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Groundwater offers smallholder farmers in the lowlands of Lao PDR opportunities to diversify cropping beyond wet season paddy and thus enhance their livelihoods while reducing climate risks. This chapter focuses on evaluating existing and specifically developed groundwater irrigation options on the Vientiane Plain, and framing the findings around...

Highlights • The analysis indicated a positive correlation between socioeconomic factors and agricultural land change in Asia. • A negative correlation between agricultural land and urban population signified an agricultural land decline in Asia. • Higher agricultural productivity gains contributed to the farmland decline in some countries in Asia...

Food production and productivity improvements have contributed to lifting millions of people out of poverty and reduced hunger and malnutrition, but are associated with patterns of land intensification that have degraded agricultural land and caused great environmental harm. Underlying drivers affecting land conversion to and from agriculture...

Irrigated agriculture has become an important focus of the Government of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) for addressing poverty alleviation, food security and climate change. Most irrigation systems to date have relied upon surface water, limiting irrigation development to areas close to streams, rivers and reservoirs. To address this gap, a...

Groundwater can provide irrigation for rural communities where surface water is absent or unreliable. Technical, institutional and capacity limits have prevented rural communities from using groundwater for irrigation, and researchers have not demonstrated how to extract and use groundwater effectively for agriculture. A recent Australian-funded...

Groundwater is a de-facto source of water during drought and emergencies. In a broader perspective, the traditional short-term strategy of using groundwater to combat water deficits during drought needs revisiting. The objective of this paper is to examine the relevance and options for developing and adopting such groundwater-based natural...

This presentation argues that the Food-Water-Energy nexus should not be seen as plot levelel or a local level or a national level issue but it has roots beyond individual countries. Hence, the issue is broadly outside the purview of most stakeholders operating at this level. It demands a robust regional and international cooperation aided by robust...

Owing to a high prevalence of rural poverty in Lao PDR, improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers by increasing their productivity is a high priority for the Government. Smallholder farming relies primarily on rainfall, which is prone to shortfalls and occasional droughts during the crop planting season. Reliable irrigation supplies would...

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The presentation is based on the policy brief written for CAPSA (Promoting sustainable agriculture production and products in the Asia and Pacific region) for providing an overview of the sustainable agriculture policies in Asia. The presentation introduces the broad classification of sustainable agricultural policies in Asia and provides a...