After the Boom: Responding to Falling Rubber Prices in Northern Laos | Land Portal
After the Boom Thematic Study cover image

Resource information

Date of publication: 
May 2017
Resource Language: 
Pages: 
54

Rubber prices in northern Laos have fallen significantly over the last few years, eroding much of the initial enthusiasm of both farmers and government officials about rubber providing a way out of poverty for poor upland farmers. This thematic study examines responses to this price drop by Lao rubber growers and state institutions in northern Laos. It also examines the reasons that prices are what they are, given that price volatility was identified as a risk during the mid-2000s, and that in at least some cases, steps were taken to protect contract farmers from falling prices.


Drawing on 20 days of fieldwork in mid-2015 in five districts and seven villages of Luang Namtha and Oudomxai provinces, this study is one of the first efforts to connect an earlier body of research on the rubber-planting boom of the 2000s with the subsequent fall in prices.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Thoumthone Vongvisouk
Michael Dwyer

Publisher(s): 

Mission


Forest Trends works to conserve forests and other ecosystems through the creation and wide adoption of a broad range of environmental finance, markets and other payment and incentive mechanisms. Forest Trends does so by:


  1. Providing transparent information on ecosystem values, finance, and markets through knowledge acquisition, analysis, and dissemination; 

Project Description

Land governance is at the center of development challenges in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Governments are revising land policies and practices in order to face these challenges. The project aims to (i) assist the emergence of more favorable policies and practices for securing the rights and access of family farmers to land and natural resources; and (ii) to strengthen the effectiveness of concerned stakeholders through learning, alliance building and regional cooperation.


Data provider

Project Description

Land governance is at the center of development challenges in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Governments are revising land policies and practices in order to face these challenges. The project aims to (i) assist the emergence of more favorable policies and practices for securing the rights and access of family farmers to land and natural resources; and (ii) to strengthen the effectiveness of concerned stakeholders through learning, alliance building and regional cooperation.