Your search found 10 records
1 Suhardiman, Diana; Giordano, M.; Leebouapao, L.; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh. 2016. Farmers’ strategies as building block for rethinking sustainable intensification. Agriculture and Human Values, 33(3):563-574. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9638-3]
Agricultural development ; Rice ; Sustainability ; Intensification ; Farmer participation ; Food security ; Food production ; Rural poverty ; Government agencies ; Groundwater ; Water use ; Vegetables ; Farming systems ; Households ; Labor / Lao People s Democratic Republic / Ekxang Village
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047142)
(832 KB)
Agricultural intensification, now commonly referred to as sustainable intensification, is presented in development discourse as a key means to simultaneously improve food security and reduce rural poverty without harming the environment. Taking a village in Laos as a case study, we show how government agencies and farmers could perceive the idea of agricultural intensification differently. The study illustrates how farmers with the opportunities for groundwater use typically choose to grow vegetables and high valued cash crops rather than intensify rice production. This contrasts with government and donor supported efforts to promote rice intensification as a means to increase food security and reduce rural poverty. The article’s main message is that farmers’ differing strategies are related to a variety of household characteristics and that farmers’ strategies should be central to the current discussion on sustainable intensification.
2 Suhardiman, Diana; Giordano, M.; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Sotoukee, Touleelor. 2015. Revealing the hidden effects of land grabbing through better understanding of farmers’ strategies in dealing with land loss. Land Use Policy, 49:195-202. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.08.014]
Land use ; Rubber industry ; Farmers ; Farming systems ; Socioeconomic environment ; Households ; State intervention ; Political aspects ; Villages / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Nadee Village
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047156)
(0.56 MB)
This article examines changing contexts and emerging processes related to “land grabbing.” In particular, it uses the case of Laos to analyze the driving forces behind land takings, how such drivers are implied in land policies, and how affected people respond depending on their socio-economic assets and political connections. We argue that understanding the multiple strategies farmers use to deal with actual land loss and the risk of losing land is crucial to understanding the hidden effects of land grabbing and its potential consequences for agricultural development and the overall process of agrarian transformation. From a policy perspective, understanding the hidden effects of land grabbing is critical to assess costs and benefits of land concessions, in Laos and elsewhere, especially in relation to current approaches to turn land into capital as a policy strategy to promote economic growth and reduce poverty.
3 Suhardiman, Diana; Pavelic, Paul; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Giordano, M. 2020. Putting farmers’ strategies in the center of agricultural groundwater use in the Vientiane Plain, Laos. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 36(1):149-169. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2018.1543116]
Groundwater irrigation ; Water use ; Water resources development ; Farmers ; Rural areas ; Households ; Income ; Poverty ; Living standards ; Wells ; Cost benefit analysis ; Cultivation ; Crop production ; Labour ; Social aspects ; Case studies / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Phousan / Ekxang / Vientiane Plain
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049031)
Groundwater use for agriculture has the potential to improve rural households’ income and reduce poverty, but the linkages are not always straightforward. Taking Laos as a case study, this article illustrates how differential access to water, land, and capital shape farmers’ livelihood strategies in two nearby, yet contrasting villages on the Vientiane Plain. It examines the factors driving farm households’ decisions to invest in groundwater for agriculture. The findings highlight the need to better understand how farmers view groundwater in relation to their farm household characteristics if groundwater is to be successfully used as a means to improve rural livelihoods.
4 Suhardiman, Diana; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Kenney-Lazar, M. 2019. The territorial politics of land use planning in Laos. Land Use Policy, 83:346-356. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.02.017]
Land use planning ; Territories ; Political aspects ; Bureaucracy ; Local organizations ; Corporate culture ; Land governance ; Land policies ; Land allocation / Lao People's Democratic Republic
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049143)
This paper examines land use planning processes in Laos, particularly how they are shaped and reshaped by key actors’ interests and strategies across scales and how they are closely interlinked with state logics of territorialization. It critiques dominant perspectives that view land use planning as a tool for bridging policy and institutional divides to generate holistic land governance. Instead, it presents land use planning as a function of power and a contested arena of power struggle, driven primarily by the development targets of sectoral ministries and the interests of powerful local actors. We show how bureaucratic competition and sectoral fragmentation prevail directly within Laos’s National Land Master Plan formulation process. The paper shows how the logics of land governance in Laos are comprised of a disjuncture between national and local land use planning processes and, a disconnect between formal land use planning and actual land use across scales.
5 Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Suhardiman, Diana. 2020. Linking land tenure security with food security: unpacking farm households’ perceptions and strategies in the rural uplands of Laos. Land Use Policy, 90:104260. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104260]
Land tenure ; Perception of tenure security ; Food security ; Land use planning ; Land policies ; Household income ; Living standards ; Strategies ; Farmers' attitudes ; Non-farm employment ; Government policy ; Land governance ; Highlands ; Villages ; Rural areas ; Case studies / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Nambak / Houaykong / Namai
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049372)
(1.58 MB)
Land tenure, or access and rights to land, is essential to sustain people’s livelihoods. This paper looks at how farm households perceive land tenure (in)security in relation to food (in)security, and how these perceptions evolve throughout different policy periods in Laos. The paper highlights the centrality of farmers’ strategies in configuring the dynamic relationships between tenure (in)security and food (in)security, by demonstrating how farmers’ perceived and de facto land tenure insecurity shapes their decisions to diversify livelihood options to ensure food security. While the paper’s key findings reveal the close interlinkages between land tenure (in) security and food (in)security, we argue that the first does not automatically result in the latter. In contrast, we show how perceived and de-facto land tenure insecurity pushes farmers to explore alternative strategies and avenues to ensure food supply, through farm and non-farm employment. From a policy perspective, the paper highlights the need to put people’s livelihoods at the center of land governance, thus moving beyond the current positioning of land as merely a means for agricultural production or environmental conservation.
6 Keovilignavong, Oulavanh. 2019. Mining governance dilemma and impacts: a case of gold mining in Phu-Hae, Lao PDR. Resources Policy, 61:141-150. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2019.02.002]
Natural resources management ; Gold ; Mining ; Governance ; Local government ; Large scale systems ; Small scale systems ; Legal aspects ; Illegal practices ; Investment ; Households ; Living standards ; Strategies ; Villages ; Gender ; Womans status / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Xieng Khouang / Phu-Hae
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049429)
(1.43 MB)
This paper reexamines how local governments exercised the legal powers related to their official rights and duties to manage the impacts of both large-scale mining (LSM) and artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) activities, and how local households perceived resource changes and what strategies they have adopted to adapt their livelihoods based on a case study of the Phu-Hae area, in Xieng Khouang province of northern Lao PDR. It reveals that local government agencies have insufficient capacity to exercise their legal powers to protect natural resources and local livelihoods, partly as a result of weak governance mechanisms. The impacts from LSM and ASM had degraded natural resources and changed local livelihood strategies, impacting particularly the poorer households and women who perceived ASM as a means to increase income and sustain precarious livelihoods, which was often as the expense of the environment and their health. It highlights the need to strengthen capacity to local government and technical training targeted at farming and non-farming livelihood activities for the local community as a way of facilitating alternative income sources for poor households involved with artisanal mining.
7 Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Suhardiman, Diana. 2019. Implications of rubber land concessions on local resource governance in Cambodia. In Phu, L. V.; Giap, N. V.; Tram, L. T. Q.; Hoanh, Chu Thai; McPherson, M. (Eds.). Resource governance, agriculture and sustainable livelihoods in the Lower Mekong Basin. Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD). pp.353-368.
Resource management ; Governance ; Rubber industry ; Concession (land) ; Natural resources ; Rural communities ; Living standards ; Strategies ; Local authorities ; Companies ; Gender ; Farmers ; Households ; Villages ; Public opinion ; Economic aspects / Cambodia / Sesan / Katot
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049447)
(1.71 MB)
8 Kramp, J.; Suhardiman, Diana; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh. 2022. (Un)making the upland: resettlement, rubber and land use planning in Namai village, Laos. Journal of Peasant Studies, 49(1):78-100. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1762179]
Land use planning ; Rubber industry ; Resettlement ; Highlands ; Customary land rights ; Concession (land) ; Land governance ; State intervention ; Institutions ; Communities ; Ethnic groups ; Villages ; Social structure ; Farmers ; Strategies ; Cash crops ; Households / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Namai
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049808)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2020.1762179?needAccess=true
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049808.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049808.pdf
(2.47 MB) (2.47 MB)
This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for upland rice cultivation (and conservation) as part of a state-led land use planning initiative. We show how internal resettlement, ethnic division and the influx of commercial agriculture in the Lao uplands intersect in a novel land use planning process and predetermine the plan’s actual significance.
9 Suhardiman, Diana; DiCarlo, J.; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Rigg, J.; Nicol, Alan. 2021. (Re)constructing state power and livelihoods through the Laos-China railway project. Geoforum, 124:79-88. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.06.003]
Railways ; Development projects ; Land valuation ; Compensation ; Strategies ; Central government ; Livelihoods ; Transport infrastructure ; Large scale systems ; Political aspects ; Rules ; Procedures ; Government agencies ; Villages ; Households ; Social aspects / Lao People's Democratic Republic / China / Luang Prabang / Chomphet / Naxang
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050490)
(3.14 MB)
This paper examines the governance and implementation of land compensation for the Laos-China Railway (LCR). It brings to light the central government’s strategy to use compensation rules and procedures as its means to extend its spatial power across the provinces, districts, and villages that are affected by the railway construction. We examine both the manifestations and effects of state power through the formulation and implementation of land compensation procedures. Taking Naxang village in Chomphet district, Luang Prabang province, in Laos as a case, the paper highlights: 1) how centralized compensation rules and procedures serve as a means for the central government to expand its power; 2) how power relations between central-provincial-district governments (re)shaped the actual project implementation especially pertaining to compensation valuation and payment; and 3) implications for smallholder livelihood options and strategies.
10 Pavelic, Paul; Suhardiman, Diana; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Clement, Corentin; Vinckevleugel, Jordan; Bohsung, Seinab M.; Xiong, Kong; Valee, Lengya; Viossanges, Mathieu; Douangsavanh, Somphasith; Sotoukee, Touleelor; Villholth, Karen G.; Shivakoti, B. R.; Vongsathiane, K. 2022. Assessment of options for small-scale groundwater irrigation in Lao PDR. In Re, V.; Manzione, R. L.; Abiye, T. A.; Mukherji, Aditi; MacDonald, A. (Eds.). Groundwater for sustainable livelihoods and equitable growth. Leiden, Netherlands: CRC Press - Balkema. pp.347-363. (IAH - International Contributions to Hydrogeology 30) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003024101-19]
Groundwater irrigation ; Small scale systems ; Assessment ; Wells ; Boreholes ; Water use ; Crop production ; Cash crops ; Farmers ; Livelihoods ; Households ; Investment / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Vientiane Plain / Ekxang
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: IWMI Record No: H051160)
(2.09 MB)
Groundwater offers smallholder farmers in the lowlands of Lao PDR opportunities to diversify cropping beyond wet season paddy and thus enhance their livelihoods while reducing climate risks. This chapter focuses on evaluating existing and specifically developed groundwater irrigation options on the Vientiane Plain, and framing the findings around the livelihood priorities of different farming groups against a backdrop of agrarian change. Results show that cultivating a range of cash crops using shallow dugwells managed by individual farmers and deeper boreholes managed by the community can be profitable for farmers, while helping to increase the resilience of farming households’ livelihoods. Both options may also represent a viable investment option for farming households lacking access to surface water irrigation, and thus contribute to more equitable growth. The results identify drivers and conditions that incentivize and enable groundwater irrigation to generate positive development outcomes. It also highlights that farmers will not intrinsically engage in groundwater irrigation simply because a good resource is available, but instead, weighs up the pros and cons of a mix of biophysical, socioeconomic, technical, and institutional factors. Agricultural policies aiming to intensify small-scale groundwater irrigation should be cognizant of these nuances as they are critical to successful implementation and management.
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