Land, Rubber and People: Rapid Agrarian Changes and Responses in Southern Laos
Land, Rubber and People: Rapid Agrarian Changes and Responses in Southern Laos
Ian G. Baird
Introduction
Largely fuelled by increased demand for raw rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) latex in India and especially China (Alton et al. 2005), mainland Southeast Asia has recently experienced a ‘rubber boom’. While there was a huge expansion of rubber in southern Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia in the 1970s and 1980s (Barlow 1997), most recently rubber planting has mainly targeted previously peripheral and remote parts of the region, such as rural and upland areas in China, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos (Ziegler et al. 2009; Cheang 2008; Luangaramsi et al. 2008; Shi 2008; Thanh Nien News 2007; 2008; Manivong and Cramb 2008; Dwyer 2007; Myanmar Times 2006). Foreign capital infusion for rubber tree plantation development has dramatically increased in recent years (Vientiane Times 2008a), and Ziegler et al. (2009) have estimated that more than 500,000 ha of land in these countries has already been planted with rubber, and that the amount of land dedicated to rubber could expand two or three fold by 2050.
There are now monoculture rubber plantations in most of Laos’ provinces, with the earliest dating back to the 1990s (Diana 2007). Multi-cropping agro-forestry systems like those in other parts of Southeast Asia have apparently not yet been introduced to Laos.
Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai companies have so far been the most important investors in monoculture rubber estates. The Government of Laos’ Committee for Planning and Investment (CPI) estimated in February 2008 that 17 large companies had already obtained 200,000 hectares of land concessions in Laos specifically for rubber (Vientiane Times 2007a). Vongkham (2006) reported that Laos’ Forestry Research Centre, a government institution, estimated that 181,840 hectares of land would be planted with rubber just in northern Laos by 2010.
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