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Abstract
Despite being a low‐income, agriculture‐based country with a subsistence‐orientation, Laos is in
the early stages of a major economic transformation whereby rural households have been
experiencing rapid change in their farming and livelihood systems. Some households have
engaged in what the World Bank classifies as market‐oriented farming while other households
have adopted labour‐oriented or migration‐oriented livelihood strategies. This paper explores
how rural households in six villages in the lowlands of Champasak Province in southern Laos
make a living. These villages vary in their access to irrigation and to markets. Nevertheless, in all
villages, long‐term migration of younger household members to neighbouring Thailand has
come to play a large role in household livelihood strategies. In some cases this is necessary to
meet the household’s consumption requirements; in others, it is part of a diversified strategy in
which rice farming still plays a significant role, whether for subsistence or the market. The
paper examines some of the issues involved in pursuing intensive, market‐oriented rice farming
in a context of an emerging on‐farm labour shortage combined with an increasing flow of
remittances from migrant family members.