In the early 1990s, the Lao PDR emerged from a position of relative isolation that had preserved
many of its natural resources, e.g. the forests and water. The low population density means that the
country is often considered as having abundant arable land. However, the recent opening-up of the
national economy to the global market has brought significant changes to the agricultural sector.
Within a few years of this opening-up, the shift from traditional subsistence agriculture to intensive
cropping practices for cash crop production has led to an increased dependency on chemical inputs,
e.g. fertilizers and pesticides. In some areas of Lao PDR, this rapid expansion of cash-crops is even
threatening both food security and the environment as the speed at which these changes are
occurring is surpassing the capacity of the adaptation of local communities. Most areas affected by
these recent changes now face land scarcity, as well as an increase in agro-production demand —due
to demographic growth and changes in dietary behaviors — i.e. the increase in domestic meat
consumption and the booming export market. In this context, conservation agriculture has been
promoted by the Government of the Lao PDR as a sustainable alternative to current production
practices and to prevent land degradation.
Conservation agriculture (CA) is based on three principles which are: minimum soil disturbance —
direct sowing, no tillage practices— permanent soil cover —either with a mulch or with vegetal
cover— and crop rotations. The main objectives of CA are soil erosion protection and fertility
maintenance. CA was first introduced to curb degradation and soil erosion phenomena observed in
the United States of America in the 1940’s and in Brazil in the 1970’s. It was first based on no-tillage
practices and direct mulch cropping. Vegetal cover based cropping practices were then developed in
order to adapt CA to tropical climates. CA became more successful with the advent of herbicides in
the late 1940’s; and even more successful after the oil shocks, as the absence of soil tillage enabled a
significant decrease in fuel consumption.
This one-year study (from September 2009 to August 2010) aims at assessing the socio-economic
impacts of the adoption of CA and is based on household surveys in the target zone of an action-
research project which developed CA techniques from 2004 to 2009.
The first part of the report introduces the research approach from the selection of the study sites,
the successive steps of the field works to the dissemination of research results. The second part
distils the main results and achievements of the study with reference to the final products attached
as appendixes.