Future cropping system of Lao PDR presented to a globally important conference in FAO headquarter
During the last few years, the Department of Agricultural Land Management (DALAM) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) has developed a spatial analysis system quantifying land productivity for today and in different future time horizons.
The modelling has been developed using the Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) methodological approach, which has been developed over several decades for assessing agricultural resources and potential by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).
In June 17 FAO launched the Global AEZ web pages, and the countries that are more advanced in using the methodology were invited, including Lao PDR. The visibility of Lao PDR was high because it is the first Least Developed Country that has the technical capacity to undertake such complex modelling independently. The event saw the participation of more than 600 experts from the entire world.
Dr Saysongkham Sayavong, Head of the GIS activities of the FAO project “Strengthening Agro-climatic Monitoring and Information Systems (SAMIS) to improve adaptation to climate change and food security in Lao PDR” financed by GEF, participated to the event and explained to the audience that the crop future scenarios map that help policymakers to imagine and experiment with future climate conditions and amplify the robustness of climate change adaptation planning.
This will support the 9th National Socio-Economic Development Strategy (NSEDP) for Lao PDR and will contribute directly to a number of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The Global AEZ web page is available at: https://gaez.fao.org/
The activities of Laos related to national AEZ mapping are shown in FAO video at: https://youtu.be/gNpk8rlfO2E