LAOS: Poor farmers need alternatives to opium

Photo: Natalie Bailey/IRIN

Trying to leave opium production behind, Sychan Vakongxiong tries grapes

MOONMEUANG, 2 November 2011 (IRIN) - Training in how to prune peach trees may not be at the top of most drug and crime interventions, but perhaps they should be when it comes to opium, experts say.

Opium production was rising in Laos, formerly the third-largest producer in the world after Afghanistan and Myanmar, until the government slashed poppy plots from 26,800ha to 1,500ha between 1998 and 2006.

But since 2007 opium farming has doubled to 3,000ha and the upward trend is still continuing, according to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 


The increase has led some to characterize the previous reduction in poppy growing as a fragile success as some poverty-stricken farmers may yet relapse when left with few livelihood options.

"With no assistance people will grow [poppies]. If they have no regular work or livelihood, then it's opium, because this is what they know how to do," said Edna Legaspi, project manager for UNODC in the country's northern province, Oudomxay.

Most vulnerable are the country's poorest regions easily accessible from neighbouring countries. Oudomxay, at the regional crossroads of the Laos opium trade and only hours by road to China, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar, is among the most at-risk communities, according to UNODC.

"Opium is causing problems in this district because people do not have alternatives and because of a remoteness due to a lack of road access," said Khamen Phomally, deputy district governor of Xay District in Oudomxay and chairman of the local committee on drug control. "But those who have access to other options and roads forget opium."

New cash crops such as fruit, corn and rice have helped turn most farmers away from poppy cultivation. But the struggle is constant. From pests to pruning techniques, these crops, which take well to the region's rugged mountainous terrain but typically earn less, demand different skills and knowledge than opium.