IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/acipro/135370.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Constraints to Rice Production Systems in Laos

Author

Listed:
  • Schiller, John M.
  • Linquist, Bruce
  • Douangsila, K.
  • Inthapanya, P.
  • Douang Boupha, B.
  • Inthavong, S.
  • Sengxua, P.

Abstract

In 1999, total rice production in Laos was more than 2.1 million tonnes, enough to make the nation self-sufficient in rice. Over the past 2 decades, total production has increased by about 100%, with most of the increase occurring in the rainfed lowlands where production jumped from 705 000 t in 1980 to 1 502 000 t in 1999. Even though the dry-season irrigated environment has increased production by almost nine times in the past decade (from 41 000 t in 1990 to 354 000 tin 1999) and further small-scale irrigation schemes are planned to achieve a total dry-season irrigated area of about 180 000 ha by 2005, the wet-season lowland environment will remain the most important rice-producing environment for the foreseeable future. Higher yields and reduced year-to-year variability in production can be expected with further intensification of production systems in the lowlands. However, further improvements in production will depend on higher levels of inputs and continued alleviation of some production constraints. The uplands will become less important for rice production as alternative, more sustainable technologies are developed to replace the current ‘slash-and-burn’ and shifting cultivation practices. This paper summarizes the known main abiotic and biotic production constraints in each of Laos’s rice-producing environments: wet-season lowlands, dry-season irrigated, and rainfed uplands, but not those socioeconomic constraints that can also have significant impact on farmer attitudes and production. The major production constraints in the main rice-producing environment—the wet-season lowland ecosystem of the Mekong River Valley—are drought and poor soil fertility. However, more than 10% of the wetseason lowlands in the central and southern agricultural regions are also regularly affected by flooding of the Mekong River. In these areas, flood damage is often regarded as a greater production constraint than drought. In the dry-season irrigated environment, poor soil fertility is the main abiotic constraint. Insect pests are becoming increasingly important in both these production systems. In existing production systems in the rainfed uplands, the main constraints are, in decreasing order of significance, weeds, rodents and drought. Farmers’ perceptions of the relative importance of production constraints in the uplands are generally more accurate than those in the lowlands. Poor soil fertility is often not rated among the most important constraints in the wet-season lowlands and dry-season irrigated environments, despite experimental evidence that often the greatest yield increases can come from improved plant nutrition. Until recently, farmers’ perceptions of the importance of insect pests in the lowlands often exaggerated their economic significance.

Suggested Citation

  • Schiller, John M. & Linquist, Bruce & Douangsila, K. & Inthapanya, P. & Douang Boupha, B. & Inthavong, S. & Sengxua, P., 2001. "Constraints to Rice Production Systems in Laos," ACIAR Proceedings Series 135370, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:acipro:135370
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.135370
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/135370/files/PR101.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.135370?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Unknown, 1996. "Proceedings of an International Workshop held at Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, 5-8 November 1996: Breeding Strategies for Rainfed Lowland Rice in Drought-prone Environments," ACIAR Proceedings Series 135185, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Newby, J.C. & Manivong, Vongpaphane & Cramb, R.A., 2013. "Intensification of lowland rice-based farming systems in Laos in the context of diversified rural livelihoods," 2013 Conference (57th), February 5-8, 2013, Sydney, Australia 152172, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    2. Mainuddin, Mohammed & Kirby, Mac, 2009. "Spatial and temporal trends of water productivity in the lower Mekong River Basin," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1567-1578, November.
    3. Mohammed Mainuddin & Mac Kirby, 2009. "Agricultural productivity in the lower Mekong Basin: trends and future prospects for food security," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 1(1), pages 71-82, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brennan, Donna C. & Scoccimarro, Michelle, 1999. "Issues in defining property rights to improve Australian water markets," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 43(1), pages 1-21, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crop Production/Industries;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:acipro:135370. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aciarau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.