In the South of Laos, farmers are finding themselves with no other option than to sell their land to Vietnamese companies for intensive rubber tree farming. (Part 1/2. By Geoffroy Caillet, Originally published in French in Enfants du Mekong Magazine n°168)
Sounthone is looking at the row of thin trunks on both sides of the laterite trail, a long blood-coloured ribbon that cuts through the foliage, with a forlorn expression on his face. From Pakse (the main city in Southern Laos) onwards, the same scenery is present as far as the eye can see. It is a landscape that the inhabitants of the Bah Tieng district have had to get used to; it symbolises of a new way of life, as a result of the boom in rubber tree forests.
A Spider’s Web
Sounthone, 42, remembers the time when he grew rice using slash-and-burn agriculture. Slash-and-burn is a practice that is discouraged by the Laotian government due to its harmful effects on forests and the soil, yet it is still practised by many, especially those living in the mountains. In any case, because rice growing was not very profitable, he had decided to give it up in favour of other crops. “Here I used to grow coffee, and there I grew arecas [a palm tree from which the bark is chewed]“, he says pointing to plots of land that, until recently, belonged to him.
For him, as for the other inhabitants of the village of Oudomsouk, everything started in 2005, when the government awarded a concession contract for tens of thousands of hectares of land to three Vietnamese companies. It was up to these companies to negotiate buying them back from the owners. In Oudomsouk, the process used had a similar effect to that of a spider’s web. One by one, the plots were encroached upon by the business owners during the process of clearing existing crops and planting rubber trees. Like all the villagers, Sounthone was forced to sell his eight hectares, one by one. His land has now become a tiny part of this immense empire.
Today, the inhabitants of Oudomsouk own no more than 5% of the village’s former crop growing area. Only uneven ground, which is too difficult to farm, has not been bought up. On the other side of the river that runs through the village, all the rest of the land is covered in rubber tree seedlings.
When they decided to set themselves up here, the Vietnamese knew exactly what they were doing: “To the South of Pakse, the soil is too sandy. Here it is volcanic and rich, particularly good for rubber and fruit trees“, points out Sounthone, with a hint of pride about him when he alludes to his lost wealth.
“Negotiation”
Not everybody lost out, judging by the low price the biggest company managed to negotiate for purchasing land in Oudomsouk when they obtained a concession for 10,000 hectares. These negotiations bordered on theft: 1.5 million Kips per hectare of coffee, 600,000 Kips per hectare of wood and 175,000 Kips on average per paddy field hectare, which, respectively, equate to £121, £48 and £14. To be able to intensively farm rubber trees quickly, the business owners pulled out all the stops. They used every means possible…
Next week, learn more about how far are private companies ready to go to develop intensive rubber tree farming in Laos, and what will the consequences be for local farmers. Stay connected!
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