Transboder rubber investment and its implications on food security in Lao PDR : A case study of Thai rubber plantations in Atsaphone, Savannakhet province

Abstract

Lao PDR is a resource rich but cash poor country where approximately 80% of the population live in rural areas and are subsistence or semi-subsistence farmers, the majority of whom still rely on agriculture and other natural resources for food production to satisfy their dietary needs. Industrial tree plantations, including rubber, have been promoted to the Government of Lao PDR to champion poverty eradication in Lao PDR. Private-sector actors from Thailand, China and Vietnam are all investors in rubber plantations in Lao PDR. To understand changes in rural food security, it is critical to study the changes in land tenure, access to natural resources and other social changes within host communities as a result of foreign direct investments (FDI) in rubber plantations in Lao PDR. Thaihua Rubber has made its rubber plantation investments in five provinces in Lao PDR including Don Kuang plantation, the area of the case study. The establishment of Don Kuang affected four villages including Kan Tiew village in Atsaphone District, Savannakhet Province. The study investigates how government, private sector, and civil society actors and the community themselves interact within the process of Thai transborder rubber investment in Lao PDR, and ultimately how this process accounts for and affects food security in Kan Tiew village using the political ecology approach. Findings reveal how Don Kuang plantation have caused changes which include land tenure security, decline in Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) in Kan Tiew village and particularly the sub-standard contract conditions of Kan Tiew plantation households with the company have caused vulnerability to food insecurity. However, there are other factors causing the vulnerability beyond these immediate changes including the corporate behaviour of Thaihua Rubber and the process of its rubber investments in Lao PDR where the politics of power overriding the need to lessen the social and environmental impact on the ground and hence discounting food security. Given the growth of industrial plantation development in Lao PDR could not be reverted, the resultant food insecurity condition may eventually also threaten other aspects of human security.