As mentioned earlier, the population of the Nam Lang area is characterized by ethnic diversity. Socio-economic behaviour does not, however, follow only ethnic lines, but differs also from village to village and among households in each village. Village age, accessibility, the personality of the headman or other influential community members and opium addiction rate seem to be the more important factors inducing or inhibiting social change and development, than the ethnic composition of a particular village.
The villages selected for the survey were the following: Luk Khao Lam (LKL), Pha Mon (PHM), Pha Puak (PHP), Pang Kam Noi (PKN), and Huai Hea (HUH). Additional information was collected from other villages such as Pha Daeng, Bo Khrai (see Figure 4.3). All the villages were target villages of the TG-HDP. In 1990, the average age of the 23 target villages of the TG-HDP was about 25 years. Disregarding one of the Shan villages which was founded some 250 years ago, the average settlement age then declines to about 14 years. The Lahu villages had been established more recently and had an average age of only 9 years. O f the five villages surveyed only one is older than this average (Table 4.3). The figures are, however, misleading because some villages were resettled by the TG-HDP, such as Luk Khao Lam, or resettled at former locations after an unsuccessful attempt to merge villages by the Royal Project. The locations of the villages and more important their accessibility can be seen in Figure 4.3.
Table 4.3 Age and population of the study villages. Village Name Village age in
years No. of h./holds in 1990 No. of H./holds surveyed No. of h./holds included in the data analysis
Luk Khao Lam 5 38 36 35
Pha Mon 5 39 29 29
Pha Puak 19 20 18 17
Pang Kam Noi 5 19 10 9
Huai Hea 6 31 21 21
The five villages studied in detail each have a school. They all have a formally appointed village headman. Though these headmen are not government officials in a strict sense, they receive a monthly stipend of between 370 and 700 baht and are required to attend monthly meetings at the district office located in Sob Pong.
While I intend to describe the Lahu farming system in more detail in the following section, a brief discussion of some important farming aspects are introduced at this point. Approximately 50 - 80 per cent of the villagers own some cattle (Table 4.4) and between 20 per cent and 65 per cent own wet rice fields with the most common, size being between 1.5 and 3.0 rai. Irrigated rice cultivation is most important in Pha Puak where about 60 per cent of the villagers cultivated wet rice in 1990 (Table 4.4). Not all the farmers made use of their wet rice fields in 1990. For example, of the twelve villagers in Huai Hea who owned such fields only four used them. Asked why they did not cultivate their irrigated fields some villagers pointed to a lack of water. More important, however, appears to be the decision to grow upland rice and some villagers said that as long as they can produce sufficient rice on upland fields they will not use their irrigated fields. However, they foresee increasing restrictions on upland farming in the near future and intend to increase their wet rice holdings. Two villagers in Luk Khao Lam told me that they had invested in irrigable land paying about 6,000 baht per rai. It is difficult to determine the reason for the villagers' decision to increase their irrigable land. It appears that they are responding to an anticipated future change in land availability and restrictions enforced by the RFD and other government agencies. The data I collected do not allow me to single out one of these three factors as the most significant one.
The increasing significance of wet rice cultivation also puts the traditional classification of Lahus as pioneer swiddeners (see also section 4.4) into question. This view is still widely held and the importance of paddy production has been very much underestimated by the TG-HDP which has steered its attention towards soil and water conservation and the introduction of new crops.
Table 4.4 Cattle, wet rice fields and soil and water conservation fields (absolute number and in parenthesis in percent of households included in the analysis).
LKL PHM PKN PHP HUH
No. of households
owning cattle 28 (80) 15 (52) 5 (56) 13 (76) 16(76)
Average no. of cattle 4 4 6 5 3
No. of households
owning wet rice fields 8 (23) 9(31) 2(20) 11 (65) 12 (57) No. of households
cultivating wet rice fields 8 (23) 3(10) 0 (0 ) 10 (59) 4(19) No. of households
cultivating SWC fields 14 (40) 10 (34) 8(89) 17 (100) 12(57) Average size of SWC
field per household (rai) 3.4 3.1 6.4 3.5 2.2
Rice is the only staple food crop in the highlands (SRI, 1988) and while wet rice production is increasing, upland rice cultivation is still the most common means of rice production in the study villages. For most villagers, sufficient rice for household consumption is the primary economic objective (Orth et al., 1991). Answering the question whether households had to buy or borrow rice during 1990 shows whether they were able to produce enough in the 1989 growing season. Analysing self-sufficiency for 1991 is more'difficult, because it is necessary to estimate how much rice a household will consume in the füll year. Estimates for rice consumption by one rice consumption unit (RCU) representing one adult vary considerably. The Social Research Institute (SRI, 1988) calculated a figure of 1.015 kg/RCU per day, while Orth et al. (1991) proposed a daily intake of about 0.62 kg/RCU (225 kg/year) of unmilled rice, as the threshold for rice self-sufficiency. If the mean of the two estimates is taken as a yardstick (300 kg/RCU/year), then it allows an estimation of household rice self-sufficiency for the five villages. Table 4.5 also includes the lower estimate which may serve as an indication of how critical the shortfall was within a village.
The data in Table 4.5 show, that 59 - 100 per cent of the surveyed households could not produce enough rice in 1989 which means that they had to acquire additional rice in 1990. Taking 300 kg/RCU as the limit for self-sufficiency, it is probable that 47 - 89 per cent of the surveyed households will have to acquire additional rice in 1991. Using the lower estimate (225 kg/RCU) indicates that the situation is most critical in Luk Khao Lam and Pang Kam Noi where 66 per cent and 89 per cent respectively could not produce enough rice during 1990. For the other three villages the comparable figures are 31 - 38 per cent.
Table 4.5 Upland rice production and self-sufficiency, 1990 (per cent o f total households shown in brackets).
LKL PHM PKN PHP HUH
Yield (kg/rai) 762 1,470 702 700 1,565
Field area (rai) 5.0 5.6 3.9 2.5 4.3
Distance of fields to village (walking
minutes) 56 48 16 22 80
Slope gradient of fields (per cent) 34 30 36 30 28
Cultivation period (years) 1.95 1,44 3.14 2.82 1.04
Households borrowing or buying
rice in 1990 26 (74) 17 (59) 9 (100) 16 (94) 14 (67)
Amount of rice borrowed or bought
in 1990 (kg) 236 135 400 314 168
Households insufficient in rice
(annual consumption 300 kg/RCU) 27 (77) 18 (62) 8(89) 8(47) 11(52) Households insufficient in rice
(annual consumption 225 kg/RCU) 23 (66) 9(31) 8(89) 6(35) 8(38) Note: Rice Consumption Unit (RCU): 1 person (1-4 years) = 0.33 RCU
SLE (1989) 1 person (5-9 years) = 0.67 RCU 1 person (> 9 years) = 1 .0 0 RCU
The most critical situation for villagers in Luk Khao Lam and in Pang Kam Noi is difficult to explain. In neither of the two locations did villagers indicated major rice pests. The climatic conditions for rice productions can be assumed to be the samfe for all the five villages. Why then is the situation more critical in the two villages? While it may not be possible to answer this question with certainty, the data and the villagers' own observations indicate some problems. Villagers in Pang Kam Noi contend that the soil and water conservation strategies of the TG-HDP is partially to blame for low output in rice (see also p. 66). They claim that following the project's recommendations on 6.4 rai of their SWC-fields (Table 4.4) meant that rice production on the traditional fields had to be restricted to only 3.9 rai due to labor shortage. Many villagers in Pang Kam Noi also do not own any wet rice fields. In addition, yields on their upland fields have been very low (Table 4.5). One reason may have been that they had cultivated their fields longer (more than 3 years) than households in the other villages (Table 4.5).
Average rice yield was also low in Pha Puak and Luk Khao Lam. In the first village, people were not so much affected by low yields because most of them also cultivated wet rice. In Luk Khao Lam, however, where the wet rice fields were rented out, the low rice yields drastically affected rice self-sufficiency. Households only cultivated average sized SWC fields (3.4 rai) and labor was apparently not a limiting factor. It appears that a decline in soil fertility affected rice output but information on soil fertility in the area is very limited. After analysing samples taken at eight fields in four Lahu villages in the study area, Turkelboom (1992) concluded that the soils in Luk Khao Lam were extremely
deficient in phosphorus (1.2 ppm). Soil samples taken from seven other locations showed a phosphorus content of 7.72 - 20.23 ppm. Furthermore, potassium, total nitrogen and organic matter content were lower in Luk Khao Lam than in the other villages. It seems likely that the soils in this area are inherently low in phosphorus or that a decline in soil fertility led to lower rice yields, seriously affecting rice sufficiency. Villagers appear to have come to that conclusion when they decided collectively, early in
1991, to abandon their SWC fields to make new upland rice fields (see also p. 65).
Table 4.5 also shows that rice yields were twice as high in Pha Mon and Huai Hea as in the three other villages. While the cultivation period for the upland rice fields (Table 4.5) may partially explain this result, at both locations villagers were more heavily involved in clearing forest land. As an illustration, of the 21 villagers interviewed in Huai Hea, only one claimed that he did not cut any primary forest to make a new upland rice field during that year. This indicates how comparatively more rewarding rice cultivation on newly cleared fields is. But it also indicates that even under these favorable circumstances only about half of the households could produce sufficient rice for their own consumption (Table 4.5). This underlines the importance of cash cropping including the traditional opium production.
An analysis of rice self-sufficiency, however, overlooks the family ties that exist within a village and som$tifnes between villages. If a household cannot produce enough rice in one year, this does not automatically mean that family members do not'have enough to eat. Rice deficient households may not need to buy rice if other villagers who were more successful in the same year are able to lend rice. Since this is a common practice the total rice output (upland rice and wet rice) per village is a better indicator of self-sufficiency (Table 4.6).
Table 4.6 Rice production and self-sufficiency of the sample in the five study villages.
LKL PHM PKN PHP HUH
Total amount produced (kg) 29,820 35,658 8,747 27,363 31,070 Total amount required (kg) 47,112 39,396 13,497 21,093 29,109
Deficit/Surplus (kg) -17,292 -3,738 -4,751 6,270 1,961
Per cent of sufficiency reached 63.3 90.5 64.8 129.7 106.7
As W ongsprasert (1983) pointed out, the produced rice in Lahu villages is usually only enough to feed the members of a typical household for about nine months. Considering that rice is lent to rice-deficient households within a village, Table 4.6 shows that villagers in Pha Puak and Huai Hea produced more than sufficient rice. They were able to
resupply their local rice bank or pay back rice borrowed the previous year. Villagers in Pha Mon could not produce enough rice to feed the members of the community for a whole year. But households will, on average, be able to meet their rice needs for more than ten months. A serious shortage of rice is indicated for Luk Khao Lam and Pang Kam Noi. On average, households could not produce sufficient rice to meet their needs for nine months. Villagers in Pang Kam Noi were the hardest hit. The reasons for the rice shortage in the last two villages were explained earlier.
To understand the variety of household activities, income opportunities and agricultural practices as well as the participation in the TG-HDP, a more detailed description of each village is given below. Taking rice self-sufficiency as a yardstick for success, the order of the description of the villages follows the results of Table 4.6.
Luk Khao Lam:
Luk Khao Lam consists of 38 households of which 10 (26 per cent) were classified as "rich" by the headman, 11 (29 per cent) as "medium" and 17 (45 per cent) as "poor". In all, 36 households (95 per cent) were interviewed. The village is located close to the main road but since the connecting road to the village was in poor condition, travel time for the 1 km was about ten minutes. During the wettest months of the year the village can only be reached by four-wheel drive vehicles and villagers sometimes need to carry crops for sale to the main road. The TG-HDP suggested the location for the village, since villagers were already farming extensively in the area. The village is located in a small valley which is surrounded by limestone ridges (Plate 5). The valley floor provides every household with at least 0.5 rai o f relatively fertile farm land. High soil moisture at th£ fend o f the rainy season, in com bination with the good accessibility during this time of the year, enables the farmers to grow green bean. Even though some villagers own wet rice fields, they do not cultivate wet rice themselves, but rent out these fields in return for about 10 tang (1 tang is equal to approximately 20 liters) of rice per rai per year. The main crops found in this village are upland rice, com, sesame and red kidney bean. The average cultivated area was about 17 rai per household.
Livestock played a less important role than in the other villages, but households owned more pigs. The opium addiction rate was low (only three villagers appear to be addicted). None o f the villagers owned a vehicle. The villagers participated in the TG-HDP quite actively and claimed to restrict the cutting of new fields in primary forests to the necessary minimum. M ost of the animals were penned; many villagers had constructed toilets and the village was kept very clean, so that it had become a "show case" for the project. It was visited by government officials and researchers from all over the world.
Plate 5 Luk Khao Lam (December, 1990).
Luk Khao Lam is the only village I visited twice. The first time in December 1990 and then again for a briefer visit in July 1991. Only during the second visit did villagers reveal to me that the previous cropping season (1990) had been rather disastrous. Rice yields had been very.loAy (see table 4.5 and 4.6). The problem of rice deficiency had been further com pounded by an increasing number of deaths early in 1991 which lead to delayed field preparation. Looking for a solution, it appears that all the villagers decided together to abandon their soil and water conservation fields. Instead they decided to cultivate an area which was under primary forest.
Pang Kam Noi:
This village lies approximately 4 km south of Pha Puak. During the dry season it can be easily reached by pick-up truck. During the rainy season the surface of the road is very slippery and access is only possible by four wheel drive. 19 households are located in Pang Kam Noi. 4 (21 per cent) are rich, 8 (42 per cent) medium, and 7 (37 per cent) poor. Only 10 (53 per cent) of the households could be interviewed since many were absent during the opium harvesting season.
Here, villagers cultivated the largest area of upland fields in 1990 (about 21 rai). Upland rice and com were of major importance while red kidney bean was predominantly grown in the soil and w ater conservation fields. None of the interviewed villagers grew sesame. During the course of the survey, I was told in Pha Mon by two TG-HDP staff members that Pang Kam Noi was one of the successful villages of the project. In terms of the adoption of soil and water conservation practices this could be verified (Plate 6).
Plate 6 A hillside covered by soil and water conservation fields close to Pang Kam Noi.
Nine out of the ten households interviewed practiced the recommended techniques, some even on three fields (average size about 5 rai). The majority of the fields close to the village were characterized by the grass-strips underscoring how effective villager motivation must have been. According to the villagers, however, the high adoption rate had a negative effect on the rice self-sufficiency of many households which was confirmed during the data analysis. Villagers did not openly criticise the introduction of the recommended farming methods but complained about the deteriorating standard of life and the increased dependency on buying or borrowing rice.
Why the village was successful in terms of project participation could not be explained. From discussions it appears that the agricultural extension officer responsible for the area had offered more incentives (money, promise to receive land title) and threatened the
villagers that if they would not comply with the project's recommendation on 15 rai the RFD would take over their holdings. Villagers' assess the high adoption rate as a failure. One villager said that they were ashamed to buy rice from other Lahu villages and would rather pay more money for rice grown by the Shan or Thai people. This aspect was even worsened by the fact that villagers in a neighbouring community (Mai Hung, a Shan village) regarded them as fools, according to the villager.
Pha Mon:
In contrast to Luk Khao Lam and Pang Kam Noi, Pha Mon was not a show case village. Interest in the TG-HDP was low and the area cultivated using the soil and water conservation techniques was lower than for the four other villages studied. Villagers also claim that there were no benefits to be derived from the project.
Pha Mon can only be reached by foot (a one hour walk) or motorcycle. The community was composed of 39 households of which, according to the headman and some other villagers, 12 (31 per cent) were rich, 5 (1 3 per cent) medium and 22 (56 per cent) were poor. In all, 29 households (74 per cent) were included in the survey.
Beside upland rice and corn, sesame was of major importance. The cultivated area in 1990 was about 15.5 rai per household.
Livestock were free to roam through the village which resulted in the destruction of fruit trees and coffee bushes planted close to houses. Many villagers were not very concerned about this and as a result Pha Mon is also on a very low priority list of the TG-HDP. Areas to the east of the village were not inhabited. Therefore, the competition for agricultural land was low. Cultivation of paddy rice was insignificant since many of the villagers who claimed to own paddy land said that they did not have sufficient water to cultivate their fields. Many villagers did not feel the necessity to claim fields for longer periods but rather gave them up and opened new fields in the forest.
Especially for males, the opium addiction rate is more than 50 per cent. This, however, did not appear to have affected the labor productivity negatively since the higher fertility