This paper looks at the (re)shaping of local institutional arrangements within the context of land use planning processes in Laos, bringing to light their dynamic and co-constitutive relationship. Taking Pa Khom village in Houaphan province as a case study, it examines how local tenure institutions are (re)produced, (re)assembled and adapted to mirror farmer’s livelihood strategies to meet households’ food security, while also conforming to the defined land use plan. The paper illustrates how farmers employ institutional bricolage to creatively assemble and reshape their land use arrangements to comply with the defined land use plan.
Key Insights
Farmers’ strategies, collective action, and the shaping of institutions
The research shows that farmers creatively fine-tune their land use arrangements to comply with the land use plan (and vice versa) thus ensuring land use changes in the plan fits with their locally embedded livelihood priorities, albeit with different distributional outcomes for various farm households.
Pa Khom village zoning system
A key benefit of TABI’s one-village zoning system is that it increases the labor force available to households during busy periods of the agricultural cycle.
Adaptation in agricultural practices
The change to a one-village zonation system also has the advantage of reducing the risk of fire spreading during burning, furthermore, cultivating in a single zone together with the whole community has made their upland rice fields less vulnerable to being damaged by wild boards and other animals.
Challenges for swidden agriculture
The main challenge with TABI’s land zonation system for swidden is that it limits farmers’ choices over where to clear and cultivate each year. Farm households are forced to choose from a limited number of available plots to which they have claims within a predefined zone.
Land and labor
Households contribute their labor to other households to ensure they are able to finalize the different farming activities in time. Farm households arrange and to a certain extent balance their use of land and labor provision based on social reciprocity.
Key Statistics & Data
- Upland swidden makes up 91.7% of total agricultural land in the village, and 65.4% of total village land under TABI’s land use plan (TABI and DALAM, 2018).
- Pa Khom village produces on average 61,150 kilos or rice per year, of which 58,000 kilos is consumed and the remaining is stored (TABI and DALAM, 2018).
Methodology
We employed an in-depth case study approach (Yin, 1994) to examine how local institutional arrangements governing upland swidden and livestock grazing land interact with land use planning processes. Pa Khom village in Khouan District, Houaphan province, was selected as a case study based on recommendations from TABI project staff who identified this village as an example of ‘successful’ PFALUPAM land use plan implementation.
Implications and Conclusions
Our case study highlights the centrality of farmer’s agency manifested in farm households’ strategies in (re)shaping the actual significance of land use plan formulation and implementation. Farmers in Pa Khom village have demonstrated an ability to piece together institutional arrangements through bricolage to produce an acceptable level of tradeoffs between forest conservation on the one hand and the recognition of swidden agriculture as a key part of upland livelihoods on the other, revealing their role in (re)shaping state spaces.
Key Points
- Farmers creatively assemble and reshape land use arrangements to meet local livelihood priorities.
- Local communities act autonomously, collectively, and in relation to external agents.
- Land tenure arrangements are adjusted by villagers to fit changes in land use plans.
- The village committee's and elders' knowledge of local practices is important for synergizing land use plans.
- Farmers' perception of land as both individual and communal determines their ability to shape land use practices.
- The study shows how flexible land tenure arrangements are rooted in farmers' perceptions of their land as both individual and communal
- Institutional components from different origins have been creatively reworked to synergize the different rationales behind land use planning to meet both forest conservation and food security purposes.