ChATSEA - University of Toronto T-Space...shifting cultivation and deforestation to downstream siltation of wetlands and reservoirs ‐ has had wide‐ranging impacts on rural development

THE CHALLENGES OF THE AGRARIAN TRANSITION

IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

ChATSEA

ChATSEA Working Papers

Working Paper no. 14, March 2011

Political Ecology of the Agrarian Transition: Case studies in the Uplands of Lao PDR

by

Guillaume Lestrelin

ISSN 1919‐0581

ISSN 1919‐0581

© March 2011

Published by the Canada Research Chair in Asian Studies – Université de Montréal 3744 Jean‐Brillant, office 420, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3T 1P1

ChATSEA

The Challenges of the Agrarian Transition in Southeast Asia Project (ChATSEA) is spon‐sored under the Major Collaborative Research Initiatives of the Social Sciences and Hu‐manities Research Council of Canada. With its primary focus on Southeast Asia Region, the Project seeks innovative understandings of the agrarian transition understood as the multiple, uneven, and reversible pathways and processes through which agrarian rela‐tions are transformed. Key processes being studied include agricultural intensification and expansion; commodification; peri/urbanization, industrialization, human mobilities, intensification of regulation; ecological change; agrarian social movements; and the re‐making of agrarian wealth and poverty. The Project involves an interdisciplinary team from Canada, Southeast Asia, Europe, and Australia. It is directed by Professor Rodolphe De Koninck, Canada Research Chair in Asian Studies, Université de Montreal, Canada. It runs from 2005 to 2011.

For more information: http://www.caac.umontreal.ca/en/chatsea_intro.html


The ChATSEA Working Paper Series is intended to present empirical findings from origi‐nal research concerning the agrarian transition, with an emphasis on contemporary con‐text. The Series includes work done by faculty and graduate students sponsored by or af‐filiated with ChATSEA, and by other scholars who are not affiliated but whose research concerns similar themes.

Working Papers should speak directly to the question of agrarian transition in Southeast Asia. It may approach the topic through a focus on one or more of the constituent proc‐esses of the agrarian transition, identified as: 1) agricultural intensification and territorial expansion; 2) increasing integration of production into market‐based system of exchange; 3) accelerating processes of urbanization and industrialization; 4) heightened mobility of populations both within and across national borders; 5) intensification of regulation, as new forms of private, state and supra‐state power are developed and formalized to gov‐ern agricultural production and exchange relationship; 6) processes of environmental change that modify the relationship between society and nature to reflect new human im‐pacts and new valuations of resources.

Working Papers are sent out for anonymous review by scholars in the field. The maxi‐mum length for a Working Paper is 8000 words. Please submit papers, or abstracts of planned papers, to the managing editor by email. The managing editor of the series is To Xuan Phuc, PhD. Email address pto@forest‐trends.org. Members of the editorial board are Keith Barney, Philip Kelly, PhD, Tania Li, PhD, To Xuan Phuc, PhD, and Peter Vandergeest, PhD.

http://www.caac.umontreal.ca/en/chatsea_intro.html

mailto:[email protected]


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Political Ecology of the Agrarian Transi‐tion: Case studies in the Uplands of Lao PDR

Lestrelin, Guillaume

POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE AGRARIAN TRANSITION: CASE STUDIES IN THE UPLANDS OF LAO PDR

Guillaume Lestrelin PhD Geography [email protected] Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) PO Box 5992, Vientiane, Lao PDR

Acknowledgements This work was funded by the Canada Chair of Asian Research through the program ‘The Challenges of the Agrarian Transition in South‐East Asia’ (ChATSEA). The author would like to thank: Jonathan Rigg and Harriet Bulkeley for their comments and intellectual contributions; the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) of Laos, France’s Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) for their kind support.

Abstract The agrarian transition is one of the most important processes of socioeconomic change that has oc‐curred over the past three centuries. While abundant, the related scientific literature exhibits signifi‐cant lacunae as regards links between socioeconomic change, ecological dynamics and environmental politics. This study describes how ecological change and mainstream environmental discourses have played a critical and mutually reinforcing role in shaping the agrarian transition in two Laotian vil‐lages. In response to land degradation and declining agricultural yields, villagers have engaged in a dual process of livelihood diversification and de‐agrarianisation. Mainstream discourses on land deg‐radation have also constituted an indirect, yet important source for local change. In particular, the idea that Laos’ development is threatened by a ‘chain of degradation’ ‐ stretching from upland poverty, shifting cultivation and deforestation to downstream siltation of wetlands and reservoirs ‐ has had wide‐ranging impacts on rural development policy. Land reform and resettlements have thus aimed at ‘rationalizing’ local access to upland resources, delineating conservation areas and bringing remote populations closer to markets and state services. In the two study villages, they have engendered criti‐cal agricultural land shortage and fostered livelihood diversification and de‐agrarianisation. Under‐standing patterns of agrarian change requires thus paying careful attention to both ecological condi‐tions and environmental knowledge. Ecological change is both cause and consequence of livelihood change while environmental knowledge conditions directly local adaptation to ecological change and, through its impact on policy and regulation, local livelihood constraints and opportunities.

Keywords Livelihood diversification; de‐agrarianisation; land degradation; environmental knowledge; Lao PDR.

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Introduction The agrarian transition can be considered as one of the most important processes of socio‐economic change that has occurred over the past three centuries (De Koninck 2004). While there is an important body of research on the subject, agrarian transition literature exhibits significant lacunae with regard to the interac‐tions between social transformation, ecological conditions and environmental knowledge (Bernstein and Byres 2001). These interactions appear crucial in different ways. First, there is the question of the way the ecological milieu (e.g. topography, climate, water, soil and bio‐logical resources) shapes and responds to the agrarian transition. Development of commercial productions, land tenure and land‐use recon‐figurations, migrations associated with indus‐trialization and urbanization, all these dynamics commonly associated with the agrarian transi‐tion are shaped by the ecological milieu in which they operate. In turn, the agrarian transi‐tion contributes to the emergence of new prac‐tices (e.g. mechanisation, development of mono‐specific crops and plantations, agricultural ex‐pansion, intensification or dis‐intensification) which may represent important drivers for en‐vironmental change. The latter can indeed be very rapid, of great magnitude and, in terms of environmental conservation, as much negative (e.g. deforestation, reduction of the agro‐biodiversity, pollution/depletion of soil and wa‐ter resources, soil erosion) as positive (e.g. re‐duction of the agricultural pressure, environ‐mental preservation, reforestation). Second, the agrarian transition is tightly bound up with issues of environmental knowl‐edge. In relation to agricultural practices for in‐stance, agricultural intensification and mechani‐sation tend to favour an erosion of the ‘traditional’ agro‐ecological knowledge(s). Simi‐larly, urbanisation and industrialisation favour the emergence of new economic and sociocul‐tural models which, in turn, contribute to change the role and importance of the environ‐ment in rural societies (e.g. ‘commoditization’ of the environment, emergence of ‘global’ envi‐

ronmental concerns). These dynamics contrib‐ute to change the perspective of the young re‐garding agriculture and, in some instances, push them to look – or even migrate – for activi‐ties considered more socially and economically rewarding (Kelly 2000; Rigg 2000). Sociocultural change, the growing importance of the non‐farm sector and economic migrations imply significant transformations in the functioning of rural livelihood systems (Rigg 1998) and, hence, in local environmental practices (e.g. invest‐ment of non‐farm incomes and remittances in environmental conservation, degradation of the conservation practices as a consequence of agri‐cultural labour shortage). Third, through its influence on policy mak‐ing, environmental knowledge can also play a more indirect role in shaping the agrarian tran‐sition. The environmental ‘awakening’ of the 1970s, the emergence of the sustainable devel‐opment paradigm during the late 1980s and, more recently, discourses on global environ‐mental issues (e.g. deforestation, desertification and climate change) have had major influences on rural development policies which are nowa‐days meant as drivers for ‘environmentally‐friendly’ socioeconomic changes. In that sense, local patterns of agrarian transition can also re‐flect the influence of particular environmental discourses on rural development policy. These interactions between agrarian transi‐tion, ecological conditions, environmental knowledge and policy operate on the basis of a complex scalar interplay. With globalization and the increasing circulation of goods, popula‐tions and information, rural livelihood change and its ecological impacts are increasingly con‐tingent upon extra‐local or even global factors (De Haan 2000). Conversely, if the ‘global’ has become a privileged scale in mainstream envi‐ronmental discourses, the ‘national’, the ‘re‐gional’ and the ‘local’ remain primary scales for the implementation of rural development policy which constitutes in turn a key driving force for the agrarian transition. This study examines some of these interactions in two villages of the Laotian uplands. It describes how ecological dynamics and mainstream environmental dis‐

ChATSEA Working Paper no. 14, March 2011 Political Ecology of the Agrarian Transition: Case studies in the Uplands of Lao PDR

3

courses have played a critical and mutually re‐inforcing role in shaping local agrarian transi‐tion pathways.

Methods The paper is based on data collected and analysed over a 6‐year period (2003‐2008), first within the framework of an international re‐search project – i.e. Managing Soil Erosion Con‐sortium (MSEC) – and, then, as part of my doc‐toral studies at the University of Durham. Primary data describing livelihood and agrarian change in the two study villages was obtained through questionnaire surveys with 40 sample households (20 per village) selected through a stratified random sampling method based on land tenure. In order to cover a 40‐year period of change, four time steps were defined accord‐ing to main historical events identified by vil‐lagers during preliminary interviews (Table 1). Surveys were undertaken during several field visits between January and December 2003. This information was then complemented and ques‐tioned through several group discussions and semi‐structured interviews with key informants (33 interviews conducted between January 2003 and August 2004).

Information related to the physical envi‐ronment and the connections between land‐use and land degradation was partly derived from MSEC field work. Since 1998, MSEC had been monitoring land‐use change, soil erosion and sedimentation rates in a 64‐ha watershed in‐cluded in one of the study village. This informa‐tion was complemented by interviews and group discussions. In March 2004, a question‐naire survey was conducted among sixteen of the twenty‐seven farmers working in the MSEC experimental watershed. The survey focused on farmers’ perceptions in relation to soil erosion (e.g. rates, evolution, impacts on hydrological systems and crop yields). In July‐August 2004 and December 2006, seven group discussions were conducted, involving three to four farmers working in the MSEC experimental watershed on each occasion. The discussions focused on the identification and sorting of local indicators and drivers of land degradation. In November‐December 2005, a round of semi‐structured in‐terviews with 30 residents of the two study vil‐lages questioned gender, generational and oc‐cupational differentiation in terms of perception of local land regulations, land‐use change, and environmental issues. During the same period,

Table 1. The four time steps defined for the questionnaire survey on livelihoods in Ban Lak Sip and Ban Done Kang

1970 / 1980 1990 1995 2003

The first settlers arrived in Ban Lak Sip in 1962 and Ban Done Kang in 1972

Ban Lak Sip underwent two major resettlement phases in 1976‐77 and 1982‐83 Ban Done Kang villagers have access to Luang Prabang by the paved road in 1990 A land use planning is implemented in Ban Done Kang between 1986 and 1989

Ban Lak Sip villagers have access to Luang Prabang by the paved road in 1992 The land use planning and land allocation programme is implemented in Ban Lak Sip in 1995

Since the mid‐1990s, several companies are established in Luang Prabang for promoting Job’s tear production and NTFP collection in rural areas Ban Lak Sip and Ban Done Kang underwent a major resettlement phase in 1996

Lestrelin, Guillaume PhD, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

4

a new questionnaire survey involving 60 indi‐viduals selected at random was conducted in order to assess environmental change in the two study villages (e.g. soil and water quality, bio‐diversity, forest density). Finally, reports and publications by national agencies, international organisations and academics reviewed throughout the six years of study provided in‐formation on mainstream environmental dis‐courses and the broader socioeconomic and pol‐icy contexts.

Study Sites The two study villages, Ban Lak Sip and Ban Done Kang, are located along the national road No. 13 linking Vientiane to the northern prov‐inces of Laos (Figure 1). They are relatively re‐cent settlements in the vicinity of Luang Pra‐bang, the provincial and district capital. Along with common climatic conditions (i.e. a tropical monsoon climate), both villages are located in the same narrow valley and their land stretches out over the overhanging steep slopes. Several streams run through the uplands and feed the Xon River which passes through Ban Lak Sip (upstream) and Ban Done Kang (downstream) before combining with the Dong River, a tribu‐tary of the Mekong. The vegetation cover is

mainly composed of mixed deciduous and dry dipterocarp forests on the hilltops, forest regen‐eration mixed with grass (i.e. bush fallow), teak plantations, annual crops (e.g. rice, Job’s tear, maize) and gardens (e.g. bamboo, lemon grass, cassava) on the slopes, and banana plantations and vegetable gardens in the lowlands and along the streams (Figure 2). The histories of the two settlements are dif‐ferent: one marked by significant external inter‐ventions (i.e. national resettlement scheme) and the other characterized by spontaneous immi‐gration (Figure 3). Settlement of Ban Lak Sip land began in 1962 by three families, two from Udomxai province and one from the neighbour‐ing district of Nan. Between 1962 and 1975, the population increased slowly with the arrival of new families fleeing the war in the northern provinces of Laos. Then, as part of the national resettlement scheme, the village underwent three important immigration waves during which a total of 47 households were resettled. In 2003, the village community was composed of 93 households of which a large majority be‐longed to the Khmu and Lao ethnic groups. Settlement of Ban Done Kang land began in 1972 when seven families arrived from Udomxai province. In 1973, 10 new families

Figure 1. Location of the study villages


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Figure 2. Ban Lak Sip (March 2003)

Figure 3. Settlement histories in the two villages


PhD, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

6

arrived from Udomxai to join their relatives. In 1980, four families among the first settlers left the village while the others bought land rights for housing. Since then, Ban Done Kang has undergone a quasi‐continuous immigration flow largely guided by kinship relations (e.g. families coming to join their relatives and young men marrying village residents and set‐tling in the village). Recently, civil servants from Luang Prabang also moved to the village, attracted by low costs of living and access to land. In 2004, the village community was com‐posed of 64 households, mainly belonging to the Khmu and Lao ethnic groups.

ChATSEA Working Paper no. 14, March 2011

Local access to land appears also quite dif‐ferent in the two villages. Delimited by the dis‐trict authorities in 1975, Ban Lak Sip land covers a surface area of 433 hectares. As reconstructed through official statistics and interviews with local informants, between 1975 and 1994, natu‐ral growth, immigration and resettlements had resulted in a progressive increase of population density per square kilometre of agricultural land (Figure 4). Then, in 1995, the village un‐derwent a Land‐Use Planning and Land Alloca‐tion (LUPLA) programme. Through this proc‐ess, the area put aside for agricultural activities was set at 136 hectares (31% of the village land). Conservation, protection and production forests – banned from agricultural use – were set at 281 hectares (65% of village land) and the remaining 16 hectares were devoted to housing. The total‐ity of the 136 hectares classified as agricultural land was allocated to individual households, with a maximum of three agricultural plots per household. Put together, natural population growth, resettlement and LUPLA have engen‐dered a ten‐fold increase in population density per unit of agricultural land over the last quar‐ter of a century. Land reform has had the domi‐nant effect, causing almost the same reduction in per capita arable land availability in one year that natural population growth and resettle‐ments did in ten. Brought to the household scale, in one year the average agricultural land tenure was reduced by one third, from 3.9 to 2.7 hectares. In contrast with Ban Lak Sip, land reform in

Ban Done Kang has consisted of land‐use plan‐ning without allocation of plots to the village households. The latter has remained largely based on existing customary rights. In 1986, the village was allocated 540 hectares of land: 10 hectares classified as protection forest and the remaining 530 hectares usable for agriculture and housing. In 1989, the agricultural land was further subdivided into 10 new hectares of pro‐tection forest, 150 hectares of regeneration forest and 270 hectares of land usable only for peren‐nial crops (tree plantations or vegetable gar‐dens), leaving 100 hectares for annual cultiva‐tion. In terms of population density per unit of agricultural land, the situation appears thus more favourable to farmers than in Ban Lak Sip (Figure 5). In 2004, despite considerable popula‐tion growth and a significant expansion of the protected areas, the average agricultural land available per household was still relatively high with 5.8 hectares per household. However, if only the land available for shifting cultivation is considered, the 1989 subdivision of the agricul‐tural land has led to averages per household of 4.2 hectares for permanent crops and only 1.6 hectares for annual crops, that is 40% less than in Ban Lak Sip.

Agrarian Tansition and the Environment Ecological change and livelihood adaptation

The two villages present a picture of rapid socio‐environmental transition. ‘Diversification’ and ‘de‐agrarianisation’1 appear as keywords for describing this transition. Traditionally based on shifting cultivation of rice for subsis‐tence, agriculture has become increasingly commercial and diversified with the introduc‐tion of annual cash crops like Job’s tear and maize and the development of new production

1 Bryceson defines ‘de‐agrarianisation’ as “a process of: (i) economic activity reorientation (livelihood), (ii) occupa‐tional adjustment (work activity), and (iii) spatial realign‐ment of human settlement (residence) away from agrarian patterns” (1996: 99).


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Figure 4. Population density in Ban Lak Sip

Figure 5. Population density in Ban Done Kang

activities like livestock farming, vegetable gar‐dening and tree plantation. Traditional, non‐agricultural activities such as weaving and NTFP collection have been restructured and/or intensified and have become largely market‐oriented. Finally, with the emergence of new, sometimes extra‐local, non‐farm activities like

factory work and petty business and their grow‐ing importance in terms of both labour alloca‐tion and income, the villages appear to be en‐gaged in a dual process of livelihood diversification and de‐agrarianisation. The most marked changes have occurred between 1995 and 2003. In Ban Lak Sip, the pro‐


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portion of households engaged in tree planta‐tion has doubled while the levels of engage‐ment in non‐farm activities and livestock farm‐ing have recorded a 50% increase (Figure 6). Likewise, vegetable cultivation has also ex‐panded significantly after 1995. With a high di‐versification level in 1990, the changes have been less pronounced in Ban Done Kang (Figure 7). After a slight decrease between 1990 and 1995, household engagement in livestock farm‐ing has doubled between 1995 and 2003. Simi‐larly, after a period of stagnation, non‐farm ac‐tivities and vegetable cultivation have expanded since 1995. Finally, tree plantation, collecting and hunting have expanded gradu‐ally since 1990. At the same time that the villagers have di‐versified their production, they have also in‐creased the amount of time spent on livelihood activities (Table 2). In Ban Lak Sip, the total work budget has increased by 50% during the entire survey period. Most of the increased la‐bour usage has been devoted to vegetable crop‐ping and non‐farm activities. The latter were primarily linked to the adoption, between 1992 and 2003, of small‐scale trading, craftwork and temporary factory labour by some households. The relative contribution of vegetable cropping activities to the annual work budget has almost doubled while that of annual cultivation has decreased significantly (Figure 8). In Ban Done Kang, labour intensification has been even more marked. Essentially related to an extensive en‐gagement of households in non‐farm activities after 1995 (notably builders’ labour in Luang Prabang as well as small‐scale trading and craftwork in the village), the average household annual workload has almost tripled in 13 years. At the same time, the relative contribution of non‐farm activities to the annual work budget has increased from 39% in 1990 to 75% in 2003 (Figure 9). The two villages present similar dynamics with regard to annual cultivation. Land‐use for annual cultivation has strongly intensified through an acceleration of the agricultural rota‐tions (Figure 10). At the same time, the work‐load required per hectare of annual crops has

increased while crop yields have stagnated (Figure 11 and Figure 12). However, the en‐gagement of the villagers in annual cultivation is different in the two villages. Over the past fifteen years, the proportion of households en‐gaged in annual cultivation (about two thirds of the population) has stagnated in Ban Done Kang, while it has slightly increased in Ban Lak Sip to represent almost 80% of the village households (see Figure 6 and Figure 7). The two villages present also marked differences in terms of labour and land usage for annual culti‐vation. On average, Ban Lak Sip households allocate twice as much time as their Ban Done Kang neighbours to annual cultivation (Table 2). Furthermore, while the surface area allocated by households to annual cultivation has slightly increased in Ban Lak Sip, Ban Done Kang households have followed an opposite path (Table 3). The totality of available evidence – i.e. bio‐physical measures, local perceptions and dis‐courses, reconstruction of local environmental change – indicates a troubling land degradation trajectory in the two villages. Underlying this trajectory is an intensification of shifting culti‐vation (see Figure 10). Intensification appears to have limited consequences for soil erosion processes and upstream‐downstream soil fertil‐ity transfer. Linear erosion and sediment yields appear indeed to vary importantly from one year to another (Table 4) and if there is certainly a continuous transfer of soil from the watershed to downstream areas, the average sediment yield recorded at the outlet of the MSEC ex‐perimental watershed – i.e. 3.5 t.ha‐1 over a 5‐year period – can hardly be considered critical when compared to other observations in the region (e.g. Walling and Webb 1996; Douglas 1999; Gafur et al. 2003; Valentin et al. 2008). However, as suggested by local perceptions (see Lestrelin et al. 2008) and demonstrated by other studies in Luang Prabang province (Roder et al. 1995, 1997a), accelerated agricultural rota‐tions are responsible for a progressive exhaus‐tion of the soil as the reduced fallow biomass affects the maintenance/renewal of the physical, biological and chemical properties of the soil



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Figure 6. Ban Lak Sip, household involvement in livelihood activities

AC

AC AC

VCVC

VC

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TP

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CHCH

CH

NFNF

NF

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10%

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1990 1995 2003

Note: AC, annual cultivation; VC, vegetable cultivation; TP, tree plantation; LF, livestock farming; CH, collecting and hunting; NF, non‐farm activities.

Figure 7. Ban Done Kang, household involvement in livelihood activities

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VC VC

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1990 1995 2003

Note: AC, annual cultivation; VC, vegetable cultivation; TP, tree plantation; LF, livestock farming; CH, collecting and hunting; NF, non‐farm activities.

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ChATSEA Working Paper no. 14, March 2011

Figure 8. Ban Lak Sip, relative contribution of different livelihood activities to the annual time of work

Figure 9. Ban Done Kang, relative contribution of different livelihood activities to the an‐nual time o

0%

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1990 1995 2003

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Table 2. Average household time allocation (days per year) per livelihood activity

1990 1995 2003

Ban Lak Sip Annual cultivation 46 55 55

Vegetable cultivation 21 26 53

Tree plantation 3 4 11

Livestock farming 8 11 18

Collecting and hunting 22 26 22

Non‐farm activities 55 73 86

Total 156 195 244

Ban Done Kang Annual cultivation 25 25 22

Vegetable cultivation 16 14 18

Tree plantation 14 19 25

Livestock farming 8 7 4

Collecting and hunting 31 31 39

Non‐farm activities 59 89 325

Total 152 185 434

Table 3. Average area cultivated (hectares) per household, by crop

1990 1995 2003

Annual crops 0.79 0.86 0.95

Tree plantation 0.22 0.26 0.82 Ban Lak Sip

Vegetable crops 0.07 0.06 0.17

Annual crops 0.54 0.39 0.21

Tree plantation 0.38 0.90 0.89 Ban Done Kang

Vegetable crops 0.03 0.03 0.02

Table 4. Rainfall amounts, linear erosion and sediment yields in the Houay Pano catchment Sediment yields (tons/hectare/year) Year Annual Rainfall

(mm) Linear erosion

(tons/hectare/year) Total Bedload Sediment load

2001 1774 2.3 3.36 1.46 1.89

2002 1221 1.4 6.83 1.88 4.95

2003 1308 0.1 2.03 0.19 1.83

2004 1383 n.a. 4.67 0.87 3.80

2005 1377 n.a. 0.74 0.08 0.66

Source: Chaplot et al. (2005); Sengtaheuanghoung et al. (2006)



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Figure 10. Average fallow periods in the two study villages

Figure 11. Ban Lak Sip, annual cultivation average work time (days), number of workers (persons) and upland rice yield (tons), per hectare and per year

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Figure 12. Ban Done Kang, annual cultivation average work time (days), number of work‐ers (persons) and upland rice yield (tons), per hectare and per year

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Figure 13. Land degradation‐related causal links perceived by the farmers in Ban Lak Sip

Source: Lestrelin et al. (2008)

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(Figure 13). Land‐use intensification also fa‐vours weed invasion as the length of the fallow period is an important element controlling weed germination (de Rouw 1995; Roder et al. 1997b). In turn, weed invasion gets com‐pounded with soil exhaustion to affect the agri‐cultural productivity. In the two study villages, these processes have played a key role in driv‐ing the abovementioned increase in shifting cul‐tivation workload and the stagnation/decline of the annual crop yields (Figure 11 and Figure 12). In response to these dynamics, the villagers have employed considerable energy and re‐sources for reworking their livelihoods. With‐out fundamental change in the composition of their livelihoods, some farmers have started to cultivate larger areas and allocated additional labour to annual cultivation in an attempt to maintain agricultural production. Engaging more radical changes, other villagers have shifted to full‐time non‐farm occupations and untied their livelihoods from land‐related con‐straints. The mainstream trajectory, however, has been one of a general increase in and reor‐ganization of the household time and labour in order to engage with a more diverse panel of livelihood activities. By diversifying their activi‐ties, engaging in non‐farm occupations and on‐farm alternatives to shifting cultivation, a ma‐jority of villagers have indirectly reduced the limiting effects of declining annual crop yields on their livelihoods. The two quotes below illus‐trate this point:

“It has been seven months since I opened my grocery shop. My parents helped me with their savings. I don’t want to work in the fields anymore be‐cause there are no prospects for the young farmers. The declining yields make farming unprofitable for the time you have to spend. Selling is more inter‐esting” (Ms. Viengkham, Ban Lak Sip, July 2004). “Before, the village land was covered by forests which gave good yields for the

crops. But now, there are only young fal‐lows and poor soil which give low yields. When villagers don’t produce enough rice, they don’t have anything to eat. So, I think that people should re‐place upland fields by vegetable gar‐dens. Livestock farming is also a solu‐tion. Before, I used to spend a lot of money to hire some workers for cultivat‐ing my upland fields. Often, I couldn’t produce enough rice for the year. Now that I cultivate more vegetables and raise more livestock, by selling my pro‐duction, I can buy enough rice” (Mr. Bounlong, Ban Lak Sip, July 2004).

Subsequent to some of these changes, a new environmental issue has emerged as land deg‐radation has intensified in localized areas. In Ban Done Kang, the rate of firewood collection has exceeded the rate of reproduction of the re‐source base and hence contributed to generate an increased workload for the villagers in‐volved in the activity. At the same time, the rapid expansion of tree plantations in the two study villages has contributed to reduce the land available for agricultural rotations, foster‐ing soil exhaustion and weed invasion on the remaining shifting cultivation plots. Local inter‐actions between livelihood and environmental change appear thus direct and very dynamic. Land degradation has been one of the key ele‐ments motivating the decision of the villagers to diversify their livelihoods and engage in non‐farm activities. In turn, livelihood change has had direct impacts on local environmental con‐ditions and land degradation processes. This first set of interactions illustrates the way the environment is bound up materially in the ob‐served agrarian transition.

Environmental policy and livelihood adaptation

Environmental policy and, indirectly, offi‐cial perspectives on land degradation in Laos have also largely contributed to shape the cur‐rent transition. Although assessments differ in


15

terms of the exact extent and significance of the issue, the Laotian government and major inter‐national development agencies with a presence in the country agree on the fact that Laos’ de‐velopment is threatened by a ‘chain of degrada‐tion’ stretching from deforestation to soil ero‐sion and related downstream impacts (Lestrelin 2010). It is argued that forest clearing increases rainfall runoff which, in turn, fosters soil ero‐sion. Increased runoff also alters hydrological regimes and increases the frequency and inten‐sity of floods and droughts while, at the same time, eroded sediments accumulate in the streams and silt up wetlands and reservoirs. As presented by the Laotian government:

“Lao PDR’s abundant natural resources, especially water and forests, provide a strong foundation for national develop‐ment. However, careful stewardship is needed to sustainably develop these re‐sources. […] Rates of deforestation threaten to deplete many valuable forest resources over the next few decades. […] The major effects of deforestation in‐clude: increased rainfall runoff and flooding; reduction of underground aq‐uifer recharging; soil erosion and the ac‐companying downstream siltation of rivers and wetlands; biodiversity losses due to habitats destruction; and climate change” (GoL 1999: 19).


This sequence of consecutive environmental degradation processes is commonplace in the official literature dealing with Laos’ natural re‐sources (e.g. UNEP 2001; GoL 2003; MRC 2003; ADB et al. 2006). The upland areas – which stand for a ‘hot spot’ of the country’s forests and biological diversity (Chamberlain 2003; Douangsavanh et al. 2003) – are attributed a particular role and importance in the ‘chain of degradation’. Although there are no aggregated figures available, it is generally considered that shifting cultivation represents a key livelihood activity for a large majority of upland‐dwellers (Goudineau 1997; FAO 2001; UNDP 2002). Yet, in a general context of ecological fragility, ar‐

able land scarcity and endemic poverty, this traditional practice is believed to combine with population growth to engender deforestation and soil erosion which undermine farming ac‐tivities and exacerbate poverty. In turn, in‐creased poverty drives upland populations to further intensify their pressure on natural re‐sources in order to maintain a decent living (e.g. GoL 1999; UN 2000; UNEP 2001). The picture represents thus upland‐dwellers as trapped in a ‘downward spiral’ that pushes them inexorably towards more poverty and en‐vironmental degradation. In line with the ‘chain of degradation’ perspective, the ‘downward spi‐ral’ is further represented as a threat to lowland activities. In particular, increased sedimentation levels, siltation of wetlands and reservoirs, wa‐ter shortages and floods are often considered as the main consequences of an ‘improper’ man‐agement of the uplands (e.g. GoL 2003; MRC 2003). The chain of physical explanation is thus extended into a chain of economic and social impacts which represents upland shifting culti‐vation as threatening two major sources of revenue for the country, namely lowland agri‐culture and hydropower generation2. Despite their apparent coherence, the ‘chain of degradation’ and ‘downward spiral’ narra‐tives are not firmly supported by empirical evi‐dence. For instance, the estimated rates and as‐sumed causes of deforestation appear to vary quite significantly from one report to another (e.g. FAO 1997; MRC 1997; UNEP 2001; GoL 2005). Official assessments reveal also a clear lack of empirical data regarding the links be‐tween deforestation, increased runoff and soil erosion (e.g. UNEP 2001). While there are long term data series available on downstream sedi‐ment discharge, floods and droughts, there is no evidence whatsoever of the assumed impacts of upland deforestation and agricultural expan‐sion on lowland hydrological systems (e.g.

2 From 1999 to 2003, agriculture represented between 49 and 55% of Laos’ GDP with a very significant contribution of the lowlands largely oriented towards commercial pro‐duction. During the same period, hydropower accounted for 23 to 33% of Laos’ total exports (IMF 2005; ADB 2006).

PhD, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

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MRC 2005). The mainstream environmental dis‐course is also challenged by information col‐lected in the study villages. First, the biophysi‐cal measures carried out in Ban Lak Sip do not reveal a critical soil erosion issue. In particular, upstream‐downstream transfers of sediments are not as dramatic as the official discourse sug‐gests. Second, livelihood change in the two study villages does not exactly reflect the ‘downward spiral’ model. In contrast with the official perspective, many villagers have devel‐oped effective adaptive strategies (i.e. diversifi‐cation and de‐agrarianisation) that have al‐lowed them to control and/or avoid agricultural land degradation, limit their vulnerability to land‐based risks and, to some extent, improve their livelihoods. Notwithstanding their questionable empiri‐cal bases, the ‘chain of degradation’ and ‘down‐ward spiral’ narratives have strongly influenced rural development policy in Laos (see Lestrelin 2010). On the one hand, the idea that upland deforestation represents a major threat to both upland and lowland natural resource and economies has directly influenced the creation of conservation policies – e.g. Tropical Forestry Action Plan (1989), National Forest Reserves (1993) and Forest Classification Policy (1993). On the other hand, the idea that upland shifting cultivation and population growth engender a ‘downward spiral’ of land degradation and poverty has provided incentives for the reloca‐tion/gathering of remote communities closer to state services and with better access to markets – e.g. National Rural Development Programme (1995). It has also favoured the design of sepa‐rate development strategies for the lowlands and the uplands, with an emphasis on envi‐ronmental conservation in the latter – e.g. Stra‐tegic Vision for the Agricultural Sector (1999). Reflecting this two‐tiered strategy, the practical implementation of the abovementioned Land‐Use Planning and Land Allocation programme in upland villages has largely favoured forest conservation over agriculture. Between 1995 and 2004, 90% of the area considered by the land reform has indeed been classified as for‐ested land on which agricultural activities are

banned (GoL 2005). In many upland villages, the result has been an important reduction of the agricultural land available per capita and, ultimately, an intensification of the shifting cul‐tivation systems (NAFRI and LSUAFRP 2002; Evrard 2004; Ducourtieux et al. 2005; Lestrelin and Giordano 2007). At different times and under different forms, the two study villages have been sub‐jected to regulations aimed at protecting or re‐generating forest cover and ‘rationalizing’ land‐use. Land‐use planning and land allocation have represented major instruments for deline‐ating forest conservation areas and re‐organizing local access to land resources. In line with the official poverty reduction strategy, the two communities have also been receiving set‐tlements for populations resettled from neighbouring upland villages, with significant impacts on local access to land. Ultimately, land reform and resettlements have engendered critical situations of agricultural land shortage which, combined with natural population growth and unplanned immigration, have pro‐pelled and sustained an acceleration of the agri‐cultural rotations. Looking at the broad picture, by encouraging high‐density settlements under conditions where shifting cultivation becomes unsustainable, rural development policy has itself contributed to the poor reputation of shift‐ing cultivation and thus, in a sense, has been self‐legitimizing. Hence, upland‐dwellers have had to adapt their livelihoods not only to actual land degradation issues but also to the official discourse on land degradation and its policy outcomes. This second set of interactions be‐tween mainstream environmental discourse and policy and local livelihood constraints and ad‐aptation means that the environment is also bound up discursively in the observed agrarian transition.

Minor variations, major differentiation

The latter interactions between environ‐mental discourses, policy and local livelihood change appear even more crucial when compar‐ing the de‐agrarianisation process in the study


17

villages. If the two villages present comparable processes of transition (at least when observed through the time frame of this study), they also reveal significant differentiation. Ban Lak Sip villagers are very much oriented towards on‐farm activities. Over the past fifteen years, the general trend has been one of increased labour and land input for annual cultivation, vegetable cropping and timber production while the en‐gagement in non‐farm activities has increased only slightly in terms of both population and time. Ban Done Kang appears to be a step fur‐ther in the agrarian transition. Livelihoods are more diversified than in Ban Lak Sip. About one third of the population is fully engaged in non‐farm activities and households allocate twice as much time to these activities than their Ban Lak Sip neighbours. Finally, in contrast with the ag‐ricultural expansion observed in Ban Lak Sip, land under annual cultivation has decreased over the past fifteen years and annual crops have been replaced by teak plantations. It is difficult to disentangle the different cause‐and‐effect linkages that have shaped such contrasted situations. The fact that teak planta‐tions expanded first in Ban Done Kang and later in Ban Lak Sip suggests a wave of transition propelled by urban residents willing to invest in planted land in neighbouring rural areas. Thus, new economic opportunities and associated land conversion and land sale would have ap‐peared first in the areas close to Luang Prabang and, following the road, progressively ex‐panded to Ban Lak Sip and beyond (see Figure 1). Variations in land reform implementation have probably also contributed to accentuate local differentiation. As described above, the limitations imposed by land regulation on shift‐ing cultivation have been more important in Ban Done Kang than in Ban Lak Sip. They were also imposed earlier in Ban Done Kang. Thus, policy‐induced land shortage and livelihood adaptation are likely to have occurred at differ‐ent times and degrees in the two villages. Finally, different levels of tenure security may also have played a role. Ban Lak Sip resi‐dents benefited from the procedures established in the LUPLA programme. In particular, a vil‐

lage committee was established for the land‐use planning process and the plots allocated to households were officially recorded by the local authorities. Thus, while it certainly imposed significant constraints on annual cultivation practices, land reform also had the effect of se‐curing land tenure and limiting local conflicts regarding access to land. As pointed out by an interviewee:

“Before land allocation, people used to cultivate everywhere. Everybody was looking for the best plot of forest and there were many conflicts related to land between villagers. [...] Now that forest is protected and land allocated to each family, villagers do not fight about the land anymore. Conflicts between farm‐ers are now only due to problems of burning and uncontrolled fires in the fields” (Mrs. Viengkham, Ban Lak Sip, November 2005).

In contrast, land reform in Ban Done Kang did not include allocation and official registra‐tion of agricultural land to households. Inter‐views suggest that the process was clearly top‐down and non‐negotiable. As described by an interviewee:

“When I arrived in Ban Done Kang in 1973, the village chief allocated me the land of someone who had just left the village. Then, in 1989, the district de‐cided to protect a large area of land bor‐dering the territory of Ban Houay Thong. I lost one plot without any com‐pensation, just like many other villagers. However, none of us dared to complain. At the beginning, some villagers contin‐ued to crop on their former plots but they had problems with the authorities and were forced to stop. Many farmers were really angry but they could not do anything. I remember that one villager said: ‘I don’t care if they kill me; I am go‐ing to cultivate my land’. He started to slash his plot but he had to stop after


18

three days when the district authorities threatened to put him in jail. [...] Some lost all their agricultural land when the authorities delimited the protected area. [...] Others had to sell their remaining land in order to make a living” (Mr. Sanla, Ban Done Kang, November 2005).

What has been considered by a number of villagers as a sudden dispossession is likely to have played a role in intensifying the de‐agrarianisation process in Ban Done Kang. On the one hand, by threatening the viability of tra‐ditional farming systems, land reform has forced a number of households to sell their land and turn to non‐farm activities. On the other hand, the coercive measures that accompanied land reform implementation certainly created a feeling of insecure land tenure which may have incited villagers to sell land before its possible ‘appropriation’ by the authorities. Despite many similarities (i.e. biophysical context, eth‐nic distributions, demographic increase), what may appear as minor variations in policy im‐plementation have led to major differences in local livelihood patterns. At the time of this study, it seems that the pace and extent of de‐agrarianisation have been much faster and more significant in Ban Done Kang than in Ban Lak Sip and that, as a result, the economy of the first community has shifted very significantly to‐wards non‐farm, urban‐based activities while livelihoods in the second community remain very much farm‐based.

Conlusions Understanding patterns of agrarian change requires paying careful attention to both eco‐logical conditions and environmental knowl‐edge, as changes in ecological conditions are both causes and consequences of livelihood change while environmental knowledge condi‐tions directly local adaptive responses to eco‐logical change and more indirectly, through its impact on policy and regulation, local liveli‐hood constraints and opportunities. As a matter of fact, the material presented in this paper has

important implications not only for approaches to the agrarian transition but for the conceptu‐alization of society‐nature interactions more generally. In Laos, the prevailing vision of na‐ture in the uplands – the way it ‘functions’, the resources it provides and the way they are used, endangered and should be managed – reflects partly the power relations that structure the Laotian society (see Lestrelin 2010). The socio‐political and territorializing project of the state, the concerns of the lowland elite vis‐à‐vis ethnic minorities, the economic and political interests of the rulers and their international partners, all these subjectivities intersect with and influence the mainstream representation of the uplands as an area that needs rapid and extensive ‘devel‐opment’ interventions. In turn, these interventions contribute to transform upland societies and natural envi‐ronments. Nature is redefined and demarcated according to scientific criteria and state con‐cerns. Upland‐dwellers have to adapt their live‐lihoods to both this new environmental context and the new ecological constraints and issues that come with it. Through this adaptation process, the very structure of upland societies is transformed. In particular, the de‐agrarianisation process that is engaged – in re‐sponse to constraints imposed by both policy and ecological dynamics on upland agriculture – means that land, land‐based resources and activities are gradually losing their importance and significance in the everyday life of the up‐land‐dwellers. Planted with timber and mar‐keted, the role of the land in upland societies is reworked from a symbol of wealth and power to a commodity and object of speculation. De‐agrarianisation also means that a significant fraction of the upland population, especially the young, is now looking towards new, non‐rural livelihoods and lifestyles. Finally, the multiple interactions explored in this study – i.e. between environmental knowledge and discourses, de‐velopment schemes, local environmental change and livelihood adaptation – provide a perspective on socio‐environmental interactions that is quite different from the ‘modern’ concep‐tual divide between society – as subject – and


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nature – as object. As a matter of fact, the study illustrates that society and nature are partly co‐constructed, both in discourse and in practice.

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ChATSEA - University of Toronto T-Space...shifting cultivation and deforestation to downstream siltation of wetlands and reservoirs ‐ has had wide‐ranging impacts on rural development