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WOMEN AND LAND ALLOCATION IN LAO P.D.R

By Chansamone Phengkhay

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.

Examination Committee Dr. Govind Kelkar (Chair person)

Dr. Barbara Earth

Dr. Reidar Dale

Nationality Previous Degree Lao

Bachelor of Science

Teachers' Training Dong Dok, University, Vientiane, Lao RDA.

Scholarship Donor Swedish international development agency

Asian Institute of Technology

School of Environment, Resources and Development

Bangkok, Thailand

August 1999


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Acknowledgement

I would like to express me deep gratitude to Dr. Govind Kelkar who provided valuable suggestions related to gender concepts. Special thanks to Dr Barbara Earth who provided valuable suggestions and practical ideas along the study. Special appreciation is conveyed to Dr Reider Dale who spent much time to read this manuscript precisely and providing valuable feedback for improvement.

Heartfelt gratitude is extended to my close friend Hermien Rodenburg, who encouraged me to work hard during this study and provided me with valuable suggestions and feedback during the whole process of writing this research. To my family, especially to my husband, Soupho Phenkay, who transferred to me knowledge on the land and forest law.

I also acknowledge the financial support of Sida, whose scholarship grant made my stay at Asian Institute of Technology and this study possible. Finally, special thanks is given to the Lao Swedish Forestry Programme in Laos, especially in Luang Prabang, with gratitude to the staff there, who provided me the facilities and support during field work to undertake this study.


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Abstract

The Fourth Party Congress in 1986 led to policies for restriction of slash-and-burn and clearing of forest for farming and to arrangements of fixed agriculture plots for shifting cultivators. Many Decrees related to the issue of Land Allocation were put on the agenda more seriously after 1990. The strategy of the government is to provide individual rights to land ownership under the process of Land Allocation. This strategy is interested to motivate upland cultivators to invest in their allocated land and to conserve forest lands.

A major purpose of this study is to examine household's access to resources before and after land allocation in Lao PDR Did the land allocation measures increase women's work burden and reduce their rights in land? Or did such policy measure benefit women's interests and increase their participation in decision making?

The field work was conducted in three villages: Thong Khang, Nam Phak and Thin Keo of two districts: Nan and Xieng Ngeun of Luang Prabang Province, in the northern part of Laos. It was found land allocation brought a number of changes. Some of the changes were a direct result of land allocation; other changes were indirect results because of the change in the system of cultivation. The unequal distribution of benefits between women and men under the process of Land Allocation is a major factor that may adversely affect the effectiveness of Land Allocation. This study focused on describing the changes in women's access to and control over land according to the land allocation procedure, also how it affects gender division of labor

Besides caring for the family, weeding in Hai for rice and also in the cash crop field is mostly the responsibility of women. But benefit of access to information and new knowledge of technologies is not the same for everyone in the household and tend to benefit men. For land issue, the land certificate was issued in the two villages with the joint names of both wife and husband. Only in Thong Khang, the list of entitled names for land allocation consisted of mostly men's names. There might be a risk that land certificates given after land allocation are mostly in the men's name in which case women will to have lost their control over land. Women and men's roles are complementary and intertwined, however, a lack of gender awareness can lead to policies and strategies that take into consideration only men's needs and interests.

Table of Contents


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Table of Contents 1 Introduction..........................................................................................1 1.1 General Background .....................................................................................................1 1.2 Land Allocation ............................................................................................................1 1.3 Gender Issues in Land Allocation ...................................................................................3 1.4 Objectives ...................................................................................................................4 2 Gender and Lane Use.............................................................................5 2.1 Gender Relations towards the Management of Land Resources .........................................5 2.2 Gender Division of Labor and Technology Change ...........................................................5 2.3 Decision Making Power of Women..................................................................................6 2.4 Lessons learned under Land Allocation from other Regions ..............................................6 2.5 From Previous Research in Laos ....................................................................................7 3 Methodology ........................................................................................9 3.1 Source of Data .............................................................................................................9 3.2 Data Collection ............................................................................................................9 3.3 Observation and Field Visit..........................................................................................10 3.4 The overall of the content should cover:........................................................................10 3.5 Selection of Study Area...............................................................................................11 3.6 Limitation of the Study ................................................................................................11 4 The Study Area ...................................................................................12

5 Access to Land ...................................................................................18 5.1 Access to Land before Land Allocation .........................................................................18 5.2 Access to Land after Land Allocation............................................................................21 5.3 Situation of Access to Land after Land Allocation...........................................................25 5.4 Comparison of Traditional and New System of Access to Land ........................................28 5.5 A Stricter Land Tax .....................................................................................................30 5.6 Women’s Access to Land ............................................................................................30 6 Gender Analysis of Labor and Agricultural Production .............................33 6.1 Labor ........................................................................................................................33 6.2 Household Production ................................................................................................39 6.3 Cropping Calendar and Gender Division of Labor ...........................................................41 6.4 Sources of Household Income .....................................................................................51 6.5 Access to Credit and Technology .................................................................................59 7 Conclusions And Recommendations......................................................64 7.1 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................64 7.2 Recommendations......................................................................................................66 APPENDICES:..............................................................................................70 Appendix 1: Q-1 Village Committee Questions ..................................................................70 Appendix 2: Q-2 Focus Group.........................................................................................73 Appendix 3: Q-3 Household Questions ............................................................................78

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List of Figures Figure 1 Number of Teak Trees Growing......................................................................................40 Figure 2: Cropping Calendar for Upland Rice Farming (Hai-rice) .......................................................43 Figure 3: Cropping Calendar for Jobs' Tears (Hai-Garden) ...............................................................44 Figure 4: Cropping Calendar for Paddy Field Farming .....................................................................47 Figure 5: Detailed income from Agriculture Section (Thong Khang) ....................................................52 Figure 6: Detail Income Sources from Agriculture Section (Nam Phak) others ......................................54 Figure 7. Detail Income Sources from Agriculture Section (Thin Keo) .................................................55 Figure 8: Access to training (Thong Khang) ..................................................................................60 Figure 9: Access to training (Nam Phak) ......................................................................................61 Figure 10: Access to training (Thin Keo).......................................................................................62

List of Tables Table 1: Thong Khang, the Respondent households’ Access to Land before Land Allocation...................19 Table 2: Nam Phak, the Respondent Households' Access to Land Types before Land Allocation .............20 Table 3 Thin Keo, the Respondent Households' Access to Land before Land Allocation .........................21 Table 4a: Four Phases of Land Allocation ....................................................................................23 Table 5. Thong Khang, the Respondents' Access to Land after Land Allocation ....................................26 Table 6. Nam Phak, the Respondents' Access to Land after Land Allocation ........................................27 Table 7: Thin Keo, the Respondents' Access to Land after Land Allocation ..........................................28 Table 8: Village Comparison of Traditional Access to Land...............................................................29 Table 9: Village Comparison of New System Access to Land............................................................29 Table 10: Overview Land Names on Document .............................................................................31 Table 11: Household Size and their available laborers, Thongkhang ..................................................34 Table 12: Household Available Labor. Thong Khang Village .............................................................35 Table 13: Household Size and their Available laborers, Nam Phak Village ...........................................36 Table 14: Household Available Labor, Nam Phak...........................................................................37 Table 15: Household Size and their Available Labour, Thin Keo ........................................................38 Table 16: Situation of household available laborer, Thin keo.............................................................39 Table 17a: Activity Profile Upland Rice, Thong Khang .....................................................................42 Table 18: Activity Profile Nam Phak and Thin Keo ..........................................................................48 Table 19: Overview of Annual Cash Income/1997-98. Thong Khang Village.........................................52 Table 20: Overview of Annual Cash income 1997-98 in Nam Phak Village...........................................53 Table 21: Overview of Annual Cash Income 1997-98 in Thin Keo ......................................................55 Table 22. Data of Rice Insufficiency ............................................................................................57


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Abbreviation

DoA Department of Agriculture

DoF Department of Forestry

DAFO District Agriculture and Forestry Office

GoL Government of Laos

Lao PDR Lao People's Democratic Republic

LWU Lao Women's Union

MAF Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

NTFP Non Timber Forest Products

PM Prime Minister's Office

Kip Lao money currency (1 USS = 4,350 Kip),

Source: Banque pour le Commerce Exterieur Lao, February 11, 1999.

Introduction


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1 Introduction

1.1 General Background Historically, the majority of Lao people were living on their agriculture. The people's living style has been related closely to land. Land is the most important natural resource for food production and therefore, the local people have had their own traditional knowledge and their own social institutions to work out the land use management in their community so that they could use their lad to meet their needs.

Farmers could obtain land by clearing and cultivating it with the tenure rights remaining during fallow period. This custom is mostly still practiced in certain villages, especially the remote ones because land is not yet seen by rural families as a commodity to speculate with for profits. And under the traditional systems, farmers generally had access to several plots of land, in the shifting cultivators' practice. The rotational intervals were long from 5 to 6 year rotation.

Rice is a major and predominant staple crop and about 40% of its production is from shifting cultivation in the upland area. With the long interval rotation, the plots have a long enough fallow period for the soil to be good enough for the upland agriculture. The rotational system is probably the best system in a situation where the village economy is still at subsistence level in upland areas of Lao, where there is very limited opportunity for cash cropping, access is difficult, markets are limited and population density is low. However, in the current situation where roads are reaching remote areas and the pressure on land is increasing, shifting cultivation is no longer the answer to assuring sufficient food production.

Lao PDR has a total area of 236,800sq km, situated in Southeast Asia., about 70 per cent of which was covered by forest 50 years ago. By 1981, forest coverage dropped to 47 per cent, according to reports of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) in 1995. The country is predominantly with 80 percent mountainous. Shifting cultivation was identified as a primary cause of the big drop of the natural forest. Therefore, the Government has a policy of encouraging upland cultivators who are practicing shifting cultivation to adopt sedentary forms of agriculture. The aim is to reduce the area of upland or sloping land being used for annual crop production through the adoption of permanent chop production and to maintain the area of forested land (Lao Swedish Forestry Program, 1997).

In addition to the establishment of the New Economic Mechanism in 1986, the government of the Lao PDR (GoL) has placed great effort on improving and expanding the economy. The main policy goal was to reform the economic system towards a more market oriented one, with a reduction of government ownership, starting with the areas of agriculture, forestry, industry and service (Country report on women in the Lao PDR, 1995)

Regarding the population growth and the different uses of natural resources and since the government has changed the economic policy to a free market system, many legal frameworks have been developed to support resource management and protection. The main instruments in this legal framework are "the Temporary Provision on the Management and Use of Agricultural Land Lao PDR. No. 22/PM, dated March 1989, the Decree on the Management of Forests and Forest Land, No.169/PM, November 1993, the Decree on the Allocation of Land and Forest Land for Tree Plantation and Forest Protection, No.186/PM, April 1994 and the Instruction on Land-Forest Allocation for Management and Use, No_0822/.A.F. August 02,1996.

1.2 Land Allocation The land allocation is the formal tenure system of the government who set land quotas for allocation to families. According to the Director of the National Program of Shifting Cultivation Stabilization, land allocation is the process of reallocating the plots of upland land that people used to clear already and they kept the tenure on without having enough laborers to cultivate it.

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For the reason of good administration, the village committee for land allocation is organized under the authority of village head and under the supervision of the district. This committee has its roles and responsibilities to disseminate regulations and principles on the management and use of forest and agricultural land to farmers in the village and to study, consult and solve villagers' problems related to land allocation issues.

The criteria of land allocation is based on the instruction of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on land and forest allocation for management and also to be agreed from local authority and the village committee for land allocation. It distinguish between criteria of land "Hai"(swidden-based agriculture for hill rice cultivation), "Garden"(swidden-based agriculture in a separate location at the bottom or above of the Hai some local people call also Hai-Garden for maize, vegetable, banana, fruit trees and cash crop cultivation), "Na"(paddy field) to know who gets what. The household who have Na and have sufficiency rice will not get any plot of Hai The household who have Na but did not have enough rice will get one to three plots of Hai with the size of 0.5 to I hectare per plot. The household who did pure Hai will get four plots with the size of 1 to 2 hectares each.

The agreement on land allocation is made under the "land use contract", signed between the District Agriculture and Forestry Office (representing the State) and the receiver of the right to use land and is acknowledged and certified by the village head. Land whit has been allocated can not be sold. "All land is regarded as state property", the people can receive ownership in the sense that they can use and inherit and transfer land, but they are not the final proprietors (Vientiane Times. 1996).

With the aim of ensuring the sustainable and efficient use of allocated land, the following land use options are therefore recommended and put in the land contract.

Slope Simple meaning Suitable for:

From 0 – 12% Flat or gently sloping land Paddy, terraced paddy, pasture (for livestock), fish ponds, short and long term fruit trees and tree crops, and commercial field crops with conservation measures and practices.

From 13 – 36% Land with moderate to fairly steep slopes

Terraced paddy, short and long term fruit trees, commercial value trees, tree crops and field crops with conservation measures and practices.

From 37 – 45% Land with steep slopes Growing commercial value trees, tree crops and field crops if necessary with conservation measures and practices

Over 45% Very steep slopes To be kept always covered with forest to prevent soil erosion

Source: Lao Swedish Forestry Program (1997), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Department of Forestry, National Office for Forest Inventory and Planning

It is wondered if the conditions above are acknowledged and or understandable to people. It is quite complicate and different than they used to, how they could identify which plots of their land are in which slope and they got only 3 to 4 plots of land per household how and what to grow.

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The receiver's right to use land has to follow strictly the conditions mentioned in the land use contract. The government will issue certificates of land to the receivers, if they can develop the allocated land to their benefit and according to the conditions for three consecutive years. The certificates can be used as security for bank credit. If they fail to develop the land however, they will be warned and fined. And if no improvement is made by the third year, the certificates will be withdrawn and allocated to another person (Vientiane Times, 1996).

The implementation areas of land and forest allocation are the focus zones The Director of the National Program for Shifting Cultivation Stabilization told that there are 77 focus zones of land allocation around the county Types of focus zones are areas of water resources, national protected forest areas, hydropower catchment areas, irrigation system areas, rural development areas of the provinces, new settlement areas and shifting cultivation areas (MAF 1996). This study worked in three of these focus zones.

1.3 Gender Issues in Land Allocation The farm household's success or failure depends upon control and management of resources including labor, money, land, agricultural inputs, food, and technological know-how. This involves a complexity of family relationships, as any decision concerning the division of work, the use of family resources, the setting of priorities and the management of enterprise and production affects each family member (Meynen and Stephens,1996).This means to say that both sexes are involved in all aspects of the farming system.

The land allocation procedure is provided private ownership of land to household which is mean husband and wife. In term of control and management of land, head of household who mostly in Laos is man, is the person making decision on division of labor and agricultural input. This leads to have possible impact on women with regards to access and control over land in term of power relationship.

The Lao matrifolcal tradition reveals an awareness of the caring role assigned to women in the gender division of labor. This role is an important and precious value system acknowledged and given prominence in the form of land rights for women. It rewards the one (mostly daughter) who stays with the parents and looks after them. However, the Inheritance Law does not incorporate traditions and 'customary' land rights. It promotes equality in the division of land between brothers and sisters. The implementation of this article might mean 'a step backward' with regard to the favored position for groups of women according to customary matrilineal land rights practices (Schenk-Sandbergen et al.1997).

The procedure of distributing land in the land allocation process has brought a new environment for cultivation to the shifting cultivators. An intensive policy of promoting stabilized agricultural systems as paddy cultivation or rotating upland and eliminating. Environmentally destructive forms of slash and burn. Many women have expressed that they would prefer stable paddy rice cultivation because the yields are better. This new alternative lead to the difficulties of adapting to a new way of cultivation including changes in control and management of resources. Changing cultivation patterns required the commitment and participation of women in planning and implementing.

As the number of laborers in family remains the same but the work in field is changing, the labor forces of the family are split to invest their labor in different pattern of cultivation, thereby decreasing their labor in subsistence crop productivity. The idea of getting money from cash crop is raised and with this money they will buy or replace lacking subsistence crops. It is assumed that the pressure on families' labors force will increase which affects the gender division of labor.

Although changes are needed in legal support to prepare national land use planning which is important to guide the proper use of land, these changes are not sufficient. Also needed are the developments of significant guidelines for sustaining the utilization of land. In this regard, the gender division of labor is an unaccounted factor, which needs more study.

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Another concern is that, in relation to the new cultivation practice, various meetings and workshops are likely to be introduced to improve the techniques of tree and cash crop plantation in this area and to bring new knowledge to local people. These measures have the potential to widen the gap between women and men, because experience shows that women often do not participate in these meetings. Reasons for that are many fold. Firstly, their role in agriculture is not acknowledged. Secondly, the representative from a household to be invited as the participant to a training is always0020 the chief of household, traditionally the man. Thirdly with regards to power relations between the two genders, women are subordinate to men and give priority to attend public meetings to the men. If women are not involved in getting new knowledge and techniques, they will not know how to implement a new practice. They will experience the change in system of cultivation as a mere burden causing them to loose interest to work in this new way. In that case, gender division of labor will become even more pronounced with men taking up decision of production in the commercial agriculture and women only assisting them besides being already busy searching for food everyday. The implementation of land allocation will not completely succeed when women are loosing benefits and status in the new system of cultivation, specifically the cash crop one. How can we begin and sustain a technological transition for the benefit of both genders?

As people are the actors of implementing the land allocation policies and adopting to the new mode of cultivation, it should be studied if women and men have access to the appropriate technologies and to credit and if the changes in division of labor are of benefit to both genders to ensure effectiveness and implementation of the land allocation policies. Any changes in natural resources use as land might affect people's livelihood.

It is necessary to analyze each situation separately in order to understand the precise nature of gender relations, the different factors that influence them, and how changes in gender relations influence people, social and economic development. Gender analysis could be one tool to make clear the gender-specific tasks, certain degrees of specialization, and differential access to and control over resources that affect women's decisions regarding technology and rights to land.

1.4 Objectives Overall Objectives:

An overall objective of this study is to examine the effects on women of the change in natural resources management under the land allocation system

Specific Objectives:

• To compare household's access to land before and after the land allocation.

• To analyze women's role in subsistence agriculture and new system of cultivation

• To analyze changes in access to and control over land and the new system of cultivation which effect gender division of labor and gender relations.

• To discuss gender specific implications and suggest measures for concerned institutions to improve women's advancement through their control over resources and decision making.

Gender and Lane Use


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2 Gender and Lane Use This chapter is organized in some major sections, namely, gender relations and land use, gender division of labor, the decision making power of women, gender and technological change which together might lead to an unbalance in power relationship between men and women.

2.1 Gender Relations towards the Management of Land Resources Gender relations refer to socially constructed relationships between men and women. These relationships are shaped and sanctioned by the norms and values of the society. The behavior, roles and responsibilities of each male and female member in the family are central to the gender relations (Sharma, 1995). Example, as we see in Lao PDR, women are less likely to attend public meeting, which is seen as a man's job.

Vink (1978) defined land use as a set of biological and technological human activities, engaged in for economic and social purposes. These activities are directed towards the management and improvement of land resources, in which both men and women should be engaged.

Leach et al. (1995:5) state, "Gender relations have a powerful influence on how environments are used and managed and hence on patterns of ecological change over time. Yet environmental trends and shocks also impact on gender relations, whether directly - for example as ecological degradation alters the gender distribution of resources, or encourages particular coping strategies - or indirectly, in the political and ideological use of environmental issues to uphold or challenge particular relations or forms of subordination".

A reason which kept most women isolated from taking advantages of the development process is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural construct of societies that established a norm for the gender division of labor and for men's and women's differential access to and control of resources.

2.2 Gender Division of Labor and Technology Change Gender implications of technological change by agricultural modernization are expected to stem primarily from the initial differences between women and men in the extent and nature of their involvement in farm and non-farm work including the domestic work. Further, gender implications depend on the extent of women's control over and patterns of distribution of household earnings and also the extent of women's direct access to productive resources. The technological changes impinging on such initial differences have differential implications for men and women in their overall work burden (Agarwal, 1991)

The farm labor demand and or labor division has changed according to changes in the ways of production, like in my assumption of tree and cash crop plantation, men are shifting to the economic productivity activities while women are remaining in subsistence cultivation.

Women get more work because of the socio-cultural traditions in given localities certain tasks may be assigned to women, which gives work in the reproductive domain. Working this hard besides sharing labor to their men on farm activity, result in an annual agricultural income of women, often exceeding that of their husbands if calculating every product in term of money. In spite of this substantial contribution to the household economy, they do most of the domestic works and their husbands mostly do not share this double burden.

The farming tools and technologies input have been changing over the years with development of science. Together with this change the extent of labor use for a particular type of technology has also changed over the years. Adoption of these technologies has implications in the amount of gender specific labor use (Blumberg, 1991:39).

The effects of agricultural modernization on rural women largely vary depending upon the nature of technologies adopted. Change in the labor use was different for different farms depending upon the extent of combined use of both mechanical and biological technologies (Sharma. 1995).

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2.3 Decision Making Power of Women Among household decision making patterns, it has been found that women are neither so excluded from decisions in the extra-domestic domain of production, nor so wholly in charge of the domestic (reproductive) domain as is implied by the normative segregation of these spheres of influence in community ideology, an ideology also reflected in the division of official rural extension efforts into "agriculture- for men and "home economics, health and family planning" for women (White in Sharma, 1983:12-15, 132).

The differences between men and women are defined in power relations. The consideration of gender, land use and environmental is differentiated in tasks and responsibilities, in resource access and control, in knowledge and skills in perceptions and identities related to natural resources, in differences among women such as age. class, ethnicity and in institutional settings of household, marriage, community and in broader geographical settings, including how environmental decision making in institutions is gendered (Mirjam de Bruijn et al. 1997).

In Lao PDR, in term of decision making patterns, the reproductive domain is mostly women's area but in the production domain, women's decision making powers varies from place to place related to the custom and ethnicity of the micro-society

Despite women's hard work, higher income and large contribution to household economy, it can not be said that increased economic contribution brings women power in the household's decision making (Oaklacho, 1992). The decision-making power of women who earn subsistence production is different from those who earn cash" (Acharya and Bennett, 1983)

Gender inequality is a worldwide phenomenon. Although there appears to be large variations in its forms and degrees at different places, women's subordination is remarkable in most areas. The root cause of their inferior/subordination position is manifested in their subordinate economic roles (Sharma, 1995). In Lao situation, rural Lao women are working hard as laborers in the productive domain of agriculture, in contrast they are not in the decision making process, and have less access to resources and are not getting loans.

2.4 Lessons learned under Land Allocation from other Regions Dorothy E. Smith considers social relations "the regular, repetitive and differentiated work activities of individuals related to one another in modes to which property relations are central". Underlying these social relations is women's subordination and powerlessness, largely caused by their lack of control over the means of production land. The effective exclusion of women from possession and control of land is largely the basis of their subordination and dependence on men in rural India (Kelkar, 1992, P.1.3).

This is why this study has studied impact of land allocation on control over land by women because these is a risk that women may be excluded from possession and control of land.

A case study from an Amerindian village in Latin America mentioned that the introduction of cash crops, which is transforming agriculture at large, has changed the livelihood of Amerindian villagers. They began to farm around 1980, in need of an additional cash income. Their efforts were supported by rural development projects through governmental agencies and NG0's. The agencies introduced a new variety of coffee that produces larger yields of beans. This new variety is planted in separate patches and orchards, close to the house. Peanuts were a totally new crop, and are grown as a monoculture in separate fields. The peanuts and coffee harvests are mainly for trade outside the community (Jara and Reinders, 1997). Multicropping, which is associated with subsistence plots has been largely replaced by monocropping associated with cash crops. Extra plots of land are needed, rich families have easier obtained it from poorer families. "The men farm these cash crops"(Padoch et al. 1985).

Therefore, this new productive allocation of land is affecting the women's labor conditions, especially among the poorer families. They have been unable to retain land for subsistence plots near their houses. Some women have to walk for more than four hours to get to their cassava

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fields. After a day's work, they have to carry 40 kg of cassava back to their houses. Women do this one or twice a week (Jara and Reinders. 1997).

This is why this study has studieed impact on women when changing cultivation from subsistence to cash crop because women might be pushed into subsistence only.

In 1855, Thailand opened to foreign trade, which resulted in profound economic changes. Farmers produced a surplus, followed by market growth and export oriented policy. The population of Thailand tended to specialize more and more in the production of one major crop (rice) and a small number of other primary products, selling these products for money, and using the money to buy various articles of consumption (Narkwiboonwong et al., 1994).

Since the adoption of the First Plan in 1961 until the Seventh Plan, the economic situation in Thailand has been changing rapidly. The economic expansion has been satisfactory and the average annual growth rate was around 6.6 percent between 1952 and 1988 (Narkwiboonwong et al.. 1994).

Such economic prosperity is not equally enjoyed by all sectors in Thailand Only those who are engaged in certain sectors receive benefits from it, while others, like the agriculture sector, benefit much less or not at all (Narkwiboonwong et al., 1994). Farmers are the main labor, producers and investors. They are faced not only with the uncertainly of farm price, natural disaster, ecological degradation but also the problems of their health. The disadvantage for these producers is that they did not have much power to bargain the price for their agriculture products.

In terms of investment, they used to invest lower inputs and apply a subsistence livelihood strategy but now they face to high risks and to high investment in producing goods for the market. The demand for the products and also the price are fluctuating.

The new way of production leads farmers to work more intensely in their fields using the modern techniques to get an output as high as possible. With high growth of demand of agriculture products, the multiple government agencies of Thailand had the policies to allocate land to people to encourage farmers to produce more for markets. During 1987-1993, many land settlement programs were set up to provide various types of land documents for ownership to people. With the receiving of a land document, farmers could use it to deposit it in a bank and ask for credit to invest more on their land. All these factors of high input, high technology and low power for price bargaining cause most of the farmers to run into debt and become poorer. This results also in farmers having to sell their land and/or loosing their land when they can not pay back.

Under the land allocation procedure in Lao PDR and with the high promotion to produce as for goods to export, this might raise the same risk as in the case of Thailand mentioned above.

2.5 From Previous Research in Laos The study Land, Gender and Social Issues in Lao PDR show, that women belonging to various sub-groups of the Lao Loum community have a long tradition of customary land rights by inheritance of land via their parents. This is called a matrilineal inheritance system, As a result of a combination of gender aspects, one of the main threats that has been identified is that although land is inherited by women, the name put in land documents is of 'the head of the household': for the majority the male. Gender aspects as division of labor, authority and representation of men in public life, less education of women, shyness and ignorance of women in understanding the meaning of land use rights, are the main reasons for the male-dominated land recording (Schenk-Sandbergen et al.1997).

To avoid loss to women of this invaluable asset will require careful monitoring of recent land decrees covering the distribution of land and forested land, the registration of land for taxation and the proposed land certificate for further land titling process. Women have as yet little consciousness of the long-term legal consequences of not signing such land documents. There is concern that the traditional practice of deferring to men in such public prerogatives could cause property disenfranchisement for women in the future.

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This will likely exacerbate gender inequalities in asset ownership (Chagnon, 1996 P.55, 56).

Changing cultivation patterns and physical habitats successfully require the commitment and participation of women in planning and implementation. Such transitions require recognition of women's importance in family decision making about food security and their high share of labor inputs. As yet, no social economic impact study on the effects of resettlement has been conducted. Resettlement is fraught with risks and difficulty: however, investigators have found that, if given a choice, women who perform much of the upland shifting cultivation tasks actually prefer stable paddy rice cultivation (Chagnon, 1996).

The lack of gender awareness leads directly to a lack of responsiveness to women's needs and interests when it comes to addressing issues of access to and conflicts over natural resources. Gender awareness and gender responsiveness does not mean that men's and women's interests and needs in regard to access to natural resources necessarily have to be addressed separately. "Women and men's roles are usually complementary and intertwined. However, the pervasive lack of gender awareness can lead to policies and strategies that take into consideration only men's needs and interests, upsetting that complementary, often to the detriment of the community as a whole(Arcellana, Nancy Pearson.1998),

The access to resources and adoption of technologies are often constrained by gender barriers. It is important for all development activities to recognize the difference between men's and women's roles in a changed system of cultivation because it shows the important role of women in agriculture. The difference in gender roles together with a change in agricultural system towards higher intensity will affect the balance of power between the sexes. Lessons learned from the above will be of help in building a sustainable land use and management system in Lao PDR and in avoiding the mistake of excluding women from use and management of natural resources in a newly imposed agriculture system

The question is whether land allocation, and the emphasis on tree planting and or cash income would solve the problem and would stabilize farmers' income and improve their cultivation in a sustainable way. Many questions are raised in relation with this such as: who will work on the tree plantation and who will remain working in the home garden for daily food consumption? Who will carry the burden of the invested money? Is the area used for agriculture still enough for food production? This study will concern itself with these questions.

Methodology


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3 Methodology

3.1 Source of Data Data and information for the study have been collected from two sources:

The secondary data were search from policy papers, project documents, books, journals and study reports. The primary data was obtained from the mixed Rapid Rural Appraisal (MA) through interviews, group discussions, and observation.

Secondary sources: from a record, published work, books, articles and information gathered both from government organizations and non-governmental and projects for a similar purpose (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Department of Forestry, Department of Agriculture, Lao Swedish Forestry Program, NTFP ) support the background study and support the conclusions' judgements.

Primary data was collected at household level and at group level, from different representative groups of local authorities which consists of the village committee, the mass organizations of the village and the selected farmers who were allocated land. Special focused interviews have been conducted to collect the opinion of senior administrators of some government agencies and projects' staff concerned with the area of land allocation. The results will be discussed in text.

3.2 Data Collection The data collection took place at 3 levels. 3 separate types of questionnaires were made for these 3 villages:

– Group Discussion

A Group Discussion with the local authorities of each village is used to gather general background information for preparation of comprehensive and in-depth research. It helps to visualize the problems and to describe the stated matters and facts. The target group is from the village committee, from the elders in the village, women specifically and from some concerned institutions related to the work of land and forest allocation in the village. Besides this, it is one way to inform the authorities of my study objectives in order to get permission to conduct the study and to further rapport making with local people.

– Focus Group Discussion

As the time in fieldwork is limited, a technique that uses time efficiently has to be sought. The focus group discussion has the advantage of gathering information in a short time. The target group for a focus group discussion is knowledgeable persons who are familiar with the culture and who are in a position to witness significant events in the community and who also can spend time with the researcher. I did a focused group discussion in each of the 3 villages.

– The focus group in the 3 villages consisted of the following persons:

– Thong Khans: 2 women and 3 men of Lao Theung, (Khamu) ethnic,

– Nam Phak: 6 women and 7 men of Lao Theung (Khamu) ethnic and Lao Loum ethnic,

– Thin Keo: 6 persons only women. of Lao Theung (Khamu) ethnic

The outcome from this focused group discussion has helped and supported me to interpret the major problems, agricultural activities and issues of land allocation in the village.

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– Household Interview

Households interviews were conducted through a checklist both open and close ended questions. It is flexible in sequence that makes respondents feel comfortable to add/delete or reorganize questions. This means doing an unstructured and structured interview that was not following strictly only to the rank of the questionnaires but listened to them and linked their answers to the other questions. Related to the time spend in fieldwork. I interviewed 12 households in each village and asked men and women half-and-half from these 12 households' members. In Thong Khang: 5 women and 7 men of Lao Theung (Khamu) ethnic, In Nam Phak: 7 women, Lao Loum 5, Lao Theung (Khamu) 2 and men total 6, Lao Loum 5, Lao Theung (Khamu) 1. In Thin Keo: 7 women and 6 men.of Lao Theung (Khamu) ethnic. A total of interviews were 36 in the three villages. The purpose to ask women and men from the household separately is to find out different perceptions and women and men's interests towards land allocation. The 3 villages information are written in the study area of chapter IV. The respondents in Nam Phak and also in Thin Keo are 13 because one household in each of these two villages, husband and wife both answered to the questionnaires..I encountered 2 female headed household. This is too little to come to any definite conclusions about differences between male and female headed households.

3.3 Observation and Field Visit Observation took place in villages and in some of fields from these interviewees to have the opportunity to see things that may be different from routine matters, to assess personal knowledge and experience for improving understanding, to learn things that people are not willing to talk about and to be able to better understand things.

3.4 The overall of the content should cover: Data consisted of information suitable for Gender Analysis:

– Activities Profile(Division of Labor),

– Access to and control over resources,

– How and to what extent the above constitute constraints or incentives to participation in development.

This results in the following data collected:

Socio-economic characteristics

Age, ethnicity, access to and control over land, income, sources of income, uses of income, expenditure responsibilities, occupation, education, training, organizations.

Division of Labor

Production - in farm and non-farm, economic activities, time allocation, knowledge, access to technology and technical information.

Reproduction - household work, time allocation.

Decision-making patterns - In credit, use of income, education and training opportunities, access and control over resources, acquisition of capital goods and assets and other domestic concerns.

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3.5 Selection of Study Area The research is designed to study the gender roles and relations found within the new system of cultivation. Three villages of 2 districts, in Luang Prabang Province in the northern part of Laos are selected. The selected areas are where implementation of land and forest allocation are widespread. All of the three villages are the focal zones of the province.

Village: District: Priority of:

Thong Khang Nan Water resources and shifting cultivation areas

Nam Phak Nan Rural development and shifting cultivation areas

Thin Keo Xieng Ngeun New settlement and shifting cultivation areas

In Thong Khana, there are many sources of river for Nan and for neighbor districts. The area is still covered with dense forest. This village was put in the priority village among other focal zones in Luang Prabang because the purpose is to protect the remained forest from the encroachment which will protect these remained water sources.

Nam Phak is geographically differ a little from Thong Khang because there is paddy field area and located along main road. There are group production and with the group guarantee their members could take loan from bank. The province had seen this village's potential and was classified this village in the focal zone for the purpose of strengthening the rural development activities.

Thin Keo is a focal zone also but focusing on term of new settlement because people in this village mostly move from other places to settle here during the war. The land allocation procedure prioritizes allocating land to this group of people to have their fixed plots for cultivation These 3 villages have similar long practiced rotating shifting cultivation. The selection of these three villages reflects three different situations of people access to land and their land use management.

3.6 Limitation of the Study The data collection was made during two months beginning of February 1999 to March 1999. This time is the time for slash and burn of the field. I could not observe during this short time a wide range of activities related to shifting cultivation in their fields. And most of the data are based on their answers to the questionnaires.

The majority of respondents are Lao Theung who speak their minority language (Lao Theung language). It was not easy for respondents to answer questions sometimes through translator and besides, it took time. They did not have any record of their households' incomes, expenses and the yield of their agriculture products in detail. They replied according to their memory.

The findings of this study, therefore, relate only to a small area, a small group of people collected over a short period of time. But the findings can be used to improve the implementation of land allocation as it proceeds in other areas of the country.

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4 The Study Area Selected Village

The study area is in three villages of two districts in Luang Prabang province, in the northern part of Laos (see: Map 1). The villages are Thong Khang, Nam Phak and Thin Ken and all of these villages are the focal zones for implementation of land allocation.

The land allocation process has been done through the all practical steps in every village of land allocation implementation such as:

1. Demarcation of village area boundary.

2. Updating village maps, especially on existing forest and areas, which should preferable, be under forest cover.

3. Survey of agricultural production, particularly to categorize households as paddy, paddy and swidden farmers.

4. Farmers make claims to their land.

5. Staff and farmers jointly register the land.

6. Farmers are given the opportunity to discuss the allocation.

7. Final agreement made between the village and the district authorities is signed.

In Thong Khang all the practical steps are finished only the tenure right or land certificate is still in the handling process.

Below is a brief description of those villages:

Thong Khang

Thong Khang is a village located in Nan District, 68 kilometers southwest of Luang Prabang City and 28 kilometers north of the district town of Nan. The village is at the sub-road which is 6 kilometer far from the Luang Prabang – Xayabury road. The land is mountainous with medium fertility, consisting, mostly of steep and very steep slopes. The forest situation is heavily deforested. The elevation range varies from approximately 480m to 1,380 m above sea level (see: Map 2).

No one knows exactly when Thong Khang was established. The village committee told me that the village was informally established in 1976 but many households used to live in this village many years before 1976. The three last decades, people of 30 to 40 households moved back and forth because of the war and also because of their ways of cultivation. In 1989, the authorities of Nan District announced that Thong Khang village was declared a part of Nam Nan watershed.

The population consists of two ethnic, Lao Theung (Khamu), 54 households, and Lao Loum, 8 households. There are 385 persons, including 196 women. Most of people did pure Hai (hill rice cultivation) and Hai-garden. And every year, they have plenty of fuel wood because they collect it from their Hai. The village-cultivated area is 333.1 hectares. The villagers' livelihood are based on natural farming. Their original belief is in ancestor spirits.

There is a primary school, which has to be shared it with a neighbor village. There are 5 teachers including 2 women who are government officials from Nan district. Mostly, the pupils study till the third year of primary school and then leave. The reason for leaving is to help the parents to work and another reason is that they did not expect to continue their study. The secondary school is situated so far in Nan district that even the pupils who finished their primary school mostly could not to continue their studies in the secondary level.

There is no market in the village. The villagers could go to the district market, which is 30 kilometers far from Thong Khang village. If they need to go there, they have to reach the market very early before 6 o'clock, because the majority of the vendors are not vendors by profession but, farmers. It is very difficult to access the market at the early time, because there is no car in

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the village and no public transport. One choice is that villagers have to stay overnight in Nan district to reach the market on time. Another choice, there is a car from the Shifting Cultivation Research Sub-program project's camp where is situated next to Thong, Khang village, some time the project's staff provides services to villagers to join them to go to the market. Mostly, the villagers do not need to go to the market because most of their daily subsistence foods are ready from Hai, garden, forest and river. Household utensils, soap detergent and a variety of dry and canned food the villagers can buy it from two shops in the village

Houses in the village are mostly constructed with bamboo and grass materials for the roof. Some houses are made of low quality as temporally houses but 5 to 6 houses are constructed with wooden and zinc roof. They have no electricity, no water tap and no latrine. The villagers use water from the spring of Nan River, around 150-200 meters far from their village. They fetch water from there and bring it home.

The land allocation process of Thong Khang village began in 1994 and finished in 1995, but the tenure right or land certificate is still in the handling process. The implementation procedure took time for a year to follow the mentioned all practical steps.

The village head administers the village with the help of 2 assistants. For the land issue, there is a land use planning committee in the village which consists of the village head, the village forestry volunteer, the head of the village defense unit, the organization for elders and the head of Lao Women's Union.

Namphak

Nam Phak is also located in Nan District, 55 kilometers southwest of Luang Prabang City and around 25 kilometers north of the district town of Nan. The land is mountainous with medium fertility, consisting mostly of steep slopes and some flat and gently sloping land. It has a quite similar elevation range as Thong Khang., (see: Map 2).

The population consists of two ethnic, Lao Theung (Khamu) 30 households and Lao Loum 37 households with a total population of 428 persons. According to the record of 1992, there were 69 households from which 8 households cultivated pure Na, 9 households cultivated mixed Na and Hai, 48 households did pure Hai (hill rice cultivation) and 4 households had another occupation. The cultivated area of the village is 414 hectares. The villagers' livelihoods are based on natural farming. Their original belief is in ancestor spirits for the Lao Theung Group and Buddhism practiced for Lao Loum Group There is a temple with a monk in village.

There is a primary school that has 5 teachers, including 2 women. They are government officials from Nan district and moved to live in this village Most of the pupils study till finishing primary school. There is no exact record about the number of students who could continue the secondary level but people said very few students. The reason is that they help a parent to work another reason is that the secondary school is situated so far in Nan district.

There is no market in the village but there are 2 small shops. The situation of access to the market is the same as in Thong Khang. In term of communication, Nam Phak has easier access to it because Nam Phak village is at the main road of No 13B from Luang Prabang to Xayabury Province and there are 2 times a day that the bus passes this village. Most of the villagers prefer to go to the market in Luang Prabang more than to the district market because there are various goods and there is no need to go so early.

The houses are constructed along both side of the main road from Luang Prabang-Xayabury. Khamu prefer to live together in one upper of the hill, they call "Ban Theung” and Lao Loum are at the lower site or "Ban Loum" ("Ban" means village). The Luang Prabang-Xayabur• road separates the two sites of the village. The river "Nam Phak" flows through the village from the Ban Theung site to the Ban Loum site and another river "Sanan" passes at the rear of the Ban Loum site. They used the Sanan River for a second crop of paddy during dry-y season's cultivation.

The majority of the houses in the site of the Lao Loum group are constructed in wood with good roofs. There are some nice and wooden houses also in the site of Lao Theung but less than in

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the Lao Loum site. Most of Lao Theung houses are constructed with bamboo and have grass roofs. It was noticed that there are many wooden materials under their houses as they are preparing to construct new wooden houses. There is no electricity but 1 household uses a battery twice per week to run a video, as this is one small business of entertainment in the village. There are 6 water taps but only one works. Half of the households here have latrines. The villagers have to use water from the Nan Phak river for drinking and also for household use. They make the small well along the edge of the river and fetch water from that well to bring home. In the dry season, the problem of lack of water comes up because the river has less water.

The village is managed and administered under a similar institutional set up of local authorities as in Thong Khang village.

The land allocation process of Nam Phak village began in 1992 and finished in 1994, but the tenure right or land certificate is still in the handling process. It took more time than in other villages of this district because Nam Phak was the first village of testing the land allocation implementation and the practical steps as mentioned above are new for the implementers and they have to follow them carefully. The ceremony for handing land certificate will be organized by the end of March 1999.

Thinkeo

Thin Keo is 37 kilometers southwest of Luang Prabang City and 14 kilometers far from Xieng Ngeung District. The land is mostly mountainous and medium fertility, consisting of gently sloping land and some paddy field land, around 16 hectares. The forest is heavily deforested. The village is at the Luang Prabang to Xayabury road of No. I3B (see: Map 2).

The village head said that the village was known under the name of "Ban No.7" (Ban means village) and established on 1971. This is one new settlement village among 11 villages for inter-migrant people who moved from the war area but many original people used to live in this village more than 50 years already before 1971. An elderly man told me that the original name of the village is Ban Thin. Nowadays is changed to Thin Keo.

The population consists of two ethnic, Lao Theung (Khamu), 108 households and Lao Loum, 2 households. There are 661 persons, including 329 women (in 1998) 83 households have cultivated pure Hai (hill rice cultivation), 23 households cultivated Hai and Na, 2 households have do trading and 2 other households have income because the man is a government official. The total area of the village is 1.484 hectares including home stead land, forest land, Hai 99 hectares, reserved land 160 hectares and Na 15.48 hectares. The villagers' livelihood are based mostly on natural farming.

The houses in the village are mostly in good condition with wooden houses with good roofs. Four to five houses are constructed with nice concrete materials. There is no electricity. I saw some water taps but they run out of water.

There is one primary school and a pre-secondary school (three-year classes). There are 5 teachers for the primary school including 2 women. They are government officials from Xieng Ngeun but their original village is from Nan district. The pupils in this village have easier access to higher education if compared to the two other villages. After finishing the 3-years secondary level they can continue the rest of the next 3-years of secondary level in Xieng Ngueng District situated 17 kilometers far from the village. They said that they go to school by bicycle, both girls and boys.

The villagers use water from the Nam Kan river 25 meters far from the village and with this river the households who have paddy field cultivate their second crop rice. Houy Sane River is a main drinking water source, 1000 meters far from the village. There are latrines but I noticed that mostly the villagers did not use them, maybe because of the lack of water.

They have easy access to the Xieng Ngeung District market and also to Luang Prabang ciry. There is a "Song Theo" car serving as private transport in the village. Besides, there are 2 buses a day passing the village. There 3 shops, 2 of this are small retail shops which are mostly sell candy, dry food and can food. Another 1 is a big, shop, beside selling the variety of daily

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consumption this shop provides transport services and buy NTFP products from villagers as retailed buyer in the village.

The administration system is similar to both other villages. The land allocation process started in 1994 and finished in 1996 and the land certificate is already handled in 1998.

Land Allocation

Land Allocation is the process of reallocating the plots of upland land Hai and Hai-garden that people cleared already so many plots and kept the tenure on without having enough laborers to cultivate it. Detail of the traditional access to land will write in chapter V.

This study specializes on the allocation of upland type land, which is predominantly used for shifting cultivation for Hai-rice and also for Hai-garden. The upland type of land is distinguished in the following types of categories:

1 - Agriculture Land

"Land type bearing no permanent production: shifting cultivation area, fallow land, deforested land and others... these types of land shall be subjected to allocation by redistribution so as to ensure that each family has land for production in accord with the labor, and capital of each family; advice is given on the type of crops suited to the land as well as the way to prepare and conserve the land" (MAF 1996).

2 - Land for planting tree

Land left over after allocation for the agricultural production, can be allocated to any family if they are interested in tree planting or allocated to collective divisions for commercial tree planting or it be may allocated to private investors for commercial tree planting. But this land type must be used only for tree planting which is absolutely not permitted in agricultural land (MAF, 1996).

3 - Land already covered with tree plantation from before land allocation

This is land where trees planted already before land allocation. Villagers grew trees on their own land without knowing it is agriculture land or it is land for planting trees so then they grew them to where they love to. Then, the formal tenure on that land will get a land certificate with the usual land allocation procedure.

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Map 1: Location of Selected Province

M. Nan: District Nan

M. Xiang Ngeun: District Xiang Ngeun

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Map 2: Three Villages of the Stud

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5 Access to Land This chapter will describe land tenure systems before and after implementation of the new allocation policies. By comparing the different systems, some suggestions may emerge about how access and allocation can more successfully meeting the people's needs.

5.1 Access to Land before Land Allocation There is little information available concerning the socio-economic conditions of shifting cultivators in Laos before land allocation. Land was free and there has been no restriction on how much land a farmer claims. It has been unnecessary to register land and there were no written land documents.

Land tenure in rural upland areas has followed the traditional system for centuries. Under the traditional system of access to land, people did not consider rights to land use but had traditional access. Farmers could obtain land by clearing and cultivating a piece of land with the rights remaining during fallow period. They consider that they hold the tenure right to use a plot if they are the first to clear it. Households who stayed in the village a long time already started out with many plots and long fallow periods. In this study, we will see that the number of plots they have access to decreased and therefore, the fallow period became shorter. Besides, Hai land, there was a limited available paddy field in the valley and near the village river. When people had more access to Na, then they use less plots of Hai usually with a smaller size because the labor constraints.

Traditionally, the households could keep a fallow period of 5 to 6 years, not longer. They would like to keep longer fallow periods but it seems that during further cycles this was not possible because of population pressure. Every year, they have to select the best plot among their cleared plots for rice cultivation. The best plot meaning that the plot has a fallow period of 5 to 6 years already. They select that plot through observation of the plant variety in that plot to know the length of fallow period. Some of their plots that they cultivated in the first cycle they do not access in the second cycle because other people take it and use it. And then, the number of plots in use and the size of shifting cultivation land per household changes with the length of time the plots are held during cultivation in one cycle. Therefore, this means some of those cleared plots are rotated among different households during the further cycle. Therefore, every year, many conflicts arose during the selection of a plot for rice cultivation.

Villagers have practiced forms of shifting cultivation in a rotational system of land cultivation. To follow this system and to keep fallow periods as long as possible each family had access to six or more plots of lands.

In this study, when the interviewees were asked about their customs of land inheritance, they said they did not inherit upland land or "Hai". They will leave only "Na" (paddy field) and Garden land with trees to their children. Both Lao Theung and Lao Loum coups in the three villages in the study reported this. Hai defined from villagers is the upland land where they practiced the system of shifting cultivation. I differentiate Hai in two types. When mentioning Hai, this means Hai is for rice cultivation and Hai-garden is for other crops growing beside rice.

Twelve households per village replied to the questions of how many plots and the sizes of upland land Hai and Hai-garden they used to have access to before the implementation of land allocation. Below are the findings in the three villages.

Thhong Khang Village

In Thong Khang village, we can see a big difference in the number of plots of land "Hai" that they had access to. The average number of plots of "Hal' or upland land per household was 9 plots with an average size of 12 hectares. The households live in this village mostly more than 25 years. Beside their Hai, some households had their Hai-garden and paddy field or "Na". They have had a land size bigger or smaller depending on the number of laborers in the household.

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As the village is geographically mountainous, there are limited places available for paddy fields. Table 1 shows the distribution of land holdings by land type among the households under the traditional system.

Table 1: Thong Khang, the Respondent households’ Access to Land before Land Allocation

Before Land Allocation (according to HH settlement’s year)

Hai Hai-Garden Na

HH

Settlement

year

HH

No.

No. Plots Size (ha) No. Plots

Size (ha) No. Plots

Size (ha)

1970 1 7 11 2 1.6

1970 2 10 15 1 0.5

1976 3 7 9 2 1.5

1975 4 8 11 2 0.7

1970 5 8 10 1 0.9

1975 6 10 10 1 0.7

1980 7 6 12 1 0.8

1975 8 9 9 1 0.5 1 0.5

1992 9 8 8 2 1.5 1 2

1974 10 12 12 3 2

1970 11 8 16

1980 12 12 18

105 141 16 10.7 2 2.5

Source: Fieldwork and Interview, February-March 1999.

Nam Phak Village

The data from Nam Phak village show that 2 households did not have access to Hai because they had their paddy field. The average number of plots of Hai and the size in Nam Phak village were 6 plots and 10 hectares per household. Compared to the averages in Thong Khang, village, Nam Phak has less plots of Hai and smaller sizes because some household here had more "Na" (Table 2).

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Table 2: Nam Phak, the Respondent Households' Access to Land Types before Land Allocation

Before Land Allocation (according to HH settlement’s Year

Hai Garden Na

HH

Settlement

Year

HH

No.

No. Plots Size (ha) No. Plots Size (ha) No. Plots Size (ha)

1973 1 8 24 1 0.7 0 0

1990 2 8 9.6 0 0 0 0

1971 3 6 6 0 0 0 0

1975 4 0 0 1 1 1 1

1975 5 4 4 3 1.8 1 0.5

1973 6 4 4 0 0 0 0

1974 7 7 7 1 1.2 1 0.75

1971 8 10 15 1 0.7 0 0

1975 9 7 7 1 0.8 0 0

1975 10 0 0 1 0.4 1 1.75

1974 11 6 4.2 0 0 0 0

1980 12 14 42 1 0.2 1 0.8

74 122.8 10 6.8 5 4.8


Thin Keo Village

For Thin Keo village, there were big differences in access to Hai land among households. There are 3 households who cultivated a hundred percent of Hai but their number of Hai plots was less than for the other households who practiced all of three types of cultivation Hai, Hai-garden and Na. The households who did a mixture of Hai and Garden like in households No. 1 and 3. It is noticed that the households who had long period of settlement in village had more plots of Hai than other households The average of number of plots of Hai and the size are 8 plots and 14 hectares per household. The range is from 20 plots to 4 plots and from 45 to 10 hectares (Table 3).

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Table 3 Thin Keo, the Respondent Households' Access to Land before Land Allocation

Before Land Allocation (according to HH settlement’s year)

Hai Garden Na

HH

Settlement

Year

HH

No.


1989 1 10 15 1 0.10 0 0

1969 2 15 45 2 0.74 2 1.46

1969 3 20 30 2 1 0 0

1970 4 6 10.2 0 0 0 0

1980 5 0 0 1 1.5 1 1

1978 6 6 9 1 0.5 1 1.5

1967 7 7 7 3 2 1 0.5

1983 8 4 4 1 0.39 1 1

1984 9 7 14 1 0.1 1 0.5

1969 10 7 21 3 1 3 1.5

1989 11 4 8 0 0 0 0

1977 12 5 10 0 0 0 0

91 173.2 15 7.33 10 7.46


Among these three villages, their ways of cultivation were not much different they all cultivate Hai, Garden and Na. But the access to land was different in term of plots and size. In Thong, Khang, the average plots of Hai was 9 with the size of 12 hectares. In Nam Phak, this average was 6 of 10 hectares and Thin Keo was 8 of 14 hectares.

The traditional system of access to land here is like an informal tenure of land. The pattern is not completely clear cut and complicated because it is dependent on the different length of time of the household's settlement and the number of household laborers. The number of plots and size of shifting cultivation land changes with the length of time of cultivation, with the availability of household labor and also with their capability to invest in it.

5.2 Access to Land after Land Allocation Land Allocation is the process of reallocating the plots of upland land that people used to clear already and they kept the tenure on without having enough laborers to cultivate it. Every households in these villages have rights access to land for cultivation. The plots and the size of land varied upon their different ways of cultivation: Hai, Hai-garden or Na. The criteria below is a measured implementation of land allocation in these villages.

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General policy related to land criteria

General policy on criteria of land allocation is given in the report: - The experience of the Shifting Cultivation Stabilization Sub-program Project dated 20 of August 1997 mentioned that in1992, the project was requested by Department of Forestry to start land allocation in Nam Phak village. The purpose is to test the suitability of new land use planning and the criteria are based on Decree no 117/MAF and stipulated as four main points:

1. Agricultural land should have slopes of less than 23 percent.

2. Agricultural land should be more than 100-300 m from water courses and roads

3. Two to five hectares should be allocated to each family, but more land can be for obtained if the labor and capital resources of the family justifies it. If land is unused for more than three year, the owner looses the tenure.

Practice

In practice, the land allocation procedure is followed the criteria agreed upon villagers below. This practice is mentioned from the people here and also written in the evaluation report of Nam Phak (the Shifting Cultivation Stabilization Sub-programme project, Luang Prabang, and in Lao version) where is the first village that land allocation was tried out in the project area. The main strategy is to provide agricultural land to improve rice sufficiency according to three main criteria, which were agreed upon with the village. First, the households who have had paddy field and have sufficiency rice will not get any plot of Hai. Second, the households who have paddy field but did not have enough rice will get three plots of Hai with a size of 0.5 to 1 hectare. Third, the households who have cultivated pure Hai will get four plots with its size of around one to two hectare each.

After land allocation, for the pure Hai cultivators, the number of plots has decreased to maximum of 4 and the fallow period has decreased to 3 years if people cultivate one plot per years. The results from the land allocation evaluation report of Nam Phak mentioned that the shifting cultivation area has diminished if compared to the situation before land allocation. The shifting cultivation has decreased its size to 45.30 hectare if compared to the shifting cultivation area in the year 1996-1992. As in Nam Phak, this strategy is of land allocation followed elsewhere.

The Decree used for the 3 villages in the current situation, however, distinguishes between Hai, Hai-garden and Na. This is different than the decree before where that distinction was not made. It is very difficult to clarify which document, instruction and decree have been acknowledged for use as the basic criteria for the procedure on land allocation in 3 villages. This is because all instruction are referring back to the previous Decrees and Instructions related, to land issues without pointing out the specific differences. The district staff said the most important point is that villagers and the land committee are agreeing upon the land allocation criteria together.

Land Allocation procedure in Luang Prabang is divided into 4 phases (Table 4a), which took nearly 4 years to finish the 4 mentioned phase as first practice in Nam Phak.

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Table 4a: Four Phases of Land Allocation

Phase Description

I For Land demarcation

– categorize type of land

– village boundaries

– how much land is to be allocated to each family

II Primary villages selection

– easy access by road or water

– land is allocated to families and villages

– field measurement

– contracts are signed and given to the land user, prepare for further land certificate

III Is conducted 3 years later and included land management

– issuing, of certificates for permanent land tenure

IV Evaluation

Source: A minor field study by Elecnor Eklind and Carina Johansson, 1997 Land Allocation and Land use Planning in Rural Areas in Lao PDR.

Specific case

Land already covered with tree plantation from before land allocation. This type is a specific case because it was not mentioned in the criteria above. The data mentioned for the three villages below show that these households grew teak trees mostly before implementing the land allocation policies. They grew trees on their own land without knowing it is agriculture land or it is land for planting trees. The figures that mentioned in three villages below show the number of teak trees growing (Table 4b). The informal tenure was approved through local authorities before land allocation. Then after land allocation, the formal tenure on that land will get a land certificate with the usual land allocation procedure.

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Table 4b. Overview Teak Trees Growing

Thong Khang Village

HH No. No. of teak trees

Years Planted Number Sold Sale in Year

1 200 1981

4 7 1980

5 5 1990

212

Nam Phak Village

1 3600 1992

2 200 1992 200 1995

3 30 1992

4 300 1990

5 30 1989

6 40 1995

7 2200 1992

8 500 1995

9 400 1990

10 800 1979 800 1995

10 1300 1991

12 200 1992 200 1995

9600 1200

Thin Keo Village

1 53 1993

3 50 1995

4 330 1991 330 1994

5 1000 1993

6 650 1993

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10 500 1992

2583 330

Source: Field work and interview, February-March 1999.

It was noticed that among the interviewees, there are 4 households selling their teak trees after growing it for three to four years. Selling in this case means that a buyer takes an option on the trees by paying but leaves them to grow for as long, as buyers like. The sellers felt sorry to sell teak trees because they could not use those plots of land until the buyers will cut the teak trees Teak trees take long years growing up from 10 at least to more than 40 years. Therefore, they worried that they will die all before getting back those plots of land.

5.3 Situation of Access to Land after Land Allocation Twelve households per village were replying to the questions of how many plots and the size of upland land Hai and Hai-garden they have access to after the implementation of land allocation. When looking at the table of data from these households, the mentioned criteria here are slightly different to the cited criteria above. Below are the findings in the three villages.

Thong Khang

In Thong Khang, most of the respondents cultivate pure "Hai" but when we look at the criteria agreed upon with villagers, they got some plots that are fitting and some plots that are not fitting to the criteria. For example, the data from the household no. 3 reveal that they got two plots but the size is 6 hectares. For household no. 7 they Rot 4 plots but the size is 9 hectares. There are other factors involved in the application of the criteria such as family size, family work capability and. or, the specific agreement from village land committee (Table 5).

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Table 5. Thong Khang, the Respondents' Access to Land after Land Allocation

After Land Allocation 1995

HH

No.

Hai Garden Na


1 3 6.96 1 2

2 4 4 1 0.5

3 2 6 1 1.1

4 4 8.62

5 4 8.02

6 4 5.88

7 4 9

8 4 7.68 1 0.5

9 3 3 1 2

10 4 4

11 4 6.85

12 4 7.85

44 77.86 3 3.6 2 2.5

Source: Land Allocation Record in Thong Khang

In Nam Phak and Thin keo, the data on land are almost following the criteria mentationed for Thong Khang. During the study, I could not see every household’s land certificate because in Nam Phak none of the households had gotten the land certificate yet. They told me that they will get the land certificate by the end of March 1999. They are waiting for that land certificate ceremony in which the certificates are handed to them. In Thin Keo, six households loved to show their land certificate paper. Some households said they put their land certificates in the cupboard with a lock and the person who kept the key was out. So, it seems that the land certificate is a paper of high value paper for them. Some other households had many excuses for not showing that paper because the interview was done in the evening and in the dark. The respondents were busy with their children. I noticed that they feel inconvenience to search for that paper in front of me and then I did not want to disturb them much (Table 6 and 7).

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Table 6. Nam Phak, the Respondents' Access to Land after Land Allocation


HH No. Hai Garden Na


1 4 7.37 2 1.5 0 0

2 4 4 0 0 0 0

3 4 4 0 0 0 0

4 0 0 3 3 1 1

5 3 4.5 0 0 1 0.5

6 4 4 0 0 0 0

7 3 3 1 1 1 0.75

8 4 6 2 1.7 0 0

9 4 4 1 0.8 0 0

10 0 0 1 0.4 1 1.75

11 4 4 0 0 0 0

12 4 4 2 0.7 0 0

38 44.87 12 9.1 4 4

Source: Fieldwork and Interview, February-March 1999

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Table 7: Thin Keo, the Respondents' Access to Land after Land Allocation


HH No. Hai Garden Na

No. Plots Size NO. Plots Size (ha) No. Plots Size (ha)

1 2 2.48 1 0.1 0 0

2 1 0.5 2 0.74 2 1.46

3 3 1.56 2 1 0 0

4 3 4.94 1 ? 0 0

5 0 0 1 1.5 1 1

6 1 0.66 1 0.5 1 1.5

7 3 6 3 2 1 0.5

8 2 0.8 1 0.39 1 1

9 2 3.5 1 0.1 1 0.5

10 1 0.5 3 1 3 1.5

11 3 3 0 0 0 0

12 3 5 0 0 0 0

24 28.94 16 7.33 10 7.46

Source: Field work and Interview, February-March 1999

Under the new system of access to land, the patterns of distributing land are clearer and there are special rules to follow. The number of plots and size of shifting cultivation land changes depending on given criteria. But in fact, the criteria are not followed rigidly but implementation is, besides the criteria also dependent on available labor and agreement with the land committee. The average number of plots of Hai given in Thong Khang is 3.6 plots with the average size of 1.77 hectare each. For Nam Phak, this is 3.16 plots with a size of 1.18 hectare each. In Thin Keo, where people have more Na, they got less plots of Hai with an average of 2 plots and an average size of each plot of 1.20 hectare.

5.4 Comparison of Traditional and New System of Access to Land There are big differences among households in access to land before and after land allocation in term of plots and sizes. People mentioned only the number of plots when asked about access to land. If we look only at the number of plots we would not have a clear picture of how much land people have access to therefore, the land size is an important key point to study people access to land. There are 3 types of land Hai, Hai-garden and Na that respondents mentioned in this study. The comparison below shows clearly people's access to each type of land before and after land allocation. To include Na in the type of land here, is done to explain only that Na is linked to the criteria for land allocation which determine how much land is provided to people but this does not mean that the land allocation is providing Na in this study.

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Table 8: Village Comparison of Traditional Access to Land

Type 1: Hai Type2:Hai-garden Type 3: Na Village:

No. of Plots

Size (ha): No. of Plots:


' Size (ha):

Thong Khang 105 141.00 16 10.70 2 2.50

Nam Phak 74 122.80 10 6.80 5 4.80

Thin Keo 91 173.20 16 7.33 10 7.46

Table 9: Village Comparison of New System Access to Land

Type 1: Hai Type2:Hai-garden Type 3: Na Village:

No. of Plots



' Size (ha):

Thong Khang 44 77.86 3 3.60 2 2.50

Nam Phak 38 44.87 12 9.10 4 4.00

Thin Keo 24 28.94 16 7.33 10 7.46

The data above on Na shows that before and after land allocation the number of the plots in each village is remained the same. Only in one household of Nam Phak village that they give their Na to their brother.

For Hai-garden, there is big change in number of plots in Thong Khania as they categorized-their land to the Hai type more but other 2 villages they got 2 more plots in Nam Phak, in Thin Keo remained the same both plots and size.

For Hai, compare the new system to the traditional access to land, their land size has diminished around 55% in Thong Khang, 37% in Nam Phak and 16.70% in Thin Keo When calculate the average size under the traditional access to land, Thong Khang had 1.34 hectare, Nam Phak had 1.66 hectare and Thin Keo had 1.90 hectare. Under the new system of access to land, the average size of Hai has changed, 1.76 hectare per plot in Thong Khang, 1.18 hectare per plot in Nam Phak and 1.2 hectare per plot in Thin Keo. Therefore, Thong Khang cultivate pure Hai so their land had large size than the 2 other villages, which cultivate mixed Hai and Na more.

The land allocation procedure provides the equal level of access to Hai and Garden land to all people equally. While looking at the policies' purposes procedure is reaching the goal of reducing the slash and burn areas the land conflict during the selection of plots for Hai cultivation. Hai and Garden land this land allocation. Besides, it is solved the land conflict during the selection of plots for Hai cultivation.

Comparing to the previous practice, both husband and wife had access to many plots of land and rotated to cultivate on it with a long keeping fallow period from 5 to 6 years, but they did have any legal paper.

The procedure of distributing land in the land allocation process has brought a new environment for upland cultivators. With a limited number of plots and in a shorter fallow period, changing allocation patterns, lead people facing to the difficulties of adapting the cultivation system.

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5.5 A Stricter Land Tax After the land allocation procedure, the land tax issue is raised to employ a stricter land tax collection system. It is important that people have fixed plots and size under the land allocation. The new land tax has to be paid in cash for all registered plots and assigned to a particular household, even when it is left fallow (personal interview with the village head). The current land tax is 4,000 Kip/ha for Hai, 2.000 Kip/ha for Hai-Garden, 7,500Kip/ha for Na and 500 Kip for a homestead land.

Before land allocation, land tax is not so fixed because it was dependent on yield, on number of plots used during that year, it was payable in rice or money on top of that was negotiable. An advantage of the system was that no tax was payable for land left fallow.

In the current tax system, the better of households have no problem in paying tax for all plots including the plots left fallow but poorer households do face the problem of payment. A consequence of this might be that the richer households claim more land whereas poorer household will not be able to do that. Poorer households said that they preferred to pay land tax according to the number plots that they cultivate only. Because of the complexity of the issue no detailed data were collected on land tax payments neither before nor after land allocation.

Two village headmen remarked that as a result of the new system of land allocation, the land tax issue became less complex and tied to a fixed number of plots. Therefore, the tax collection Figs increased after land allocation implementation. Female farmers said that the tax paid for land is not much and that now they can plan for their tax payment in advance because they know their number of plots and size.

It can conclude that after land allocation, land tax is increased. The tax payment can be planned so that villagers, especially women farmers do not have to worry about an unknown amount of top and reportedly ready to pay an amount which is known to them and is also reasonable. They have accepted that the use land is not for free but they can invest in it.

5.6 Women’s Access to Land In term of women's access to land, the land allocation procedure has provided equal possession to both men and women in Nam Phak and Thin Keo villages. In Thong Khang, it was different, the list of names who got possession of land was putting under mostly men's name. A project staff who did record these entitlement names with the land committee of the village said that the process of land allocation has not yet finished. He also added that the land certificate for Thong Khang village will probably be put under both names, wife and husband.

The data below shows that in Thong Khang, the land document for Hai and Hai-garden is prepared and listed in the registered book of the head of village. The Land certificate is not yet distributed. For Hai, the record mentioned that among 12 households who 9.0t Hai 10 households were putting on men's name and 2 households joint names. For Hai-garden, among 4 households who got Hai-garden: 3 households were putting on men's name and only 1 joint names. For Na, this type of land was not provided under the procedure of land allocation but there is 1 household here has Na. The family bought this plot of Na, They have "the buying and selling paper" putting under both name, the wife and husband and it is approved with local authorities (Table 10)

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Table 10: Overview Land Names on Document

Thong Khang Nam Phak Thin Keo

HH No.

H Doc HG Doc N Doc HH No.

H Doc. HG Doc N Doc HH No.

H Doc HG Doc N Doc

1 M M 1 M,F F 1 M,F

2 M,F M,F 2 M,F 2 M,F

3 M M 3 * 3 M

4 M M 4 M,F X 4 M,F

5 M,F 5 F F 5 M M

6 M 6 M,F 6 M,F F

7 M 7 M M X 7 M M

8 M 8 M,F M,F 8 M,F

9 M F,M 9 M,F F 9 M M

10 M 10 M,F M 10 M,F M M

11 M 11 M,F 11 M

12 M 12 M,F M,F 12 M,F

Source: Fieldwork and Interview during February-March 1999

In Nam Phak, Land certificate has been distributed specifically for Hai and Garden. The joint names were mostly putting on their land certificate. There is one female headed household, so the name on land certificate was under her name. Among 6 households who got land certificate for Hai-garden: 3 were putting joint names on land certificate, 2 on women's names because they got inheritance the garden from their parent and another one on man's name. For Na, there are same reasons as mentioned in Thong Khang case. Among 4 households who have Na: 2 did not have any land paper. One household had like the paper note under woman's name because originally this Na had belonged to her husband when her husband died therefore, this Na was transferred to the wife and another one was putting on man's name because he got inheritance from his parent (Table 10).

HH No.: Household number F: Female

H : Hai M: Male

HG : Hai-garden X: No have any document yet

N : Na (paddy field * : move out from village and did get land certicifate

Doc. : Land document

: Type of land respondents have

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In Thin Keo, the land certificate was putting mostly on both names. Among 11 households who got Hai with the land certificates, there are 3 households whose land certificates were putting on men's name only. This data is based on the respondents. As already mentioned that I could not see all of the respondents' land certificates, this might be putting both names all but the respondents told men's names. For Hai-garden, 2 households told me that they cleared these plots then they put men's names. For Na, in Thin keo: 4 households were putting, on men's names, 2 said that he got this Na from his parents and 2 others, they cleared these plots of Na so they put their names. There is one woman's name on Na, she got inheritance from her parent (Table 10).

The land document for Na has no formal paper yet. They mentioned their land document on Na means that everybody in their village know that these plots of Na belong to them and also approved from local authorities, This is important also for further register Na and providing formal paper to the right person concerning the status mentioned above.

To avoid loss of this invaluable asset for women will require careful monitoring of recent land allocation procedure for further good registration of land and land tax collection. Women might be less aware of legal consequences of a land certificate. They learned only that this paper is for proving their formal tenure on land. They can use it and can transfer it to their children but they did not mentioned or might not understand about the importance of putting one name versus both names on the land certificate Therefore, the land rights status should be take into account to protect women's rights of access to land by bringing this issue to discuss seriously in the village preparing in advance to make sure that women are also well understand the importance of land certificate.

After my field work in February-March, 1999, I learned that the land allocation was completed by early April 1999, in the village of Thong Khang. In the land allocation, most of the land certificates were issued in the joint names of both the wife and husband.

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6 Gender Analysis of Labor and Agricultural Production

6.1 Labor The farm and non-farm households' management success is very dependent upon the extent of household labor contribution. The available laborers of the household do the majority of farm activities in the upland system. In addition, there is the custom of exchange labor during peak laborers demand such as slash time, weeding time and harvest time for upland cultivation. For the groups doing Na (paddy field), they have very few exchange laborer practices. These groups of farmers usually hire labor during, peak laborers demand such as transplanting and harvesting time. Recently, the practice of hiring labor is also implemented in the group of upland cultivators because some capable farmers are not cultivating only rice in a plot per year but more plots than they used to.

Beside the available adult laborers, the children above ten are another group of laborer in each household. They could help the farm work only during the weekend. For daily work, these children are part of the supporting laborer of the household. Mostly the girls take care of their younger brother or sister and help to fetch water. The boys love to do short work activities like feeding pigs and chicken more than doing long term activities like caring of their younger brother, sister. When there are not young girls in the family, these boys should do caring work as well.

The table below shows us first the households' sizes with the limited available laborers in three villages. Next the solutions of each household are mentioned based on their reply to the question concerning lack of laborer.

Thong Khang

In Thong Khang, where mostly people practice upland cultivation, the available number of laborers is equal between female and male (Table 11). The total available laborers are 36, female 18 and male 18. The total members of twelve households are 75 so the dependent members are at 39.



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Table 11: Household Size and their available laborers, Thongkhang

Total Household Members

Elderly Adult Child

Available

Laborer

By sex

HH

No.

Total

Members

F M F M F M F M

1 8 0 0 2 2 1 3 1 2

2 4 0 0 1 1 0 2 1 1

3 8 0 0 2 3 2 1 2 2

4 7 1 1 2 2 1 0 2 2

5 7 0 0 4 2 1 0 2 1

6 4 0 0 2 1 0 1 1 1

7 10 0 0 3 3 3 1 2 2

8 7 0 0 1 2 3 1 1 1

9 5 0 1 1 1 2 0 1 1

10 6 0 0 3 2 0 1 2 2

11 5 0 0 1 2 1 1 2 2

12 4 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1

75 1 3 23 22 14 12 18 18

Source: From Fieldwork and Interview during February to March 1999.

The questions were raised if, they have enough laborers to work on their land, and if not, how they solve that. When they answered "yes" to the question if they have sufficient labor in the household, this means they have enough laborers to work on their land and they answered "no", this means they don't have enough labor In the latter case, they were asked for their reasons to the problem, 12 households of Thong Khang, village have given the answers below (Table 12).

The household number 12, an old man respondent replied "no*". He explained that only his son and his daughter in law have helped him sometimes to work in the field. Many years already, he worked in a smaller area than he 20t allocated. His son himself has a family and has to work for his family. The quality of working in the field is low so therefore the yield also.



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Table 12: Household Available Labor. Thong Khang Village

HE No. Yes No Responses

1 No hire laborers during weeding and sometime exchange laborer

2 Yes not hire laborer but exchange laborer during slash and weeding

3 No but could not hire laborer

4 No hire laborer during weeding

5 Yes

6 Yes

7 No not hire laborer but exchange laborer during slash and weeding

8 No but could not hire laborer

9 Yes have many cousins to help working in field

10 Yes

11 Yes

12 No* can not afford to hire laborer, I am poor and old and can not exchange laborer with others as well

Source: From Fieldwork and Interview during February-March 1999

About equal numbers of respondents replied "yes" and "no" to the concerned question of lacking laborer. The people with poor health and are old are facing to the unabilitv to exchange laborer like the case of household number 12. It means also that other people could not come or provide laborer to help these groups. In fact, it is the capable groups of people who can exchange laborers and hire laborers, who have the capital to invest on land and, of course they will get more output.

Nam Phak

In Nam Phak village, among 12 households, 5 households have cultivated pure Hai. The rest have a mixed of Hai and Na for rice cultivation. Cash crop they cultivate in Hai-garden. The total available laborers of twelve households here are 28, female 16 and male 12. The total members of twelve households are 75 so the dependent members are at 47 (Table 11).



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Table 13: Household Size and their Available laborers, Nam Phak Village

Total Household Members

Elderly Adult Child

Available

Laborer

By sex

HH

No.

Total

Members

F M F M F M F M

1 8 0 0 3 3 2 0 1 1

2 6 0 0 1 1 2 2 0 1

3 5 0 0 2 2 0 1 1 1

4 4 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

5 5 0 0 2 2 0 1 1 1

6 8 0 0 1 2 3 2 2 1

7 8 1 0 3 2 1 1 2 1

8 6 0 0 2 2 0 2 2 1

9 3 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 1

10 7 0 0 3 1 1 2 2 1

11 7 0 0 3 2 2 0 1 1

12 8 0 0 2 1 3 2 2 1

75 1 0 25 20 15 14 16 12


While I was staying a week in this village, the host of the household No. 1, who is the chief of this village never went out to work in his Hai and Garden. Only his wife woke up early and went out to the Hai alone. But both husband and wife said that they both make up the available laboreres of the family and go to work together in the Hai. This does not meant that the chief of this village did not work. He was working at home repairing the house, welcoming guests, preparing the village meeting and doing small business with rice borrowing. I raised this issue to understand clearly the division of laborer among the two available laborers in the household. The wife did mostly physical laborer and the husband did more social and technical work that is helping him to get more prestige and status.

When they answered "yes" to the question if they have sufficient labor in the household, this means they have enough laborers to work on their land and they answered "no", this means they don't have enough labor. In the latter case, they were asked for their reasons to the problem, as given below.



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Nearly every household said that they do not have enough available labor They could not afford to hire laborers as was the case in Thong Khang village (Table 14) On the basis of the information of investing, on laborers that in Nam Phak, the process of producing of goods is more important than in Thong Khang village, comparing the information on investing on labor, it is noticed, Nam Phak they invest more in laborers. This could be because they produce more goods for sale, as Nam Phak is situated along, the main road and has easier access to the market and market information.

Table 14: Household Available Labor, Nam Phak

HE No. yes no Responses

1 no hire laborer to do cash crop growing for Hai we did ourselves

2 no but we have to do according to what we have

3 no only one women and could not hire laborer

4 no hire laborer for part time and exchange laborer

5 no hire laborer for part time and exchange laborer

6 no do ourselves and exchange laborers

7 no paid already 2 year. using tractor for Na ploughing

8 no exchange and hire laborer but paid with rice

9 no not cultivate the whole area of Hai plot this year

10 no hire laborer to re-transplant, paid for tractor

11 no can not afford to hire laborer

12 yes


5 households who are in the group of not having, enough labor could not afford to hire laborers. That means that during the, peak time for labor, which is weeding time, the workload for women is extra high. The more so, because weeding is an activity mostly done by women.

Thin Keo

In Thin Keo village, people cultivate less pure Hai and more mixed cultivation of Hai and Na for rice. Subsistence crops and cash crops, they cultivate in the garden (Hai-garden). The total available laborers of twelve households are 34, female 18 and male 16. The total members of twelve households are 95 so the dependent members are at 61(Table 15)



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Table 15: Household Size and their Available Labour, Thin Keo

Divided per age and sex Available

Elderly Adult Child Laborer

HH No.

Total

Memb.

F M F M F M F M

1 8 0 0 2 2 2 2 1 2

2 5 0 0 1 2 1 1 1 1

3 5 0 0 1 1 3 0 1 1

4 10 0 0 4 4 1 1 2 2

5 4 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1

6 9 0 1 1 2 2 3 1 1

7 9 0 0 3 3 2 1 2 1

8 7 0 0 1 2 1 3 1 2

9 10 0 1 2 1 2 4 2 1

10 10 0 0 3 2 4 1 3 2

11 11 0 0 3 2 2 4 2 1

12 7 0 0 1 1 1 4 1 1

95 0 2 23 23 22 25 18 16


Every household said that they do not have enough available laborers in their households. When the respondents answered "yes", this means they have enough laborers to work on their land and when they answered "no", this does mean the opposite and then they were asked for the solutions they find.

As their amount of work and tasks are increased it is normal that the number of laborers should increased proportionally to the work and that the available laborers of the households. Beside, these households expect to get high output so that they have to work more intensely and spend more time than before in the fields.



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Table 16: Situation of household available laborer, Thin keo

HH No. Yes No Solutions

1 No Hire laborer during weeding, did hire 2 years already

2 No Hire laborer for re-transplant

3 No Hire some short time

4 No Hire 2 times per year for weeding

5 No Hire laborers transplanting and harvesting in Na. For Hai-garden, hire laborers for weeding and harvest-jobs' tears

6 No Hire laborers for weeding in Hai. re-transplant in Na.

7 No Hire laborers during transplant for Na, for Hai exchange laborer

8 No Hire during transplanting in dry season for Na and during weeding for Hai-garden of jobs' tears

9 No Hire laborers during weeding, harvesting time in paddy field (paid with rice

10 No Transplant (get rice as exchange)

11 No Exchange laborer of Hai cultivation

12 No Exchange laborer during slash, weeding and harvesting time


The exact number of hired laborers can not be seen clearly because most of the respondents said that they did not record it and that they did not have a fixed system of hiring laborers. Everything is informal and an irregular system concerning hiring laborers prevails.

10 among 12 households could hire laborers. Their solutions are partly similar to the other two villages (Table 16) and partly different because they can invest in hiring laborers. It was noticed that in Thin Keo village is located very near to the town with has easier access to the market and probably of that the process of goods is more visible than the two others villages.

The issue of labor is raised to assess their households' available laborers towards their farm and non-farm activities. And through the respondents' perception of labor, they already have faced problem of lacking labor in working on their land. Their potential of hiring labor was still low so the farm activities pushed these households laborers (both men and women) to work more on their land. However, since women already have a major responsibility of all reproductive work, their workload has become much heavier than that of men.

6.2 Household Production Depending on the availability of laborers as mentioned above, these households have prioritized production of rice and then other subsistence crops and after that cash crops. This section is listing the major crops grown. Livestock is an important way of agriculture production for subsistence and for cash income as well.



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Before land allocation, the major crops of cultivation in these villages were rice, maize, bean, paper mulberry, banana, pumpkin, vegetables, ginger, jobs' tears, sesame, teak trees and fruit tree. For livestock, they raised pig, poultry, goat, cow and buffalo. There are very few households involved in fishery in these villages. The household production mentioned above is mostly for subsistence. They sell small amounts of livestock, sesame, paper mulberry and rice.

In this study, teak trees' plantations are a long term production for households. Households planted teak trees mostly before the procedure of land allocation. Teak was grown in small numbers but even this small quantity will have a high value in future. Villagers plant it along the main road mostly in Nam Phak and Thin Keo. There were very few teak trees in Thong Khang village (Figure 1)

Figure 1 Number of Teak Trees Growing

After 4-6 years of implementing land allocation, the variety in agricultural production has much remained the same but the quantity is lower in some crops such as maize and beans. Only jobs' tears 1have changed from being a subsistence crop to being a well sought after cash crop to most of the villagers. This change was observed as well in the interviewee's households.

Traditionally, the Khamu (and perhaps also Lao Loum) have grown jobs' tears in small quantities in a mixed cropping system with upland rice. The crop produces grains of the size of sorghum and the grain has traditionally been used for making local sweet drinks (by boiling. the grains), Lao hai (rice wine) and animal fodder (good pig feed) Jobs' tears have in the past just been a very minor crop and on a global scale have never been important. This is one of the reasons why only so little is known and written about jobs' tears.

In the past 2 years, farmers were suddenly made aware of the high market value of the crop. Because it provides a good cash income, more and more farmers would like to grow this crop. This is also a result from the involvement of an active company promoting the crop and helping the farmers with inputs (Vientiane Times. Tune 1999)

The yield is also higher than rice (2 - 2.5 t/ha compared to 1.5 t/ha), it is quite easy to cultivate and the price and marketing opportunities have been good. The crop is quite drought resistant and requires only 2 weeding compared to upland rice where four weeding are common.

For two years, jobs' tears were exported in large quantities to Thailand and China. Last year the production in Luang Prabang alone was about 5,000 tons. It is thus understandable why jobs' tears has been so popular amongst farmers.

1 The scientific name of job's tears is Coix lachryma-jobi L. It is a member of the grain family and is a cereal just Like rice, corn and wheat



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For livestock, the villagers said that they continue to raise pig, poultry, cow, buffalo and goat but not so many as many years ago because of the problem of thieves who lack of food, and also because they replaced maize, a fodder with jobs' tears. Then the result is more cash but less livestock.

Beside the agriculture and livestock products, villagers' livelihood is based on forest products for consumption and sale. The major non-timber forest products for villagers are bloom grass, mulberry, bamboo shoot, young rattan, forest vegetable, mushroom, bird, rat, snake and etc.. The villagers said that all these forestry products are still available but the quantity has much decreased if compare to the previous decade. They said that because the population has increased and used the forest products so quick and also because the forest density is degraded therefore, these Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) can not be recovered completely in a short time.

It can be concluded that the prominent change of jobs' tears growing is from subsistence crop to be the new cash crop for these people. This crop used to grow in a mixed cropping system with upland rice in one plot of Hai. Two years ago, this crop has changed to growing in large scale in the separated plots. Therefore, this change affects more the system of cultivation when this crop is an additional crop planted on the fallow land, and the fallow period has become shorter than 3 years.

As land use has been changed, the households' production activities are directed towards the management and improvement of land resources, in which both men and women ought to be engaged as complementary and intertwined laborers.

6.3 Cropping Calendar and Gender Division of Labor The cropping calendar can give an indication of the time needed for productive tasks. From that an estimation can be made to what extent, the people can manage all of their household farm activities taking time allocation and available laborers into account. This section is mentioning of the calendars' three main crops, which are cultivated mostly by these households. The overlapping time of farm activities makes it hard to work and to manage households.

The productive activities have been asked in depth from 3 households of each village, with additional views from the group discussion. The purpose is to know the shared perception of men and women involved in agriculture, livestock and services which are leading to get cash income for their households. In addition it also serves the purpose of getting a picture of what men and women do in their reproductive work.

Thong Khang

In Thong Khang, people are cultivating pure Hai and Hai-Garden. The Hai cropping calendar for the upland rice activities is described below (Figure 8). The activities are taking the long period of nearly a whole year. Beside upland rice growing, people grow other crops like maize, vegetables and jobs' tears in their Hai-garden. Some households cultivate other crops than rice in a separate plot to their Hai. Some used to crow in a mixed cultivating system in their Hai. It means that in one plot they cultivate upland rice mixed with maize and others crops. The families, who did large scale of jobs' tears and maize, they prefer to cultivate it in the separated plots from Hai (Hai for rice). The cropping calendars for maize and jobs' tears are similar in activities and equally time consume (Figure 9)

Slash, clearing and weeding time are the hardest work for upland rice cultivators. People said that the slash time took place 35 to 40 days and should have total laborers at least 70 laborers to work on one plot of Hai. Weeding work requires 4 times from 55 to 65 days per season. Compared to previous practice before land allocation the labor requirements for weeding have increased. This burden is taken mostly by women when people could have longer fallow periods and the weeding required 3 times and with 14 days weeding days less. Weeding is a major work to maintain the rice yield. In a plot of Hai, the needed total labor is more than 130 laborers to work on this activity. The first and the fourth weeding the main laborers in household did by



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themselves, corn and women equally. During the 2nd and the 3rd weeding, which are difficult and take time for weeding because the rice plant is grown up to 20-30 centimeters high, the weeding work requires more precision. The majority of laborers who were doing this precise work are women (Table 17a).

Table 17a: Activity Profile Upland Rice, Thong Khang

No. Activities Women Men

Upland Rice cultivation

1 Land preparation + +

2 Slash; clearing + +

3 Burning - +

4 Re-clearing + +

5 Make fence & but + ++

6 Seeding + +

7 1st Weeding + +

2nd Weeding ++* +*

3rd Weeding ++* +*

4th Weeding + +

8 Harvesting + +

9 Threshing + +

10 Transporting and Storing + +



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Figure 2: Cropping Calendar for Upland Rice Farming (Hai-rice)

month activities

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Land preparation

x

Slash/clearing x xxx

Burning --- x

Re-clearing x xx

Making Fence and Hut

xx

Seeding xxx

Weeding xx xx xxx xxx xxx

Harvesting xx

Threshing x

Transporting and storing

x

(---): period of keeping weeds dry



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Figure 3: Cropping Calendar for Jobs' Tears (Hai-Garden)

month activities


Land preparation

Xx

Slash/clearing Xxx

Burning xx

Re-clearing xxx

Make fence and hut

xx

Seeding xxx

Weeding xxx xxx x

Harvesting xx

Threshing xx

Transporting and storing

xx x

Job's tears is, nowadays an important choice of household production for cash income_ Again, women are responsible more on the weeding work (Table 15b).



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Table 17b: Activity Profile other Activities than Rice Production, Thong Khang

No. Activities Women Men

Hai-gardening for cash crop jobs' tears Women Men

1 Land preparation

2 Slash/clearing +* +*

3 Burning - +

4 Re-clearing + +

5 Make fence & but - +

6 Seeding + +

7 1st Weeding ++* +*

2nd Weeding + +

8 Harvesting +* +*

9 Threshing - +


Livestock

1 Feeding pigs + +

2 Feeding poultry + +

3 Cleaning poultry pen + -

3 Animal Husbandry for pigs and cattle - +

4 Cow and buffalo - +

5 Goat + +

Handicraft

1 Bamboo works for kitchen use + ++

2 Thatch grass-roof making ++ +

3 Rice-basket making - +

4 Bamboo Mat weaving + +

Labor Services & NTFP collection

1 Weeding + +



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2 Harvesting + +

3 NTFP collecting ++ +

Household Works

1 Collect fire wood ++ +

2 Fetching water ++ +

3 Cooking + -

4 Cleaning house + -

5 Washing clothes ++ +

6 Take care children/eider people ++ +

7 Food searching from forest ++ +

8 Hunting - +

9 Catching fish + +

* hire laborers (sometimes)

The activities above (Table 15a and b) described what women and men do related to the list of activities. The data show us that women's work covered 51.60% of all activities and men in 48.38% of all activities. Their activities among both genders are different. Productive activity is shown from this profile, for women are done less than men. For household work, women are involving much more than men. This activity profile of Thong Khang shows that women do more reproductive work and their productive activities which link to their reproductive role like weeding. Women are doing less in term of the technical division of labor. In productive work, weeding is their major activity, which is mostly taking all of their time of cultivation.

Nam Phak and Thin Keo

In these two villages, the system of cultivation is almost the same. People practice less pure Hai than in Thong Khang. They practice the mixed system of Hai (rice) and Hai-garden, Na and Hai and some others are doing Na and Hai-Garden, dependent on the type of land they have. The households who have Na are happier with the rice yield than the ones who are cultivating pure Hai. In Na cultivation, people can do 2 seasons rice crop, dry and rainy season rice plantation (Figure 10). Their paddy field "Na" are located almost next to the main river of the villages. People construct a weir as traditional small scale irrigation to get water from the river during their second crop of rice. During the dry season, they could not grow rice in the whole paddy field because of the drought problem. But sometimes, they faced the problem of flooding as well. The time allocation for these 2 seasons crop is almost the whole year as for Hai but the quality of rice yield is different.



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Figure 4: Cropping Calendar for Paddy Field Farming

month Activities


Selection Seed XX **

Soaking XX *

Making dikes X *

Making fence X *

Ploughing X *

Sowing X *

Uprooting Seedling X **

Transplanting X X **

Watching water *** XX XX

Weeding * *** X XX XX

Harvesting ** XX

Threshing ** X X

Transporting and

storing

** XX

(X): for wet season rice cultivation (from April to November)

(*): for dry season rice cultivation (from end of November to March)



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People do not have much leisure time, because of their farm activities mentioned in the cropping calendar above. They spend most of their time on agriculture. They said they only did not go to the Hai during "Wan Sinh"2 and during the time of keeping the weed dry after slashing. The total of "Wan Sinh" is 48 days per year (4days per month x 12 months). The time for keeping the weed dry is around 30 days so, the total for not going to the Hai is 78 days per year. When they said that they did not go to the Hai this does not mean that they are free. They, both men and women, have been using this period for searching for food. Women and young girls mostly do non-timber forest product's (NTFP) collection for consumption and for sale as well. Some of the men are organizing themselves in alcohol drinking informal groups during the long days of Wan Sinh. Upland people do not have much choice, in term of occupation. As their region is in the remote area with an agricultural base the system of hiring themselves as laborer is still limited and seasonal. If we look at the activity profice we find much the same as in Thong Khang (Table 16).

Table 18: Activity Profile Nam Phak and Thin Keo

No. Activities

Upland Rice cultivation

Women Men


2 Slash/ clearing + +

3 Burning - +

4 Re-clearing + +

5 Make fence & but + +

6 Seeding + +

7 Weeding ++* +*

8 Harvesting + +

9 Threshing - +


Paddy rice plantation

1 Selection Seed + -

2 Soaking + -

3 Making dikes - +

4 Making fence - +

5 Ploughing - +

6 Harrowing - +

2 A day honor of Buddha every two weeks



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7 Sowing + +

8 Uprooting Seedling ++ +

9 Transplanting ++* +

10 Watching water - +

11 Weeding ++ +

12 Harvesting ++* +

13 Threshing + ++

14 Transporting + +

15 And Storing + +

Hai-gardening for cash crop/jobs' tears


2 Slash/clearing +* +*

3 Burning - +

4 Re-clearing + +

5 Make fence & but - +

6 Seeding + +

7 Weeding ++* +

8 Harvesting. + +

9 Threshing + +

10 Transporting. and Storing + +

Livestock

1 Feeding pies + +

2 Feeding poultry + +

3 Cleaning poultry pen +

4 Animal Husbandry for pies and cattle - +

5 Cow and buffalo - +

6 Goat - +

Handicraft



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1 Bamboo works + ++

2 Thatch grass-roof making ++ +

3 Rice-basket making - +

4 Weaving + -

Labors Services & NTFP collection

1 Weeding + +

2 Harvesting + +

3 NTFP collecting ++ +

4 Transplanting ++ +

Household Works

1 Collect fire wood ++ +

2 Fetching water ++ +

3 Cooking + -

4 Cleaning. house + -

5 Washing clothes ++ +

6 Take care children ++ +

7 Food searching from forest ++ +

8 Hunting - +

9 Catching fish + +

* hire laborers

The activities above show us women's work covered 51.78% of all activities and men's work covered 48.21%. The activities among both genders are different. Productive activity is shown from this profile, for women is slightly lesser than men. For household work, women are involving 2 times more than men. On the basis of time consume like in fetching water men can help to fetch one time after their Hai work but women they use water to cook and clean and need to fetch water many times per day. This activity profile of Nam Phak and Thin Keo shows that women also have more reproductive roles in household work. In productive work, weeding, in Hai and in Na as well, is women's major activity like in Thong Khang, besides, transplanting is another one for the households who cultivate Na. For the households who cultivate 3 types of cultivation: Kai, Hai-garden and Na for their productive activities of households, how hard to work and manage these all activities in the overlapping time. Women played an important role to share their labor for their household production.

The labor division has changed according to change in the ways of production. These changes have differential implications for men and women in their overall work burden. For example, men



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did more bamboo work, making fence and hut, while women did more weeding and household work.

6.4 Sources of Household Income The sources of household income are based on the production mentioned above and the labor wages. It is difficult to calculate all products in money value. The products for consumption are the most difficult for calculating the exact value and for adding as part of the family income, because the households did not have any record regarding their daily consumption and their agriculture yield. Besides, they also did not have records on their labor wages. Information on one product contains a mix of consumption, cash income and barter value, because for one product, for example rice, they consume it, they sell it, they use it to exchange things and to hire laborers, they give some part to their relatives and some part they store. The data below are based on the cash income of last year that these households are still remembering.

Cash Income

The cash income is categorized in four main sources: (I) Agricultural crops, (H) Livestock, (HI Handicraft, (IV) Services and Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) From the list of their households' products, the respondents of three villages gave the information on which products they sold it. The purpose is to find out that the available labor of households could provide their laborers to getting these income. The detailed data per household are described below in the table 19, 20 and 21.

Thong Khang

In Thong Khang, the range of total cash income of these twelve households is a wide range from 10,000 to maximum 4,400,000 kip (Table 19). The income from the agriculture section makes up the major part of cash income for these households, which is covering 68% of total income. The livestock income is the second in rank of the household incomes. They earned much money from selling jobs' tears last year. The table below is showing the data of the 4 different sources in number and specifies jobs' tears income in one column. The chart is explaining the different sub-sources, which are included in the agricultural section.

The agricultural income comes from selling jobs' tears, which is covering 58% of cash income from the section 1 of agriculture. Therefore, jobs' tears became an important and well sought after cash crop in this area. This year, every household in the village is interested to grow jobs' tears. Some have planned to claim more land from the village's land committee and there are some groups who ask to borrow land from their relatives Some have prepared to expand the area to cultivate jobs' tears.



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Table 19: Overview of Annual Cash Income/1997-98. Thong Khang Village

HH no. I II III IV Total income

Jobs’ tears

Part from I

1 3,450,000 621,700 0 126,800 4,198,500 1,700,000

2 350,000 500,000 0 50,000 900,000 250,000

3 550,000 200,000 70,000 265,000 1,085,000 500,000

4 950,000 544,000 0 250,000 1,744,000 800,000

5 550,000 260,000 0 87,000 897,000 350,000

6 500,000 0 0 150,000 650,000 300,000

7 200,000 0 50,000 155,000 405,000 200,000

8 1,700,000 250,000 44,000 330,000 2,324,000 1,200,000

9 2,600,000 1,770,000 30,000 0 4,400,000 600,000

10 993,000 0 45,000 152,000 1,190,000 740,000

11 660,000 0 20,500 60,000 740,500 600,000

12 0 0 0 10,000 10,000 0

12,503,000 4,145,700 259,500 1,635,800 18,544,000 7,240,000

I Agriculture III Handicraft

II Livestock IV Services & NTFP


Figure 5: Detailed income from Agriculture Section (Thong Khang)



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Nam Phak

The range of total cash income in Nam Phak is from 340,000 to 4,300,000 Kip. The major part is from the agriculture section, which is covering 72% of the total cash income, and jobs' tears are the most prominent sub-source of income in this section (Table IS). The agricultural cash income from Nam Phak is a little higher than in Thong. Khang but for livestock, Thong Khang has a three times higher income than Nam Phak It was noticed among 12 households in Nam Phak, that only 4 households can get income from livestock (Table 20).

The agricultural income comes mostly from selling jobs' tears, which is covering 79% of the agriculture section I (Figure 12). Therefore, jobs' tears became an important and well sought after cash crop in this village as well. Paddy rice is the second rank which is covering 10% from the section I income.

Table 20: Overview of Annual Cash income 1997-98 in Nam Phak Village

HH no. I II III IV Total income Jobs’ tears Part from I

1 4,400,000 900,000 5,300,000 3,000,000

2 120,000 220,000 340,000 120,000

3 80,000 359,000 439,000 80,000

4 1,200,000 100,000 1,300,000 1,200,000

5 300,000 80,000 380,000 300,000

6 1,300,000 300,000 1,600,000 1,300,000

7 1,020,000 30,000 1,050,000 200,000

8 3,190,000 180,000 640,000 4,010,000 2,700,000

9 580,000 207,000 787,000 450,000

10 1,200,000 845,000 2,045,000 630,000

11 140,000 200,000 3,600 343,600 0

12 227,000 160,000 500,000 500,500 1,387,500 227,000

13.757.000 1,412,000 680,000 3,133,100 18,982,100 10,207,000

I Agriculture Rate of Exchange on 11 February 1999

II Livestock 1 US$= 4,350 kip

III Handicraft Source: Banque Pour le Commerce Exterieur Lao

IV Services & NTFP collection




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Figure 6: Detail Income Sources from Agriculture Section (Nam Phak) others

Thin Keo

The range of total cash income in Thin Keo is from 824,000 to 3,660,000 Kip. The major part is also from the agricultural section, which is covering 49% of total income, but to a lesser degree than in two other villages. Jobs' tears are again the most prominent sub-source of income and it is covering 62% of this agricultural section (Figure 13). The agricultural cash income from Thin Keo is at the same level as in Thong Khang but livestock income comes to the second rank of household income. If compared to the two other villages, Thin Keo is the first for livestock income, two-time higher than Nam Phak and six times than Thong Khang. They sell more pigs, buffaloes and cows than in the two others villages. Recently, these animals have very high value. Besides, the income from NTFP and laborer services (section IV) covered 17 % of the total cash income and it is higher than in the other two villages (Table 19).

As in Thin Keo, there are more paddy fields so they use the rice brain to feed pigs and poultry. They use hay to feed buffaloes and cows. For animal fodder, they based on paddy rice brain than on corn or maize.



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Table 21: Overview of Annual Cash Income 1997-98 in Thin Keo

HH no. I II III IV Total income

Jobs’ tears Part from I

1 132,000 300,000 15,000 451,000 898,000 58,800

2 380,000 1,700,000 0 0 2,080,000 200,000

3 640,000 100,000 98,000 250,000 1,088,000 500,000

4 750,000 470,000 0 550,000 1,770,000 750,000

5 2,760,200 500,000 0 400,000 3,660,200 151,200

6 1,770,000 900,000 0 150,000 2,820,000 490,000

7 1,480,000 1,210,000 51,000 72,000 2,813,000 1,100,000

8 1,170,000 645,000 0 882,700 2,697,700 1,100,000

9 850,000 1,656,000 66,000 100,000 2,672,000 600,000

10 1,910,000 640,000 0 330,000 2,880,000 1,800,000

11 500,000 450,000 0 610,000 1,560,000 270,000

12 204,400 0 10,000 609,600 824,000 190,000

12,546,600 8,571,000 240,000 4,405,300 25,762,900 7,210,000


Figure 7. Detail Income Sources from Agriculture Section (Thin Keo)



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The cash income of households is irregular and seasonal but it is an important result from the available labor in the three village. The conclusion which households of these three villages are the richest can not be drawn. According to observation, a higher cash income does not mean that they are richer. Some households have higher cash income but have to buy food. Other households have lower cash income but reach food sufficiency already and so, spend their cash income to purchase goods or construct a house, which makes them better of.

Attempts are made to provide a choice of cash income to people through land allocation. If people start to compete to produce cash crops without concern for resource management, soil fertility might decline rapidly. Growing cash crops without having experience in dealing with market might run the risk of producing too much for the market disturbing the self-reliance of these households.

In relation to food sufficiency it was observed that food sufficiency was less after land allocation. The data already mentioned above described the decrease in number of plots of land from the average of 6 or more before land allocation to the maximum number of 4 plots after land allocation. The rotation period is following the diminishing of the number of plots, meaning from a 5 to a 3 years fallow period. And if people cultivate 2 plots per year instead of 1, which is happening when introducing cash crops and new agricultural techniques so then the fallow period becomes even shorter than 2 years. People start to complain that their soil fertility is diminished and their yield is also low. In Thorp:, Khang, 6 households said they used to sell rice but that they could not sell already for 2 years because their rice yield is low so they kept it for consumption only. In Nam Phak, 5 households said that they got lower yield from hill rice than before and 3 of them could get good yield from their paddy field. In Thin Keo, 5 households mentioned the same as in Thong Khang and Nam Phak that they got lower yield rice from their Hai than before. In relation to these problems, they would like to claim more plots of land for agriculture to keep a longer fallow period. As before land allocation people used to cultivate in a longer fallow period, farmers mostly said that they got good yield and they did not face the problem of weeds much. From last year jobs' tears were introduced as a new cash crop in this region with the involvement of an active company to provide a wide market for export of jobs' tears to these farmers. For these 2 reasons: first is needed more plots for fallow land, second is expanding more jobs' tear cultivation, they want to claim more land and the concerned information is given per village below.

Thong Khang

In the group discussion, many villagers said they would like to claim more plots of land for agriculture but they are waiting till they get the land certificate first. The data on how many villagers and to what degree they would like to claim more land, are few. Only 3 households discussed and replied to this question. One household said that they already claimed one plot to prepare to grow jobs' tears this year but they are waiting to get approval first. The second household said that they did not claim more land but borrow one plot from a friend and the third household which consists of 1 old man and lack of labor said one plot was given to his relative for borrowing.

Nam Phak

This year, many households in Nam village are interested to grow jobs' tears. Among 12 households, 4 households already requested for more plots of land for jobs' tears growing. The first household to which the chief of the village belongs requested for 2 plots and he got approval already on. One plot he will plant teak trees and the second plot he will grow jobs' tears. The second household claimed for 1 plot but could not get approval because they have Na. The third one said that they claim a plot of land for growing jobs' tears and the paper work is still in process. The fourth household also claims for a plot of land but it is not approved because they have Na.

Thin Keo

As their main income in agriculture crop section from last year is from jobs tear, so people here are also interested to expand growing job's tears. Among 12 households, 4 household already claim for more plots of land. All of them said they would grow jobs' tears. 2 households said they



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got approval for land. For the other 2 households approval did not come yet but they started to grow jobs' tears this year. There is one household who plans to claim a plot of land for growing fruit trees.

The villagers from Thin Keo said the soil in Thong Khang village is more fertile than in their village. They would like to get some plots of land there like some households in Nam Phak got it. This means that the boundary of cultivated land is not fixed for each villager. They could get cultivated land outside of their village boundary.

Food Sufficiency

The degree of self- reliance of households is impressive and the economy looks like what can be called a 'pure and natural economy'. Many of these households have never been in the town market. They produce food for consumption, mostly rice, cultivate crops for feeding animals and search for food from natural resources in their area. Subsistence cultivation of rice, vegetables and other crops are the main sources of their livelihood. Therefore, ownership of land is the, most crucial resource for survival.

Food sufficiency, especially in rice, is the first priority for households. A few households can sell rice, before and after the period of land allocation. They will sell it when they have enough rice to feed their family.

While looking at the data below it can be seen that people are still facing the problem of rice insufficiency (Figure 22). Therefore, rice is not their main cash income but mostly for consumption. It was asked that how many months they lack rice and how they solve it.

Table 22. Data of Rice Insufficiency

Thong Khang Village

HH no. No. of months lack

How to solve

3 1 Afford to buy it

6 10 Exchange laborer/weeding

7 8 Provide laborer & collect NTFP3

10 6 Provide laborer & collect NTFP

11 4 X

12 8 Provide laborer for garden weeding

Total 6 HHs

Remark: Among 12 households of Thong Khang 6 households have sufficient rice and 1 household reported shortage of rice but they can buy it (total 7 households).

Nam Phak Village

3

Non-Timber Forest Products



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HH no. No. of months lack

How to solve

2 4 borrow it

3 6 X

11 6 borrow rice from the chief of village

12 6 buy it and exchange laborer

Total 4 HHs

Remark: Among 12 households of Nam PHak 8 households have sufficient rice and 1 household reported shortage of rice but they can buy it (total 9 households).

Thin Keo Village

HH no. No. of months lack How to solve

12 4 Borrow it

Total 1 HH

Remark: Among 12 households of Thin Keo, 11 households have sufficient rice.

X: did not give any information how to solve

Source: From Fieldwork and Interview (February and March 1999)

The ways they use to solve rice insufficiency are very risky. Every year, the same groups of people have to borrow rice in advance for family consumption and then they have to pay it back with some extra amount of rice for interest. Through this practice over a long period of time, they are facing a larger debt every year because the insufficiency of rice becomes bigger and bigger. They could consume fewer portions from their rice yield of the year merely producing it to pay back the debt.

For the households, who provide labor in exchange for rice, the problem is similar as for borrowing rice in advance. These households have their own land to cultivate and have limited laborers to work. But because they face the problem of rice insufficiency, to solve this rice shortage, they have to sell themselves as laborers to exchange for rice. The quality of work in their own Hai diminishes because they hire their labor to work in others' Hai during the period of rice shortage so the yield in their Hai will also decrease. This is like a vicious cycle occurring every year

In addition, the transition from subsistence to cash crop might bring households to change their livelihood of self-reliance and to depend on market economy. The way of living will change from farmers to laborers who hire themselves. The goal of the government policy of providing land allocation is first to solve the problem of food insufficiency. The alternative of cash income has to be a sustainability support to these people to solve rice shortage and to diminish the high workload of upland cultivators.



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6.5 Access to Credit and Technology Access to Credit

In these villages, the occurrence of getting credit from a bank is very rare. The people said that they could not use the land certificate as deposit for a loan. The bank agreed to provide a loan when farmers have Na and cattle for guarantee. Besides, they should have a group of farmers first to guarantee for the group members who take a loan from the bank. The data concerning credit are not much among the respondents of this study

Thong Khang

In Thong Khang, no one of these 12 households takes a loan from a bank. Only two years ago, 11 from 12 households here got a small credit as revolving fund from the Shifting Cultivation Stabilization Project for chicken and pig raising. Concerning the question who are making the decision to take a loan in the household, all of the 11 households said `both of them', meaning husband and wife. One household whose respondent is a vice-chief of the Women's Union Organization of this village, said she made a decision not to take small credit from the project because her family had enough funds to raise chicken and pig. She is the only woman who is making decisions on everything in her house including activities regarding the productive, re-productive and social role. Even under the village registration her husband is the head of household but she is the main person who takes all decisions in the family.

Nara Phak

In Nam Phak, there are 3 households who could take a loan from a bank. These households are in the group of farmers with paddy field cultivation. They said that they guarantee for each other for back payment. They got the loan from the bank three times already. For the households who cultivate Hai, they did not have a Hai cultivators group yet. Therefore, most of the Hai farmers could not have access to bank credit yet. Four years ago, the village got support from the Shifting Cultivation Stabilization Project for a small credit for chicken and pig-raising. Among 12 households, 7 households got that credit, 5 of them could pay it back and 2 households could not pay it back because the pig and the chicken died. Concerning the question who are making the decision to take a loan in the household, all of them said 'both', husband and wife.

Thin Keo

In Thin Keo, there are 4 households taking a loan from a bank. They are in the group of paddy fields' farmers. Among 4 households, 3 households answered that they both made the decision to take a loan from the bank and only one household said that the husband was making the decision to take the loan. For the group of upland cultivators, they said the same as in Thong Khang and Nam Phak, that they could not have access to the bank credit. In Thin Keo, they got the paper of the land certificate already but they could not use it for asking for the bank credit.

Access to Technology

The respondents from this study mostly did not study at school. More than half the respondents are illiterate (Figure '14, 15 and 16). They mostly had experience on agriculture from their own traditional knowledge and followed the traditional type of cultivation

Respondents stated that after the land allocation procedure, many training and meetings were organized in their villages but they could not tell how many. I asked them what types of training and meetings and if they participated in these activities. Most of them could not explain it adequately and they did not remember what the training and the meeting topics were. After the long discussion and explanation from them, I categorized the topics in 5 types of access to knowledge. The first is the meeting related to the land allocation information. The second is the training related to knowledge about the garden. The third is related to Hai information. The fourth is related to Na information and the last one is general like meetings propagating integrated agriculture, the forestry policy and study tours. The data on access to training are described per



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village below. A meeting was usually organized for a day but a training was organized for three to five days.

Thong Khang

In Thong Khang village, 5 women and 7 men replied on how many times they participated in those trainings and meetings. For attending meetings on land allocation, only two women attended both of them. They are the chief and the vice-chief of the Lao Women's Union Organization. For training we see the same: among 5 women respondents only the same two women participated. In the first household, when she attended the two meetings her husband was also attended. Her husband is a vice-chief of the village so he would attend every meeting. The data show that the majority of participants attending meetings and trainings were men (Figure 8). Also that participants who attended the meeting and the training, it did not depend on the level of their education.

Figure 8: Access to training (Thong Khang)

HH Level of Respdt. Access to knowledge

No. Educ. F M M (rel-LA)

T (rel-G) T (rel-H) T (rel-N) Other

F M F M F M F M F M

1 X F 2 2 1 1

2 X M 1 1

3 P5 M

4 X M

5 X F 1

6 X M 1 1

7 X M 1

8 X F 1

9 X F 1 1

10 X F

11 X M 1 1

12 X M 1 1

5 7 3 7 2 5 3 1

Source: Fieldwork and Interview during February and March 1999

X: did not have a formal education but some time attending adult education in village

P5: Fifth year of primary school

M (rel-LA): Meeting related to Land Allocation



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T (rel-G): Training related to gardening

T (rel-H): Training related to Hai

T (rel-N): Training related to Na

In Nam Phak

In Nam Phak village, 7 women and 6 men explained how many times they participated in the training and meeting. The respondents who have had higher education participated less than the ones who had a lower level of education. The situation on access to training is similar to Thong Khang in that men participated more in not only training, but also in meetings (Figure 9). From these data it can be concluded that among the respondents the accessibility to knowledge is higher for men than for women.

Figure 9: Access to training (Nam Phak)

HH Respdt. Access to knowledge

No. Level of M (rel-LA) T (rel-G) T (rel-H) T (rel-N) Other

Educ. F M F M F M F M F M F M

1 X,P5 F M 2 1 1 1 2

2 P3 M 1 1

3 P5 F 1

4 X F

5 X F

6 S3 M 1

7 S1 M 1 1

8 X F 1 1 1

9 * F 1 1

10 R M 1

11 X F 1

12 R M 1

7 6 3 4 1 5 3 3 2

Source: Fieldwork and Interview during February and March 1999.

x : never study in school M (rel-LA): Meeting related to Land Allocation

P : Primary level (rel-G): Training related to Garden

P2 : Second year of primary school

T (rel-H): Training related to Hai



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3 : Third year T (rel-N): Training related to Na

5 : Fith year

R : Able to read

S : Secondary level

Thin Keo

Thin Keo village, 7 women and 6 men explained on how many times they participated in the village training and meeting. The number of respondents with a basic level of education is higher than in the other two villages. In Thin Keo the people who studied and the people who did not study equally participated in meeting and Hai training. But in the study tour, which is described in the last column of figure 10, mostly men participated. The data below show that the participation to training and 'the meeting on land allocation in Thin Keo is more equal for men and women than in the two other villages (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Access to training (Thin Keo)

HH Respdt. Access to knowledge

No. Level of F M M (rel-LA) T (rel-G) T (rel-H) T (rel-N) Other

Educ. F M F M F M F M F M

1 X F 1

2 R M 1 1 1

3 P5 M 1 1

4 P5 F 1 1

5 S2 F 1 1 1 1 1

6 X F 1 1

7 P2/P2 F M 1 1 1 1

8 X 1 1 1 1

9 P2 M 1 1

10 P2 M 1 1

11 P3 M 1 1 1

12 X F 1 1 1

7 6 2 2 4 6 5 5 1 2 6

Source: Fieldwork and Interview during February and March 1999



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x : never study in school M (rel-LA): Meeting related to Land Allocation T

P : Primary level (rel-G): Training related to Garden

P2 : Second year of primary school T (rel-H): Training related to Hai

3 : Third year T (rel-N): Training related to Na

5 : Fith year

R : Able to read

The growing importance of household production is very dependent on labor and agricultural input. With limited access to credit, which is needed for new investments in agriculture, people face getting lower yields. The household's available labor remains the same and they could not afford hiring outside laborers to support the extra farm activities because the available cash is needed for new investments. With relatively less available labor for the farm activities, the yields will decrease. And as the number of household laborers is the same but the activities in the farm are increasing therefore, the labor division in the family is also affected.

Mostly re-productive roles are taking care of by the work of women. Because women think more about the re-productive work, they will feel the responsibility to protect the agricultural production and yield for family consumption. In the new agricultural production system the need for weeding has increased. Weeding traditionally is done by women (see chapter VI, section 6 3). Because most households have not enough income to hire laborers to cope with the increased need for weeding the extra burden falls to women because of women's feeling of responsibility for the production for family consumption and their traditional role in weeding. Therefore, no matter how hard the women work already, they still face rice insufficiency.

So, the work of women is increasing, especially with regards to weeding. But besides, from the data above, we see that the beneficiaries of meetings, training and study tours related with the introduction of the new agricultural system are mainly men.

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7 Conclusions And Recommendations

7.1 Conclusions Land allocation brought a number of changes. Some of the changes were a direct result of land allocation; other changes were indirect results because of the changing land use for new system of cultivation related to land allocation.

Access to and Control over Land

As discuss in chapter V (pp. 24, 28, 33 and 35), the system of access to land has changed from traditional to the new practice of land allocation, which can conclude the changes below:

Before land allocation, land was free and there has been no restriction on how much land a farmer claims from 6 plots or more depend on their households' labor. They consider that they hold the tenure right to use a plot if they are the first to clear it. It has been unnecessary to register land and there were no written land documents. They did not inherit Hai because they often rotate and they did not have fixed plots of land. They have practiced land inheritance not long ago. Some of these people have stopped rotating and started to have Na and Hai-garden with trees planting so then they have inherited only these 2 types of land. Even they inherited Na and Hai-garden to their children but again no legal land paper.

After land allocation, land was reallocated in the restriction of plots and size. Farmers got the legal approval land certificate for their permanent tenure of using the allocated land. They cultivate on fixed plots from 2 to 4 and it has forbidden rotating freely for shifting cultivation even they have available labor. They have to follow the rules of land allocation's policy.

• The land certificate was issued in the two villages of Nam Phak and Thin Keo with the joint names of both the wife and husband. Only in Thong Khang, the list of names of persons who are entitled for land allocation consisted of mostly in men's names. From the example of Thong Khang it can be seen that there might be a risk that land certificates given after land allocation are mostly in the mans name in which case women seemed to have lost their control over land.

• The land allocation procedure is reaching the goal of reducing the slash and burn areas. But these changes are not yet reached the sufficiency for survival of the upland cultivators. Regard to their limited choice of upland system of cultivation, extra plots for keeping fallow are needed for subsistence farming.

• The land tax system changed under the land allocation implementation. Before land allocation, land tax was linked to yield and was paid in rice.

• After land allocation, land tax has increased and is a lot easier because it is fixed. Land tax is based on all plots that are allocated to a family including the plots that are lying fallow and it is paid in money. This has an impact on the poorer farmers. The better of households have no problem in paying land tax but poorer households do face the problem of payment.

Change in Gender Division of Labor

• After land allocation, fallow periods were shortened from 5-6 years to 3 years bringing a higher workload for weeding. Besides, people started to cultivate more and more cash crops on the plots they kept for fallow. The changing cultivation patterns from one plot to extra cash crops plots, and from longer fallow period to shorter fallow period lead people to face more labor and more time required. People in this region started to complain that their recent yield of Hai rice is low and weeds are quickly increased.

• This change affects directly women's workload in the family because the work in their Hai requires more time and labor. For Hai rice plantation, the weeding alone requires three weeks extra without counting work for growing other cash crops Weeding in Hai for rice and also in the cash crop field (Hai-garden) is mostly the responsibility of women. Beside their



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work of caring for the family, weeding is costing a lot of time of women. This has limited women leisure time, resting and socializing with others persons.

• Concerning the issue of labor, the same numbers of laborers, men and women, in the families remained but they have to shift their labor to grow new cash crops and at the same time to deal with their consumption crop. As discuss in chapter VI (pp 39, 40 and 41), people already have faced problem of lacking labor in working on their land Their potential of hiring labor was still low, only for part time hiring labor. The labor division has changed according to change in the ways of production. The household productive work has increased (discuss in 6.2 and 6.3) which both men and women ought to be engaged as complementary and intertwined laborers. These changes have differential implications for men and women in their overall work burden. Men did more burning dry weed, bamboo work, making fence and but while women did more weeding, NTFP collecting and most of household work. Weeding is traditional women's responsibility; women have to carry the higher burden of the increased workload after land allocation.

Change in Gender Relations

After land allocation, the cash household income has increased during the last two years from selling jobs' tears. Many households are pleased to get cash income from jobs' tears and claim more plots of land preparing to expand growing jobs' tears

• As their labor capability and also their capital for hiring outside labor are limited. This will affect the household labor force.

• The food consumption of household will be of less concern in favor of growing cash crops (pp. 56 and 57). If people start to compete to produce for cash without concern for resource management and without experience in bargaining in an open market economy. This will result in low prices for their products the effects might be adverse raising the risk of dependency on the market economy which will disturb the self-reliance of these households.

Because of the introduction of new policy of land allocation and new cash crops, new technologies were introduced. The access to information and knowledge of these technologies is not the same for everyone in the household and tend to benefit mostly men.

Women play an important role in working, investing, and making decisions on what to grow for food consumption and for income on their land.

• It is easy to understand why women are not waiting for any additional burdens related to agricultural work, especially since their benefit from the production is not noticeably increased compared with the benefits that they traditionally had when growing subsistence crops and using their own experience from long years of practice. Women are daily major labor working in farm activity when there were training in the village to upgrade upland cultivators' experiences and skills, mostly women were missing. Besides, women have to replace their men's work, during 3 to 5 days of each training session. This might result in a loss of interest from women for improving agricultural techniques if they become only the assistants to their men without getting proper access to new knowledge.

Through all changes, I learned that gender relations have a powerful influence on how environments are used and managed. Land use is defined as a set of biological and technological activities that people are engaged in for economic and social purposes

• In the study, women worked hard and also contributed their labor for the household economy to get cash income and to get food consumption for family. Their social relations were characterized by lack of power compared to men. They were not inviting to the meeting and to the training, which lead to raise gap of knowledge between men and women. The access to technology and agricultural information is constrained for women because of their subordination. There is a risk that women loose their control over land because of lacking suitable knowledge and further could not involve in the household planning. This leads to



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men getting more power with regards to land use and management. Therefore, there is a risk that women will be laborers without decision making power.

The difference in gender roles together with a change in the agricultural system towards a higher intensive production system will affect the balance of power between the sexes. The technical division of labor has advantages and positive effects on production if tasks are assigned to persons with knowledge and skill. The social division of labor may have negative effects if the most unpleasant and least rewarding tasks, for example household work and weeding in this study, are always assigned to the groups with the least power, mostly women.

7.2 Recommendations As this study focus on how changes from the procedure of land allocation occurred in the recent years are reflecting back women's access to land and control over land which effect gender division of labor. Through all of changes above, recommendations are made as below:

Control and Access to Land:

• Careful monitoring of recent land allocation procedures is necessary to further taking women fully into account in land registration. Continue to take women into account concerning the issue of the joint name of both the wife and husband on the land certificate for legal approval. This is important for future land inheritance systems.

• Women and men's roles are- complementary and intertwined, however, a lack of gender awareness can lead to policies and strategies that take into consideration only men's needs and interests. When women were missing in public meeting, in training and how they could express their real needs and interests so the outcome of these meeting and training would be recorded only from the attendance views. Therefore, gender awareness should be raised among policy makers and implementers to take women into account involving in any learning process of their community. Gender awareness training among staff and regular discussion with village authorities should be considered seriously.

Improve Women's Advancement along the Procedure of Land Allocation

• It is important in all development activities to be aware of a lack of responsiveness to women's needs and interests. Besides, changing cultivation patterns require the commitment and participation of women because women need to share the benefits from land allocation implementation.

• In all policies related directly and indirectly to land allocation, which is changing the way of cultivation, women are to be included in decision making from household level to their community level. Because land is their most important natural resource for food production. What will be happened to land they should know and understand for further proper planning their livelihood.

• Therefore, governmental support is needed to prepare national land use planning efficiency for helping people how to solve the problem of shorter land fallow period and further preventing people will clear more new plots if they could not reach their survival subsistence.

• Introduction of a new cash crop should be accompanied by the introduction to local people of knowledge on the impact on soil fertility, which might create a long-term problem. The choice related to the new cash crop should be made in accordance with suitable information.

Access to Technology and Information:

• Market information and knowledge on new technologies should be provided to people so that they won't face loss and debt and depend on the market without proper planning within their households' capability planning for the necessary capital to invest on.

• Invite women to participate in training, in planning and in village meetings to regain a balance in knowledge of women and men. Women are limited in their opportunities due to help their



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parent working from their childhood. When they married, they spend most the time caring the family. Women should be given more opportunities to attend agricultural meetings and training. Agricultural staff, extension worker or the training organizer should prepare in advance with concerned village authorities and their husband how to support and encourage women participating more in various training. Another concern, contents, language and curriculum for training should be relevant and easy understandable according to their level who are mostly illiterate.

It is hoped that the recommendations above will be of help in building a sustainable land use and management system in Lao PDR under the implementation of land allocation. The equal share in benefits for both women and men should be taken into account as an imperative of sustainable development

Reference


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References: Acharya, Meena and Lynn Bennett. 1983 "Women and the Subsistence Sector: Economic

Participation and Household Decision Making in Nepal", Staff Working Paper No. 526, The World Bank, Washington D.C.

Agarwal, Bina. 1991. "Impact of HYV Rice Technology on Rural Women", Women in Agriculture: Vol. 1. Their Status and Role, Edited by R.L. Punia., Northern Book Center, New Delhi.

Agarwal Bina, 1994. Land rights for women: making the case, Northern Book Centre. New Delhi.

Arcellana, Nancy Pearson, MSW. (1998). Women Envision No. 57-58.

Blumberg, Rae Lesser. 1991. Gender, Family and Economy: The Triple Overlap, A Sage Focus Edition. pp. 90-125; 245-285.

Bruijn, Mirjam de, Ineke van Halsema and Heleen van den Homberah. 1997. Gender and Land Use: Gender, Land Use and Environmental Management; Analyzing Trends and Diversity. Thela Publishers, Amsterdam 1997.

Chagnon, Jacquelyn. (1996). Women in Development, Lao People's Democratic Republic. Country Briefing Paper. Asian Development Bank

DoF. Department of Forestry (1997). Plan to the year 2000 for Stabilizing Shifting Cultivation by Providing Permanent Occupation. Department of Forestry. Vientiane. Paper resented at the "Stakeholder Workshop on Shifting Cultivation Stabilization". Vientiane, Laos. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Asian Development Bank.

Haeue.Meynen, Cornelie and Stephens, Alexandra (1996). Rural Families and Household Economies in Asia and the Pacific. Rural Families and Farm Household in Asia and the Pacific: an Overview. Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Bangkok.

Kelkar, Govind (1992). Women, Peasant Organisations And Land Rights: A Study From Bihar, India. Gender and Development Studies Unit. Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok.

Lao Swedish Forestry Program (1998). Learning Lessons from Land Allocation in the NTFP Project. March.

Lao Swedish Forestry Program (1997). Manual on Participatory Land Use Planning and Land Allocation. Edition 1, October.

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (1996). Instruction on Land-Forest Allocation Management and Use. No.0822/AF

Oaklacho. 1992. "Household in Korean Rural Community Studies, Women and the Household in Asia-5", Findings the Household, Conceptual and Methodological Issues, Edited by K. Saradamoni, Sage Publication Inc. pp. 210-211.

Padoch, (1985) Traditional Practices of Native and Riberino Farmers in the Lowland Peruvian Amazon. In: M.L.Gholtz(ed.), Agroforestry: Realities, Possibilities and Potentials. Dordrecht: Nijhof Publication, pp. 44-50

Schenk-Sandbereen, Loes, Hermien Rodenbure, Chansamone Phengkhay (1997) Land, Gender and Social Issues in Lao PDR. AusAid, Vientiane. Lao PDR

Sharma Munni, 1995. "Gender Implications of changes in Technology and cropping Patterns for Labour use in Rice-Based Farming System in Nepal" Ph. D. Dissertation, Asian Institute of Technology pp 5

Vientiane Times (1997).Report on land forest land allocation. October 8-10

Vink A. P. A., 1978. Land Use in Advancing Agriculture. Springer, New York.

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Werachai Narkwiboowong, Chaninthorn Charuchandra, Boonchuay Aunchaisri. Panita Satutum (1994). Land Tenure and Production Structure of Agriculture in Thailand. Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific. Study Serie No.162. Bangladesh.

White, Benjamin. (1983). "Measuring Time Allocation, Decision Making and Agrarian Changes Affecting Rural Women", Working Paper 17, Institute of Social Studies.

Appendices


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APPENDICES:

Appendix 1: Q-1 Village Committee Questions

Village Name: Fieldwork Date:

District:

Province: Luang Prabang

I situation of village: (+ observation)

- Road Village area ha

- Market How far

- School No. of teachers

- Hospital No. of nurses Doctors

- Houses conditions

- Focal development zone

- Highland

- Water Source

- Weather

1. - Village settlement year

2. - No. of population: persons, divide in group of age

Age (years) Female Male Total

0-5

6-10

11-15

16-45

>60

3. - Recent No. of household: 4-Ethnic

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Before allocated land

4. - No. of household living here before land allocation

5. - Do they have access to land for agriculture Yes No

6. - What is the custom in your village about land inheritance:

a. all daughter and sons inherits land equally from their parents

b. only the youngest daughter inherits land

c. only sons inherit land from their parents

d. only daughters inherit land from their parents

e. only the youngest son inherits land from his parents

f. the daughter who too care of the parents most, inherits the land

g. the son who took care of the parents most, inherit the land

7. - When will the land be divided?

a. after the death of the parents

b. when the parents are alive but old (or one of them)

8. - Do you pay Land Tax before Land Allocation? Yes No

9. - If yes, how much and for type of land

10. List of major crop cultivating: For sale: For consume

- - -

- - -

11. List of major livestock raising For sale For consume

- - -

- - -

12. - Sufficiency food: Yes No , if shortage how many months

13. - Were there any land disputes withing the village?

Yes No

14. - If yes, in what issues:

15. - were there any land disputes with other villages?

Yes No

16. - If yes, in what issue:

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After allocated land

17. - allocated land in mm / year, in total area ha

18. - No. of household received allocated land

- temporarily (3 year) land document HH

- permanently (Land certificate) HH

19. - Every household got the same amount of area? Yes No

No. plots Maximum ha, Minimum ha

20. - Can you explain in brief if each household got different no. of plots of land and its size.

21. - List of major crop cultivation: For sale: For consume:

- - -

- - -

22. - List of major livestock For sale: For consume:

- - -

- - -

23. - Food sufficiency Yes No ,if no, shortage Months.

24. - Recommendations:

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Appendix 2: Q-2 Focus Group

Data:

Village Name:

District:

1. - Number of attendance: Male Ethnic

Female Ethnic

2. - From how many families

3. - Do everybody here get allocated land? (raise hand and count):

how many, yes male ,female

How many no male ,female

4. - If yes, how many plots do you get? and in how many hectare?

a. Plots Ha, type of land

b. Plots Ha, type of land

c. Plots Ha, type of land

d. Plots Ha, type of land

e. Plots Ha, type of land

f. Plots Ha, type of land

g. Plots Ha, type of land

h. Plots Ha, type of land

5. - Who get temporality allocated land (raise your hand) count

6. - Who get land certificate already or the permanently land document

7. - Why you did not get the land certificate document?

8. - Are there any fine on the land issue in you village? Yes no

9. - If yes, how many cases are there? Cases, Why?

10. - Are there any case of withdrawn land certificate (by the third year)? yes no

If yes, how many? cases

11. - Whose name is in your temporality allocated land paper? (raise hand and tick)

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a. my husband

b. my wife

c. both husband and wife

d. my grandfather

e. my grandmother

f. my elder son

g. my elder daughter

h. other

12. - Whose name is in your permanent allocated land paper? (raise hand and tick)

i. My husband

j. My wife

k. Both husband and wife

l. My grandfather

m. My grandmother

n. My elder son

o. My elder daughter

p. other

13. - To whom your land will be inherit in future? (they can raise hands and count)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

14. - What do you grow in your land:

a. rice

b. corn

c. fruit tree

d. teak

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e.

f.

15. - Can you tell cropping calendar of your major crop

16. - What Kind of livestock do you have?

a. cow

b. buffalo

c. goat

d. pig

e. poultry

f.

17. - Do you have sufficiency food along the year? Yes No

If no, how many month, shortage Month(s)

18. - Which type of products you can sell? List it:

a. with the price

b. with the price

c. with the price

d. with the price

e. with the price

19. - Where do you sell these products?

a. at home

b. in the market

c. along the main road

d. other place

20. - Before allocated land did you sell same products like now? Yes No

21. - If no, then what are that different types:

a.

b.

c.

d.

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e.

22. - Can you estimate the total income of selling products mentioned in

Products selling

Before L.A

Total income

estimated (Kip)

Products selling

After L.A

Total income

estimated (Kip)

a a

b b

c c

d d

e e

23. - During last 4-5 years did you grow some new crops? yes no

24. - If yes, what are they? Can you list?

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

25. - Who introduce these crops to you?

26. - Do you know the technique how to grow it?

yes and how many among the attendance

no and how many among the attendance

27. - If no, why you did not know how to grow these crops?

a. did not have experience

b. did not attend the training

c.

d.

28. - Do you claim more land? yes no

29. - If yes, how many plots a family could claim and type of land

30. - If yes, how many of you did claim more land? (count) women, men

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31. - For what purpose that you would like to claim more land?

32. - Do you get benefit or not from the land allocation? (raise hands and count)

yes and how many among the attendance male female

no and how many among the attendance male female

33. - If yes, what kind of benefit

34. - If no, can give brief reason:

35. - Suggestions:

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Appendix 3: Q-3 Household Questions I Household Production for Use and for Exchange

Date:

Village: District:

No. of members in household Male: C A E Female: C A E

Women Respondent Name: Age: Education:

Men Respondent Name: Age:

Ethnic:

Household Production When* Consume Sold Stored Exchange Shared Value (Kip)

I Agriculture

II Livestock

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III Handicraft

IV Services & NTFP

Household member: Female Male

Divide in age and sex:

C – Child from the age of 9 to 14, Female Male

A – Adult from the age of 15 to 59, Female Male

E – Elderly from the age of 60+, Female Male

No. of Available Labor in household: Female Male

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When*: put the year of starting such production

Remark: (observation)

- House Condition:

- Clothing

- Health of the family members

- Food consume

- Hygiene

II Household Activity Profile

Total No. of members: male: C. . . . . A . . . . . . E. . . . .female: C. . . . .A. . . . .E . . . ..

Women respondent

Men respondent

Activities Child Adult Elderly Time %/day

Remark

F M F M F M

I Productive 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

II Reproductive

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III Social

IV Personal

1: before the land allocation time this village

3: after the land allocation time in this village

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III Household Access and Control Profile

Village: ……………………..District: …………….

Women Respondent

Men Respondent

Access & Control Access 1 Access 2 Control 1 Control 2 Remark

F M F M F M F M

I resources

- Land

- Equipment

- Labor

- Credit

- Training

- Capital

-

-

II Benefits

Land contract

Document

Land certificate

- In-kind goods

. food

. clothing

. shelter

. other

- Education

- Prestige

- Health

-

-

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Code:

1: before the land allocation time this village

2: after the land allocation time in. this village

Access and Control Questions:

1. - Information about land (before the land allocation time this village)

Land categories Size (ha) History of getting this land Which year Belong to whom

Still use this land

2. - Information about land 2 (after the land allocation time in this village)

Land categories Size (ha)

Land use contract

Temporarily doc.

Permanent doc.

On whose name

Is it the same plot as in 1

3. - Do you claim more land after land allocation? yes no

4. - If yes, how many plots? Plots ha. Type of

land

5. - Do you get approval from that claim? yes no

6. - If no, could you please explain,

Why?

7. - Are there any meeting/training after LA? yes no

8. - If yes, do you attend that meeting/training yes no

9. - If yes, how many time

If no, why you did not attend:

10. - Do you take loan/credit from bank? yes no which year

11. - Do you take another credit beside bank? yes no which year

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12. - For what purpose of taking that loan:

13. - Do the bank ask for deposit as guarantee to get that loan? yes no

14. - If yes, what is that

15. - Are there other types of credit beside cash? yes no

16. - Explain the other type of credit:

17. - Do you take this type of credit also? yes no

18. - Can you pay it back on time? yes no

19. - Who make decision to take loan in your family?

a. husband

b. wife

c. grandfather

d. grandmother

e. both husband and wife

f. elder son

g. elder daughter

20. - Who make decision what type of crop to grow?

a. husband

b. wife

c. grandfather

d. grandmother

e. both husband and wife

f. elder son

g. elder daughter

21. - Do you have enough labour to work on your land? yes no

22. - If no, how do you solve it

23. - Benefits after LA:

a. food security yes no

b. clothing better yes no

c. house yes no

d. education for all members yes no

e. Health yes no

f. Prestige yes no

WOMEN AND LAND ALLOCATION IN LAO P.D - NAFRIlad.nafri.org.la/fulltext/1489-0.pdf · WOMEN AND LAND ALLOCATION IN LAO P.D ... forest for farming and to arrangements of fixed agriculture

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