President of Laos pushes for rural development

Bounnhang Vorachit, president of Laos has told authorities in charge to work harder to drive rural development, ensure food security, and increase forest cover.

The state leader gave the advice at the two-day national meeting of the agriculture, forestry and rural development sector, which was held in Vientiane and ended yesterday.

Representatives from the ministry and provinces across Laos attended the meeting.

Although Laos has enjoyed high-level economic growth over past years, incomes in general remain low, especially for people living in rural areas.

“Although the number of poor families has dropped to 6 percent, changes in local lifestyles have not been obvious. People are still living in hardship conditions,” President Bounnhang told the meeting.

The meeting, chaired by Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Dr Lien Thikeo, reviewed the work undertaken in 2017 and outlined plans for the sector in 2018.

President Bounnhang said high-level growth had been mainly driven by the exploitation of natural resources including timber, minerals, and hydropower. But these fields had not created many jobs for local people.

Meanwhile, most farmers, who represent the majority of the population, continued to engage in nature-based production with low yields.

In light of this, the president called for the agriculture, forestry and rural development sector to lead farmers in collective farming to ensure food security for rural communities.

To drive commercially-based production, meeting participants were told to promote wider cultivation of cash crops in prioritised zones through effective investment, including the introduction of machinery and the correct cultivation methods to increase yields.

Laos is facing challenges in the development of commercial-scale agriculture, the president noted, saying the quality of farm products was not high, while the quantity was also inadequate and failed to meet market demand.

“This is the difficulty we face in production for export purposes so [Laos] is unable to compete successfully,” he told the meeting.

In some cases, the president added, farmers were unable to find markets to sell the cash crops they had harvested.

President Bounnhang put the blame for this on state departments that had failed to coordinate in helping farmers to find markets.

“Thus you comrades be active in coordinating with the industry and commerce, banking, electricity and other sectors to explore ways to help farmers boost yields so they have more to sell,” President Bounnhang told participants. He said authorities needed to work with all stakeholders to enable farmers to access finance and benefit from the electricity incentive policy to boost production.

This must be done together with the processing of farm products to add value to commodities.

The president said agricultural production played a crucial role in rural development and improving livelihoods because it created jobs and generated income, which helped to reduce the number of people migrating to seek employment in towns.

In an attempt to increase forest cover, the state leader stressed the need for the relevant departments to amend the forestry strategy and the Law on Forestry, which were promulgated a long time ago, so they matched current circumstances and would ensure sustainability of forests.

The meeting was told to spell out stricter measures for forest management.
President Bounnhang called for greater promotion of tree planting to accelerate reforestation, saying that planting more trees would bolster eco-tourism.

But he advised against planting too many rubber and eucalyptus trees so that ecological systems were not harmed.

Editor: John Li