Improving the Resilience of the Agriculture Sector to Climate Change Impacts

What is the project about?

Lao PDR has a predominantly agricultural economy with 80 per cent of people involved in some form of activity related to agriculture. However, people often face food insecurity, with over 30 per cent of the population experiencing seasonal shortfalls in rice, the staple crop. This insecurity is a significant dimension of poverty and vulnerability and is linked, according to analysis provided by the World Food Program in 2007, to a range of factors, including loss of access to natural resources, sudden increases in food prices and increasing incidence of flooding and drought.

Working in one drought prone province in the south and one flood prone province in the north, this project worked on reducing the vulnerability of farmers to extreme flooding and drought events through the introduction of an applied ecosystems-based approach to agriculture.

What did this project accomplish?

Climate change information generated, collected and uploaded into the website for public access. More than 180,000 click into the website observed in October 2013.
26 training activities on basic climate change adaptation knowledge, GIS, gender and climate change adaptation, etc. held in Vientiane Capital, Xayaboury and Savannakhet provinces allowing 803 (307 female) participants from government agencies, students and farmers to be able to expose to and improve significantly their knowledge and understanding of climate change issues.
Developed planning tools for forecasting and development of climate change scenarios on district and watershed level (several GIS layers, water balance assessment). Developed 2 land use maps with climate change characters for Paklay and Outoumphone districts.
Integrated climate change criteria into formal village land use planning by DPLD/MONRE.
Developed 4 Climate Change Training and Agriculture Adaptation Modules (on climate resilient cropping, livestock management, fisheries and vegetable practices) and implemented trials at pilot sites.
637 household (10%) of the project target farmers reached directly technical support service from government extension officers during piloting of 29 adaptive agricultural practices such as frog raising, duck raising, native chicken raising, pig raising, onion growing etc.
Supported communities in drought prone areas with126 large jars (1,000 -1,600 liters/unit), 288 well tube rings (1000 liters/unit), and 7 steel tanks (3,000 liters/unit) for rain water harvesting. Constructed 15 small scale reservoirs with capacity ranking from 80-7,500 cubic meters (Xayaboury province) and 4 fish ponds with capacity from 1,350-4,500 cubic meters (Savannakhet province).
Flood/drought tolerant rice varieties (TDK1, TDK 1/1, TDK 8 and TDK 11) piloted in an area of about 110 hectares in 4 target districts. The average yield reached 3,6 tons per hectare (about one ton higher than local seed used before the project.
Climate Change knowledge is increasingly understood as a long-term challenge to the country in terms of potential impacts on infrastructure, agriculture, the economy and livelihoods.
Produced and disseminated 2 climate change videos and numerous posters, booklets, brochures, and T-shirts.