Rice is produced almost exclusively in fallow rotation (“shifting cultivation”) systems, but increasing population and land use restrictions are causing decreasing fallow periods, decreasing yields (from weed pressure, declining soil fertility), with a result in decreasing returns to labour, i.e. a poverty trap. The Lao government policy aims to eradicate shifting cultivation by 2010 and to develop permanent cropping on fixed fields and diversified production systems.
Rice is (and will likely remain) the staple crop of upland people in Laos. However, rice insufficiency is a serious problem for many upland households in northern Laos. It is difficult for village people to consider new livelihoods when food is not secure (adding risk to instability), but incremental (transitional) changes are more likely to succeed. Currently, people cope with rice insufficiency by selling livestock (“piggy banks”) to buy rice and by harvesting forest foods (especially roots and tubers for starch and calories).
