by Piyaporn Hawiset
14 March 2003
The People’s Republic of Laos harvested in 2002 a record 2.4 million tonnes of rice, helping raise its annual per-capita food average to 435 kg, and bringing the number of localities capable of self-sufficiency in food supplies to 13 out of the country’s total of 18, many of which are in mountainous regions. The figure was quite significant as after 27 years since the republic was founded, Laos had not only escaped a chronic food shortage but had proved self-sufficient in food supplies and even able to export thousands of tonnes of food items.
With a small population of five million, a farm-land acreage making up as little as 3.5 percent of the land-locked country’s territory, Laos experienced a food shortage for many years after it was liberated in 1975 with two-thirds of its provinces lacking food for 3-6 months because of American-led sanctions against the country. This was worsened by a devastating aftermath of consecutive natural calamities.
Since then Laos aimed at guaranteeing food security and reducing poverty when it developed agriculture-forestry development strategies, under which families are considered a principal unit in changing its self-supporting economy into a commodity one.
With Vietnamese cooperation and assistance in capital, technology and experience, Laos designed a plan to develop its seven vast plain basins alongside the Mekong River, which in total accounted for 60-70 percent of the country’s irrigated rice acreage. Under this plan, 1,505 billion kip was spent to build 600 dams, 170 reservoirs, 8,150 canals, and over 3,100 pumping stations to ensure that 30 percent of the winter crop and 15 percent of the summer crop have irrigation.
As a result, the rice-growing area expanded from 524,000 hectares in the early years of the post-liberation era to nearly 700,000 hectares in 2001 and 2002. The nation’s paddy output has increased steadily from 1.26 million tonnes in 1976 to 2.1 tonnes in 1997 and 1999, 2.35 million tonnes in 2001 and 2.4 million tonnes in 2002.
The annual crop cycle had also been intensified from a single winter rice crop to now include an additional summer crop, which is the staple in almost provinces with a total acreage of 70,000 to 90,000 hectares.
Parallel to expanding the growing areas, Laos went for intensive farming to raise the rice yield, and introduced scientific advances into every process of production from land preparation, watering, seeding, crop protection to harvesting. Consequently, the average rice yield reached 3.8 tonnes/ha in the 2001-2002 crop, almost double the 1976’s figure in spite of many regions of the country severely hit by consecutive natural disasters. It was noteworthy that the summer crop yield topped 4.25 tonnes/ha and one of the areas gaining the highest yields were Khammoune, which is on the outskirts of the capital of Vientiane with 4.7-5.5 tonnes/ha.
The agriculture sector also coordinated efforts of various local authorities to map out 12 commodity production programmes for many plant and animal crops, under which concentrated areas have been zoned off to grow non-rice subsidiary crops such as groundnut, soy-bean, green bean and tobacco. A total acreage of 50,000-60,000 ha was marked off in Laos’ central region to grow non-rice crops for export.