Poverty alleviation is strongly dependent on soil and natural resources access and preservation. Swidden cultivation is one of the best examples of farmer ecological strategy: with a mosaic of sites under fallow and some in cropping, soil potential is maintained and biodiversity (source of gathering and hunting, medicinal plants, firewood) is optimised by smallholders.

 However, over the past fifteen years, farming systems have changed drastically in the Lao PDR, with swidden systems giving way to more modern agricultural technologies in many areas. In southern Xayabury (Mekong corridor), with agricultural intensification, rotational cultivation systems and fallow periods are disappearing, being progressively replaced by a ‘resource-mining’ agriculture that has serious social and environmental costs, including increased soil erosion (leading to destruction of roads and paddy fields), loss of soil fertility, and chemical pollution of the environment.  In the uplands, intensification of swidden cultivation, with longer periods of cropping and more frequent return to a given field, is now being questioned as it seem unable to face the main challenges of food safety, soil and water conservation and environmental protection. In many countries, including the Lao P.D.R, the rationale of slash-and-burn collapses under changes in social conditions (increasing population density), modification of land access and increasing pressure on farming systems. 

Knowledge of farming systems is key to rational generation of technologies. Our research priorities are based on agricultural aspects, socio-economic needs and environmental conditions of farmers. Initial assessment of the situation has been carried-out at different levels in order to integrate all aspects of smallholders’ strategies and environmental conditions.