Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
messy and contingent local practices and outcomes,
to
donor-project rationalizing
(Mosse, 2005).
Field research in Ban Naa Pang Yai was carried out in relation to a broader disser-
tation project on resource tenure, rural livelihoods and commercial forestry programs
in Laos. In Naa Pang Yai village, this involved four extended stays of four to five days
each, between July 2005 and August 2006. In depth, qualitative interviews were con-
ducted with a random selection of 18 households who had received ITPP loans, out
of a total number of 92 village households, and out of 32 total ITPP participating
families in Naa Pang Yai. Provincial level officials accompanied the researcher and
field assistant on initial trips, but after confidence has been established, the researcher
and assistant would go to visit the village without official escort.
Naa Pang Yai is a predominately ethnic Lao, wet rice farming village, located
about 15 km from the provincial centre at Salavane town. The village is located
along a rural cobble stone road; a sure indication in southern Laos that the route
was constructed as a section of the 'Ho Chi Minh Trail' during the Vietnam-
American War. The forest cover, outside of villager paddy fields in the area is a
patchy, dry dipterocarp forest, which becomes extremely dry in the hot season and
susceptible to fire. From villager interviews there was never any shifting cultiva-
tion practiced in this lowland site, which would appear to make Naa Pang Yai a
poor match with the ADB/Government of Laos forest strategy goals of “…refor-
estation of denuded and degraded areas and stabilization of slash-and-burn
farming” (ADB 1993: 3).
The primary source of livelihood in Naa Pang Yai is single crop, non-irrigated
wet rice farming. Secondary activities include raising livestock and trading animals
for sale in the district centre, local wage labour (largely involving sawing construc-
tion timbers by hand, which can provide an income of about $1.50 day
−1
), and col-
lection of a range of household food resources from the surrounding environment
(Photo 13.1). Depending on the season, these include fish, frogs, insects, and edible
mushrooms.
Kiisi
resin
6
is one locally important non-timber forest product (NTFP)
which is often sold to passing Vietnamese traders, the collection of which can gen-
erate US$20-30 in wet season income per household. The physical environment in
the dry season in Salavane district however is harsh, and the village forests in Naa
Pang Yai are dry and relatively unproductive compared with nearby districts in
southern Laos. Other minor commercial products sold from the village are charcoal
and rice whisky. One villager, the assistant headman, owns an electric rice milling
machine, which along with a small tuck shop and petrol kiosk, provides this
wealthiest of families with regular cash income. Approximately 50 percent of the
92 village households in Naa Pang Yai do not produce sufficient rice for their
annual requirements. The poorest five households, including a number of female headed
households, have no farmland, and no tractor or buffalo to prepare rice fields for
planting. Both land and draught buffalo must be rented annually by the most disad-
vantaged households, at high rates of interest.
6
A damar resin from
Shorea spp
., particularly from mai si (
Vatica cinerea
), a common dry ever-
green forest tree species in Laos.
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