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Before investigating the relationship between livelihood strategies and household wealth-ranking it should once again be mentioned that the former traditional livelihood

strategy of northern upland households was upland rice shifting cultivation. This strategy was independent of the rural household’s wealth-ranking. It is linked with the ethnic Khamu culture to cultivate upland rice in a rotation system followed by fallow periods.

Refering to the third hypothesis, this chapter clears the question of a relation of livelihood transitions and rural household wealth.

Upland rice farming

The data refers to the workshop of the DAFO staff, which was held in February 2007 by Michael Hauser and Douglas White in Oudomxay. The facilitators collected data using the PRA tool, which I have analysed considering wealth-ranking.

As the data collected by DAFO staff shows, upland shifting cultivation is still quite equally distributed by wealth ranking of the upland farmers. Thirty out of 75 households that still cultivate upland rice are allocated to the wealth category “poor”. Twenty-three households are rich households and 22 of the households that cultivate upland rice are average.

Paddy rice farming

While looking at the result of paddy rice farming it can be seen that differences between the wealth-ranking of rural households and the implementation of paddy rice cultivation exist. Thirty-six out of 96 asked households said that they have already started to cultivate

50

Wealth category of paddy rice field owners

42 42

n=36

lowland paddy rice. Fifteen of them are rich households and also 15 are average house-holds. However, for the poor households it seems not to be self-evident to be provided with a paddy rice field. Only six households out of 36 said that they own a paddy rice field. During the qualitative interviews many poor farmers said that they would like to start cultivating lowland paddy rice, but unfortunately they do not possess any lowland area and were not sure whether the government would provide lowland area for them in future. Mrs. Thep, a poor woman from Phoulat village, said:

“… I do not have a paddy area. I probably won’t ever get a paddy area. In the village there is not enough paddy area for all villagers in Phoulat.” (Interview 2H H).

Another poor farmer from Phoulat village, Mr. Lang, said:

“At the moment we do not have a paddy rice area. We hope that the government will give us some area in future. We would like to do paddy rice farming in the future.”

(Interview 2H H).

Phoulat village, which is in the Houn district, is in a particularly remote and mountainous area. It differs from Nam Heng Neua and Houay Sang village in its extreme hilly environ-ment. This means the government cannot provide enough lowland paddy field for everyone, which affects particularly poor households. A reason for this is that rich farmers are more often involved in the representative duties within a village community. These dut-ies, such as job as a headman or member of the security staff, require and ensure contact to government staff. These connections between government staff and some certain farmers seem to be an advantage when government staff provides and divides lowland area.

Livestock

Compared to paddy rice farming, raising small animals, like poultry, pigs or goats, is well balanced among the three wealth categories. Raising small livestock is not related to the wealth-ranking of a rural household. For all rural households small livestock is an important livelihood strategy and is supported by the government.

From the eight households that told DAFO facilitators that they raise big animals, like cows and buffalo, only one household is categorised as a poor household. The rest are wealthy farmers, who can afford these expensive animals.

Collection of NTFPs

The decision about gathering NTFPs in the forest is independent of wealth ranking.

It is a common tradition for Khamu people to collect products from the forest to ensure well-balanced nutrition and, nowadays, also to sell it. Almost every farmer said that they still collect or at least did it in the past. If they have stopped gathering NTFPs from the forest the reason for it is that they have started to cultivate domesticated NTFPs, such as posa (paper mulberry bark) and puak muak.

When comparing the wealth-ranking and the domesticated posa and puak muak it shows that these two variables do not correlate. Ten households said that they have already started planting posa and/or puak muak. Four of them are categorised as wealthy; three households are average, and a further three households are categorised as poor. Thus the extension program of the government affects all households independent of wealth-ranking, and the rate of domesticated posa and puak muak will increase in future.

As the table in chapter 6.2 shows another crop, the galangal fruit, will increase in future.

Twenty-seven farmers said that they want to start cultivating galangal fruit. Four of these said that they wanted to extend it, which means that they have already planted galangal.

The transition to cultivating galangal fruit of 23 farmers seems to be independent of wealth ranking in a rural household. Nine out of 23 farmers wanting to start planting galangal are categorised as poor farmers. Eight farmers are wealthy, and the rest, six farmers, are average households. So it seems that there is no correlation between the decision about planting galangal and wealth ranking. Galangal fruit is a new livelihood strategy for the upland rural households, which is only planted for selling. cash crops provide income for farmers. Most of the upland farmers, independent of wealth category want to profit from it in future.