity shar-
ing and profit sharing framework was established, small farmers would again be
enlisted to produce plantation timbers without a proven market. The inclusion of
the smallholder component into the FPDP appeared to many to be an attempt to
incorporate a 'poverty alleviation' mandate into the project. Arguably, the overall
project design was focused upon a set of neoliberal-inspired policy reforms favour-
ing the entrance of major plantation firms, and rezoning access to common property
land and degraded forest resources in Laos in pursuit of more efficient (corporate)
market production.
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