Lao People's Democratic Republic

by Somsak Kethongsa

Introduction

Lao PDR is located in the South East Asian Region, sharing its border with five countries: China to the north, Cambodia to the south, Viet Nam to the west and Myanmar and Thailand to the east has the total population of 5.5 million and the population density of 18 persons/km.

Agriculture is the most important sector in Lao PDR, accounting for about 56 percent of the GDP and employing approximately 80 percent of the labor force. Crop production is largely dominated by paddy rice, which represents approximately 90 percent of crop production and 80 percent (650 000 ha) of annual cultivated cropland. Other important crops include maize, job-tear, coffee, beans, vegetables and fruit-trees.

In the past few years and especially since 1996, agricultural production increased as a consequence of more coherent agriculture development policies and strategies and more harmonized and focused investment efforts in the agricultural sector. In 2000 rice cultivated area was total 718 000 ha, with the rainfed area of 475 000 ha and the irrigated area of 91 000 ha and the upland area of 152 000 ha. Rice production totaled 2.2 million tons. The Lao government has the policy of promoting commodity production of crops and vegetables were also promoted with increasing vegetable-cultivated area of 104 000 ha in 2000 to 123 000 ha in 2003.

The country's rice production in year 2000 has reached a record output of 2.2 million metric tons. With the said record output, Lao PDR is basically self sufficient on rice. This is equivalent to 400 kg of rice per capita or increase 50 percent in production as compared to the rice production in 1986.

The increase in dry season irrigation infrastructure and better agro-technical practices such as: increases the use of improved seeds, organic and inorganic fertilizer has contributed to a large extent to the record rice production. Beside rice, with increased diversification of the agricultural systems; the production of cash crops, vegetables and fruits has also increased significantly.

The use of agricultural inputs still is being very low in Lao PDR; pesticides have not been regarded as a prime factor in improving yields. Application of pesticides will continue to be very low, if no increase in the use of inputs has been initiated. In general, the tropical monsoon climate of Lao PDR is conducive to supporting a variety of pests. Pest incidence may become more acute with the introduction and extensive cultivation of new and high yielding crop varieties.

The most important insect pests of rice are stem borers, gall midge, brown plant hopper, rice bug, grasshoppers and others. Insect pests of other crops have not yet been systematically recorded although several have been observed in fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers. Other important pests causing damage in crops are snails, craps, mice, rats. Snails and crabs can destroy part of the rice crop in wetland rice. Rats can cause severe damage on cereals.

The use of chemicals in plant protection is of relatively low importance in Lao PDR. The country does not produce any active ingredients, nor does it formulate any pesticides locally. All pesticides are then imported and used mainly on dry-season irrigation rice, vegetables and marketable high-value crops.

Before 1988, only the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was responsible for imports of pesticide. Presently, pesticides are imported through three channels such as:

a. Private companies who are formally registered with commerce authorities.

b. Smuggling from neighboring countries in to Lao PDR by traders or farmers.

c. Introduction by the international assistances programme and donors.

In order to make great contribution to agricultural development and supply of raw materials to the industrial sector for domestic requirement, the government set the policy of promoting the commodity production and also initiative of clean agriculture production to farmers by the appropriate IPM techniques, minimizing the chemical control and promoting the biodiversity conservation in Lao PDR.

Regulatory work

In 2000, Regulation on Use and Management of Pesticides in Lao PDR, No. 0886/MAF, dated 10 March 2000 was promulgated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry with the objective of managing all kinds of pesticides in the country. This has been used as the reference for the pesticides management. The WHO Recommended Classification of Pesticide by Hazard and FAO Guideline to Classification 1994-1995 were recognized by the Government of Lao PDR.

In 2002, Plant Protection Center was established for the purpose of testing pre and post harvest agriculture inputs, testing of chemical residues in agricultural products, testing of the imported pesticides, monitoring and diagnosis of the insects and their outbreak. Since there is a lack of technical staff and equipments, work at the center is currently implemented in very limited aspects.

Legislation of pesticides

All kinds of pesticides imported and used or exported through Lao PDR are under the responsibility and control of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, which is the main mandate of the Department of Agriculture. Both public and private sectors who has the purpose to import or export pesticides have to be granted by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Department of Agriculture is responsible for legislation of all kinds of imported pesticides. Therefore, all shops who import pesticides for distribution in Lao PDR have to make formal registration of the pesticides such as quality, country of origin and simple of the imported pesticides and submitted to Department of Agriculture for registration and import permission.

List of pesticides divided into 6 groups as follows:

There are also 26 kinds of pesticides which are prohibited for usage in Lao PDR.

A. List of permitted pesticides in Lao PDR

B. Pesticides which is prohibited to use in Lao PDR

Testing of chemical residues in agricultural products

Testing for chemical residues in agricultural products is new for Lao PDR which all staff are currently trained for both technical terms and laboratory equipments. Testing for chemical residues in crops was made at the farmer's fields in Vientiane Capital and some vegetables in the local markets of Vientiane Capital were randomly tested. Testing activities have been carried out in limit aspects since the laboratory and its equipments in Plant Protection Center are considered as basic tools with capacity of testing only 2 groups of pesticides such as Carbamate and Organophosphate.

Use and distribution of pesticides in Lao PDR

All pesticides used in Lao PDR are imported from nearby countries such as Thailand, Viet Nam and China. The pesticides imported for distribution comprise of pesticide, fungicide and herbicide with increasing price when distributed in the agricultural shops, retail shops at the villages and at the market. Pesticides are distributed to farmers in three channels:

A. Distribution by companies and farms: Pesticides popularly applied for only some kinds of vegetables are imported and directly distributed to regular clients by distributors and these pesticides are only applied for high-price vegetables such as tomatoes, chili, radish, and water melon.

B. Distribution by agricultural inputs distributors: Pesticides are imported and distributed to the agricultural inputs distributors and later distributed to farmers.

C. Distribution by distributors ® agricultural inputs shop ® retail shop ® farmers: Pesticides are transferred to the shop and later distributed to local shops in the local villages and market places by local traders and finally distributed to farmers.

According to the data collected at the biggest agricultural inputs shop in Vientiane Capital, all kinds of liquid pesticides are about 40 litres while the powder pesticides amounted to 36 kg.

Besides formal import of pesticides, there are also pesticides illegally traded along the border and some of them are prohibited such as Folidol since high rate of chemical residue and highly toxic content.

Safe pesticide placement can be seen at the big and medium sized shops in Vientiane Capital, Savannakhet and Champassak Provinces.

Pesticides are displayed unsafely at small shops in urban areas or markets where the pesticides are placed together with different kinds of products.

Pesticide application for rice and fruit tree has been considered low, while pesticides are mainly applied by farmers to vegetables such as leafy vegetables, yard long bean, cucumber and water melon. Farmers who are aware of pesticide hazard especially farmers who attended the Farmer Field School, obtaining the IPM experience, have followed the techniques such as self-protection and harvested their crops 7 days after pesticide application.

However, there are some farmers who are not aware enough of pesticide application, too many kinds of pesticides are applied together as so-called 'cocktail' and earlier harvesting their crops which provided negative impact to consumers as well as user themselves.

Currently Lao government is making an effort of improving pesticide use and management system in order to apply effective measures to management and prohibition of pesticides illegally imported and distributed without registration.

To encourage farmers for safe pesticide application, Lao government through the radio programme has disseminated farmers the hazard aware of pesticide and safe pesticide application.

IPM project plays an important role of disseminating farmers the technical information upon IPM techniques for their crop production and IPM activities are mainly carried out in the northern, central and southern parts of the country.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, pesticide use in Lao PDR is considered low and still less impact to the environment; however, when the agricultural development increases together with the increasing requirement for agricultural development, it is certain that need of agricultural inputs such as new seeds varieties, fertilizer and pesticide will increase. Currently, activities of plant protection in Lao PDR are carried out in limit aspects:

• There are differences in people's socio-economic status for production and ecosystem.

• There is a lack of technical staffs for pests, plant diseases and weeds identification.

• Lack of information on pest circle and outbreak relatively caused by climate change.

• Pesticide management system is still limited in term of public awareness.

• Lack of financial support and equipments required for plant protection system.

To strengthen ecosystem, plant protection in Lao PDR needed strong improvement and upgrade in certain status.

QUESTIONNAIRE SUMMARY

Lao PDR

Selected Country Statistics:

GDP = Gross Domestic Product; GNI = Gross National Income; Hunger = Population below minimum energy requirement; FAOSTAT = latest data entry between 1998 and 2002

Institutional Profile

Industry Associations:

Non-Governmental Associations:

Questionnaire responses: Yes = Yes; - = No;? = don't know; (blank) = no answer