Presentation from the WCCA 2011 conference in Brisbane, Australia.

1. Developing Improved
Farming and Marketing
Systems in Rainfed
Regions of Southern Lao
PDR
Pheng Sengxua
Len Wade

2. Project Background
• Southern Laos identified for risk of hunger & poverty
• Government recognises an economy in transition
• Constraints to production, market risk, labour, …
• Potential with rice, livestock, diversification …
• Multidisciplinary team for strategic & adaptive research
• ACIAR Project CSE/2009/004 – AUD $5.16 m

3. Rainfed upland
and lowland in
southern Laos

4. Project Objectives
• Diagnose and integrated assessment of farming & marketing
systems
• Optimisation, testing and adaptation of crop and livestock
technologies and marketing/extension approaches
• Sharing of knowledge and pilot scaling out of varieties, crop and
livestock technologies and marketing approaches
• Alleviation of constraints posed by drought and uncontrolled
flooding

5. Project Strategy
• Transect: lowland to upland, commodity to subsistence
• Systems research at 4 Research Hubs & associated districts
- Lowland Savannakhet (SVK)
- Transitional lowland/upland SVK
- Upland SVK
- Lowland Champassak (CPK)
• Adaptive on-farm research at 300 farms in 24 villages
• Scaling out in partnership with various groups

6. Project location

7. Research Themes

8. Socio-economic Consultation with
DAFO
• Discussed district statistics, plans
• Discussed key agro-ecological zones in
the district
• Selected 3 representative villages for
each zone

10. Study the effect of supplementary water, fertilizer
on rainfed lowland rice productivity

11. Multi-location lowland rice variety testing

12. Amendment of sandy soil
with clays (Bentonite and
organic matter)
Thasano station
Phonngam station

13. Trained PAFO and DAFO staffs on Experimental layout
and data collection

14. Post rice crop in dry season

15. Lowland GAP
Multi-location test of lowland, aerobic and perennial rice varieties
Aerobic rice
Perennial

16. Nutrient management
in lowland rice field

17. Livestock and Forages Component

18. Germplasm evaluation

19. Establishment of
forage plantation
in farmers’ filed

20. Farmer participatory trials of WST in DS
 To demonstrate WST (e.g. alternate wetting and drying or AWD)
at the farmers’ fields in Savannakhet and Champassak;
 To quantify the amount of water saved and water use efficiency
by using AWD
Photos by Ben Samson

21. Flooded tolerant variety Aerobic rice variety
Testing aerobic and
submergence rice
varieties Pond water monitoring

22. Knowledge
sharing

23. Conclusion
• Develop and demonstrate technology for
farmers
• Cooperate with ADB-IFAD project to
investigate the farming technologies in that
project areas
• Participatory research of rainfed lowland and
upland farmers

24. Conclusion (cont)
• Impact of the project results: on
livelihood, income and on sustainability of
farming systems
• Improving capacity building of NAFRI, PAFO
and DAFO (Master and PhD)

25. Conclusion (cont)
• Adaptation of flooded and drought rice
varieties
• Understanding the interaction of water x
fertilizer x rice variety
• Found new forage varieties and technology for
increasing livestock production and marketing
option for farmers

26. Thank you for your
attention