Rice Mechanization in Laos and Its Current Issues

In Laos, traditional agricultural custom is established that has low productivity but relatively low labor requirement, and a sustainable live-lihood with hunting and gathering wild plants, insects and animals. Since 1990's high production policy such as irrigation has been introduced in order to secure food sufficiency and promotion of commercial production. However, it has not been transformed well from conventional agriculture to intensive high productivity agricultural method due to short period of time. Utilization of agricultural machinery such as small tractors, threshers and rice mills has been increased, but important machines for rice production such as transplanters, seeders, and harvesters have rarely been utilized. It is considered that transformation from conventional agriculture to intensive agriculture is a precondition for entire rice mechanization and it is a critical issue in preventing from mechanization. In this paper, how to transform agricultural method is discussed by case studies.