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Part 1. Introduction

Introduction

The Golden Triangle is known throughout the world as an important centre where opium poppy has been cultivated and marketed for centuries. The town of Sop Ruak, at the Lao-Myanmar-Thai border, along the Mekong River, is thought to be the centre of the region and known informally as the Golden Triangle. Often, the Golden Triangle is perceived as a lawless area where warlord gangs fight with each other over caravan routes and markets.

Opium poppy fields in Phongsaly, Laos [twice the size]

Almost everything about this image is false. While parts of the Golden Triangle might be beyond the effective control of national Governments, most of the people in the area are not drug traffickers but poor farmers who cannot grow enough food to support themselves. Sop Ruak has only been called the "Golden Triangle" since the 1980s.

Some thirty years have elapsed since the term "Golden Triangle" was reportedly first used by Marshall Green, United States Assistant Secretary of State. At a press conference in July 1971, Green said that drugs were spreading through a "golden triangle" encompassing Laos, Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand. By referring to this region as a triangle, Green implicitly recognized the absence of opium cultivation and use in China.

At that time, United States and Thai leaders were planning the implementation of a crop replacement project in northern Thailand. When the Crop Replacement and Community Development Project started operations in 1971, it became the first such activity of the then newly created United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC), a predecessor organization to UNODC.

By the 1970s, intensive cash-cropping of opium poppy was little more than a century old. Before that time, opium was not a cash crop and mostly grown in backyard gardens, for use as a medicinal substance in treating pain, dysentery, cough, and the symptoms of malaria.

This changed after British gunboats attacked Chinese coastal towns in the mid-nineteenth century to force China to open the country to the sale of opium that it had banned because opium addiction among the Chinese population had reached problematic levels. Once gaining access to this potentially huge Chinese market, British merchants hoped to sell opium grown in British-controlled Bengal for huge profits. Both because China's Ching Dynasty was weakening at this time and because of superior British gunboat firepower, the Chinese could not resist. The so-called Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 ended with the legalization of the opium trade in China. However, British hopes of exporting Bengal opium to China did not fully materialize.

Chinese entrepreneurs realized that opium was already being grown in the hills of southern provinces of China and promoted opium poppy cultivation by the ethnic minorities as a cash crop for export elsewhere in China.

Eventually, many people living in southern China migrated southwards into British Burma, Thailand, and French Indochina as unrest spread in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. As they moved, so did the opium trade. Colonial and Thai administrators generally welcomed the income that could be derived from this trade to administer their respective countries. The move of opium cultivation southwards accelerated after 1949. Several campaigns in the early-1950s eliminated opium cultivation in southern China, leading to large-scale crop displacement from southern China to some provinces in Burma as well as Laos, Viet Nam, and Thailand. The move of opium cultivation southwards accelerated after 1949. Several campaigns in the early-1950s eliminated opium cultivation in southern China, leading to large-scale crop displacement from southern China to some provinces in Burma as well as Laos, Viet Nam, and Thailand.

Only then did the Golden Triangle take shape as a major centre of opium cash cropping. In this region there were several major cultivation centres. In Myanmar, these were the Wa Region and Kokang, both along the China border in Shan State. In Laos, opium poppy was cultivated in the northernmost province of Phongsaly and the eastern provinces of Xieng Khouang, particularly Nonghet District and Xam Neua, as well as in adjacent areas in Viet Nam. Major growing areas in Thailand were in Chiang Rai Province around two mountains, Doi Tung and Doi Mae Salong.

Large poppy fields were also cultivated in some villages just west and northwest of Chiang Mai city.

For decades, there were no systematic estimates on opium poppy cultivation. This began to change after the opium cultivation ban in Thailand which went into effect in 1958. In 1965/1966, the Public Welfare Department of Thailand carried out a socio-economic survey of hill people in opium poppy growing areas and in 1967, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs financed a survey on socio-economic needs. The latter survey estimated cultivation of opium poppy in Thailand to cover 18,500 hectares with a yield of 145 tons. Soon, alternative development projects were implemented by the government as well as by international agencies including UNFDAC. This and the strong political commitment of the Government of Thailand resulted in significant reductions in cultivation levels. By 1984, Thailand had become a net importer of opium.

Civil unrest and warfare in the other poppy growing countries of the Golden Triangle prevented opium surveys and development work until the late 1980s. However, from then on, increased political will as well as the implementation of various development projects contributed to the reduction of opium cultivation in Laos and Myanmar. Although opium poppy is still cultivated in the Golden Triangle, other trades are overtaking the opium business and its reputation is slowly changing for the better.

Part 2. Coping With Change in the Golden Triangle - The Impact of Opium Poppy Elimination on Rural Livelihoods

Socio-economic survey in Shan State, Myanmar [twice the size]

Most opium poppy farmers of Myanmar and Lao PDR live in remote mountainous terrain, cultivating thin soils on steep hills. With traditional farming methods in these difficult conditions, yields of rice and corn are not enough to sustain annual food needs of most households. Thus, households have until recently depended on high-value and easily-transportable opium to increase their food security. Yet, even with income from opium, opium poppy farmers stayed poor. In the six northern provinces of Lao PDR, the average annual income of an opium poppy-growing household in 2005 was only US$139, compared to US$231 for those households that did not cultivate opium poppy.

Those families in the Golden Triangle that relied on opium poppy are now even more vulnerable to food and livelihood insecurity. On the other hand, new opportunities are slowly opening up in some locations. This chapter summarizes recent field research on the impact of the opium poppy reduction and the changes rural households in Myanmar and Laos have to face as a consequence. This chapter also presents an analysis of how former opium poppy farmers cope with change and identifies characteristics of vulnerable households.

Methodology and data sources

The findings presented here are an abridged version of the full report "Coping with Change ­ Poppy growers of Myanmar and Lao", commissioned by the UNODC Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific. The study synthesizes the results of a number of recent UNODC surveys and studies, and enriches them with findings from a rapid field assessments conducted in Myanmar and Laos in early 2006.

UNODC-supported socio-economic studies

Six reports constitute the bulk of the data, on which the coping strategies study is based. Data relevant to coping strategies were extracted and analysed from these documents, and some case examples selected and refined. These reports include:

6 Luangnamtha, Oudomxay, Phongsaly, Luangprabang, Houaphanh, and Xiengkhouang.

Opium poppy-growing village in Oudomxay, Laos [twice the size]

Field assessment of coping strategies

The rapid assessment used semi-structured group discussions and household interviews to investigate the impact of the opium ban and how households cope. The fieldwork was conducted in January and February 2006 in a total of 9 villages in Myanmar's Special Region 2 Wa and Oudomxay Province in Lao PDR, with one-half to one day in each village (see table below). Households interviewed were chosen from well-being categories (poor, average, better-off) to provide examples across the economic spectrum in the village, with an emphasis on poorer households. Households with current or former addicts were also selected.

In the Wa Region, the study was conducted in conjunction with fieldwork for a baseline survey of Naung Khit Township. The villages were selected to represent three kinds of vulnerabilities (low income, low land availability, high dependence on opium poppy income) as determined by a village vulnerability ranking on the basis of the quantitative baseline survey results. The field study results were first presented in the Naung Khit Baseline Survey Report as village profiles and a summary.

In Laos, villages were selected to represent those near and far from the road, as well as different ethnic groups (Khmu, Akha and Hmong). Altogether six villages were visited over a period of five days.

Map 5: Study areas in Myanmar and Laos

[twice the size]

Changes since the opium reduction

Upland households in the opium poppy regions of Laos and Myanmar have experienced both positive and negative changes related to the reduction or complete elimination of opium poppy. Positive impacts have been the rehabilitation of opium addicts, some lightening of workloads (especially for women), and the opportunity to diversify crops. On the other hand, since the opium poppy reductions, many households now lack food, cash, and livelihood security.

Opium and addiction

In Lao PDR, a survey in 1999 showed that 63,000 persons, representing 2.26% of the adult population, used opium in the northern provinces. This was the second-highest national rate of opium addiction in the world at that time. The situation in the Wa Region, Myanmar, was even more acute, with an estimated 6% of the adult population of Mong Pawk District being addicted, or at least one addict in 16% of all households[7]. Yet, as a result of a decade of rehabilitation programmes launched by regional governments and international agencies, the number of addicts in Lao PDR in 2006 is less than one fifth of the 1999 estimate.

7 Wa Area Development Project (WADP). 1999 Baseline Survey Report. Draft. UNODC Myanmar. 2000, p. 3.

Most opium addicts are men who became addicted when they used opium as medicine to relieve symptoms of an illness, or through social use. When the male head of household becomes addicted, he is usually no longer able to work hard. Consequently, women bear the burden of feeding the family as well as the opium addiction, and the livelihood of the entire household is at risk. The rehabilitation of large numbers of addicts throughout the region has contributed to increased household productivity and food security, lightened women's workloads, and, as many respondents observed, brought back harmony to family life.

Poor opium poppy farmer in Kachin, Myanmar [twice the size]

Opium and household livelihoods

Opium poppy is a labour-intensive, high-risk crop and some households welcome the fact that they now have more time to concentrate on more reliable livelihood activities such as raising small livestock, doing handicrafts and cultivating other crops[8]. However, opium reduction has resulted in a serious lack of cash, lack of food, and increased debt for many households. Farmers in Wa's Naung Khit Township, for example, consistently report that families are now unable to purchase not only rice, but also basic household necessities such as cooking oil, salt and clothing. In the Naung Khit town market, about half of the shops have recently closed due to lack of customers, which is a clear indication of the lack of cash that is evident throughout the northern Wa Region.

8 UNODC and LCDC. Laos Opium Survey 2005. UNODC Lao PDR. June 2005, p. 32.

One-third of all households in the Wa Region were in debt last year, and most of these farmers expect to be unable to repay that debt without opium income[9]. Without the security of opium, farmers have no loan collateral and are unable to access capital to invest in alternate income- generation activities.

9 UNODC and CCDAC. Myanmar Farmers' Intention Survey 2005. UNODC Myanmar. October 2005, p.11.

Opium and food insecurity

In the year 2005, 57% of villages in northern Lao PDR faced a rice deficit, while in the Wa Region, 90% of all villages experienced food insecurity. The average household in Wa is able to produce only enough rice for four to six months worth of food for the family, and those in the most difficult situation only enough for one to three months. Farmers in Wa are thus extremely vulnerable to the loss of opium income to make up for food shortages.

A lack of food forces households to use negative coping mechanisms such as consuming less preferred (and often less nutritious) food, rationing food, borrowing food, purchasing food on credit, and gathering or hunting wild foods. In times of food shortages, households face a daily struggle for food. Households in Naung Khit Township gave the following responses to the question of what they have done over the last year when there was no food available[10]

10 UNODC/Wa Project. Naung Khit Township Baseline Survey Report. Draft. UNODC TCU, Pang Kham, Myanmar. March 2006, p. 26.

11 The survey was conducted in November and December of 2005, during the first opium poppy season, in which cultivation was completely banned. Many of the households were just beginning to feel the impact of the ban, and stated that these coping mechanisms would surely be more widely practiced in the May-November food-short season of 2006 - and if no solutions were found, then in the years to follow.

Good health is a critical household asset: without strength, labourers cannot work productively, and children cannot grow and learn. Yet when family members fall ill, the household must decide how much scarce time and money can be spared to care for the sick. When family members ration food to conserve it, or eat less nutritious foods, then malnutrition and related diseases become worse. In the Wa region, malnutrition rates are already among the highest in Myanmar, with 58% of children stunted, and 26% of children severely stunted [12].

12 World Food Programme, Nutrition Survey 2005. World Food Programme, Myanmar. 2005. p. 11.

Households in the Special Region 2 Wa were much more dependent on opium income for food than those in Lao PDR, where opium constituted only 10% of the total household income last year. In the Wa Region, 82% of the farmers cultivated opium to ensure food security, and opium accounted for 73% of the total household income last year before the opium ban. Therefore, in 2006, annual household income in Wa dropped considerably, with potentially serious consequences for food security.

Worries and stress

The loss of the principal cash crop and related shortage of food and cash has caused worry and stress, especially in the Wa Region where the reduction has been so rapid and widespread. Since they had been cultivating opium for so many generations to meet food needs, many villagers did not believe a ban would be enacted - and when it happened, they did not know how to feed their families.

Case Example 1: Yaung Khaung Wa Village, Special Region 2 Wa, Myanmar

This case illustrates the situation and perspectives of farmers after a recent and sudden opium elimination in Special Region 2 (Wa), Myanmar: do, but most are collecting forest products.

Box 3
Some people are staying home with nothing to have to cut down the trees to strip the bark, it causes deforestation. It is very hard work. No one wants to do it. We would rather not collect forest products, but we have no choice. Our children must eat. Village leader, Yaung Khaung Wa Village, Wa, Myanmar.

Yaung Khaung Wa is a village of 249 ethnic Wa in What we are collecting now will last only a short 41 households. At only USD 61.5, the average time, by next year it will be gone. And since we annual household income is less than a quarter of the township average. In 2005, the year of the opium ban in this region, unskilled labour (including work in opium fields) provided 72% of the household income, while opium contributed only 23%.

Most families are only able to harvest enough rice from their upland field for a 4-6 month supply of food. In the past, even with income from opium, most households still lacked food for several months. When households lack food they look for work in nearby towns, where they can carry rocks and sand for roads or construction for about USD1.25 per day, but jobs are not always available. Sometimes labourers must return from the town empty-handed.

Villagers reported that the main impact of the opium ban had been a complete lack of cash to buy rice and basic household needs such as salt, cooking oil, or clothing. During the season in past years, villagers would be working as gum collectors in opium fields, but now nearly all households were collecting forest products. As an alternative, they would like to plant winter crops to improve their livelihoods, but lack enough seeds, land and technology. They planned to establish a tea plantation, for which the township authorities would provide seedlings.

They also planned to increase the cultivated area of upland, but were aware that this would not be sustainable as pressure on the available land was already high.

Vulnerabilities: Households at high risk of poverty

Some households are less able than others to cope with the stresses of the opium ban. When households cannot cope, they are forced to reduce expenditures on food, health and education, increasing the likelihood of poor health or school drop-outs. When households no longer have any material assets such as livestock or land to cash in, and their food supply is diminished, they are left with few choices. These households may resort to migration for labour, or resume cultivation of opium. Indicators of household vulnerability to such an erosion of livelihood security are presented below:

Terraced rice field replacing opium poppy field [twice the size]

Opium addiction

Although opium addiction has dramatically declined, many families of rehabilitated addicts are still poorer than their neighbours, due to decades of using livelihood assets to "finance" the addiction. Households with addicts are the most vulnerable as they must use scarce resources to buy opium, which has become more costly since the reduction of the opium poppy cultivation.

Lack of land

Access to land, perhaps more than any other factor, determines whether a household can find alternatives to growing opium poppy. Households that lack land usually depend on unreliable income sources such as collection of non-timber forest products and casual wage labour. Yet the amount and quality of available land varies widely within the (former) opium poppy regions. In the Wa Region, for example, average land holdings range from a minimum of 0.13 ha/household to a maximum of 3.6 ha[13]. Moreover, the average landholding of 1.13 ha per household in Wa is only half of the national average in Myanmar.

13 UNODC and CCDAC. Myanmar Farmers' Intention Survey 2005. UNODC Myanmar. October 2005, p. 5.

Lack of access to markets and credit

Ban Hai village (see case example no. 3) illustrates the quandary of those villages that have plenty of land, labor, and potential for livestock, but lack access to market and to credit. Because of its remote location and lack of ability to sell licit products, this village is at risk of renewed opium cultivation. Ban Hai's situation in terms of accessibility is similar to the majority of villages in the opium poppy regions. About half of all villages in Lao PDR lack road access.

Resettlement and reliance on food aid

Resettlement, both spontaneous and forced, is linked to opium reduction and poverty alleviation programs in the opium poppy regions. Governments and local authorities consider that concentrating populations in lowland areas near roads will help them access to social services. A significant number of households are affected. For example, in 2000 and 2001, several thousand persons were moved from northern to southern Wa in Myanmar; and in Oudomxay Province, Laos, the number of villages decreased from 803 to 587 over the last decade[14]. While relocation can help farmers under certain conditions, it can also lead to an erosion of household assets if the relocation is forced and unsupported, and if the concentration of populations increases competition for land and other productive resources in the resettlement zones.

14 National Statistic Centre. Population and Housing Census Report. Government Publishing, Lao PDR. 2005.

Case Example 2: Mr. Lao Ya's household

Ban Keo Pha, Muong Huon, Oudomxay Province, Lao PDR

The following case illustrate the ability of farmers to use opportunities if conditions allow: Mr. Lao Ya, a rehabilitated opium addict, is 35 years old and lives with his wife and three children in a small bamboo and thatch house. The family moved to this resettled village about four years ago. In the days before the resettlement and opium reduction, their upland rice field yielded only enough for one month family consumption. Their opium yield was also very low, and not even sufficient for his use. In order to meet family food needs, and opium needs, he and his wife worked for relatives for rice and opium.

Since the household stopped cultivating opium poppy in 2003, they grow corn as well as upland rice. Their rice yield is higher because the new land is more fertile, and now their rice yield lasts the family about two months. To make up the remaining ten months, he and his wife still work for rice from relatives, as well as growing corn, which last year they sold for US$62 (620,000 kip) and collecting timber logs for the traders, which earned about US$100 (1,000,000 kip) this year.

Mr. Lao Ya reports that he was rehabilitated just last year through the community-based detoxification program run by the district with support of UNODC. He detoxified because opium is now illegal, and has become expensive and difficult to find. Since detoxification his health is better, but he still doesn't work as hard as his wife and sometimes stays home to take care of the baby.

The couple agrees that life is now better than before. Lao Ya's wife says that her workload has decreased. They estimate that they have about twice as much cash now than in the past when they grew and consumed opium. Despite these small improvements, they still cannot afford many household goods, and are just able to make ends meet. The couple is not sure how they will improve their livelihoods, but will try to double the area of upland rice and corn that they cultivate. They would also like to raise pigs, as they have none at present.

Case Example 3: Ban Hai, Muong Huon District, Oudomxay Province, Lao PDR

The following case example illustrates the enormous difficulties rural households in remote areas have in finding alternative income opportunities for the banned opium poppy:

Everything that we can produce to sell is too heavy to carry; how can we carry corn like we carried opium?

Ban Hai, a Hmong village of 258 persons in 38 households, is at a 2.5 hour/eight kilometer walk over steep and rocky terrain from the nearest access road. This village began to eliminate opium cultivation in 2003 and is continuing to eliminate up to now. All households now cultivate more rice than they did before the opium ban, but they yields are still not enough for food sufficiency for all households. Families now grow rice, corn, and some fruit and vegetables and raise pigs and other livestock. Although they are able to grow more corn, households in Ban Hai cannot sell corn like other villages do, because they lack road access.

Opium poppy growing village in Oudomxay, Laos [twice the size]

Nyein Su's household income is about average for the village. His household has altogether 11 members, but many of them are young children, with only three main labourers. He harvested ½ ton of corn last year, all of which he fed to the pigs. He was able to sell USD 60 worth of onion, but it was very difficult to transport. First he had to carry it three hours to the road on his back, and then take public transport to the town. He had to sleep in the district town overnight, as it is too far to go and come back within one day. Last year he also sold two pigs, totalling USD 40, at the road. If they were able to transport goods to market easily, his family would grow and sell much more corn and onions. His annual cash income now is less than half what it was in the past, when opium sales earned his family US$200 to 300 per year.

The villagers repeatedly expressed that they have become poorer as a result of opium elimination. In the past, six or seven households ate the less favoured corn a few months of the year; and now more than 20 households eat corn for at least some parts of the year. Two women reported that this year for the first time ever they had to borrow money to send the children to school. Because of the transport difficulties, few households have the confidence to raise cash crops like corn and onions. And they lack credit for livestock, though their environment is favourable for pigs, cattle and buffalo.

Coping strategies: how upland farmers make a living in the post-opium poppy environment

Farmers have adopted several strategies to strive for livelihood security, though not all are sustainable in the difficult conditions of the Golden Triangle. Strategies used include:

• Expansion of area of upland farmed
• Collection of non-timber forest products
• Sale of livestock
• Increased work as unskilled daily wage labour
• Agricultural diversification

Expansion of area of upland farmed

Most households are increasing the area of upland they cultivate each year in a bid to achieve food security without opium income. However, the rotating fallow system, also called shifting cultivation or swidden farming, which prevails in the hills of the region, requires extensive areas of land to ensure that fallow periods are sufficiently long to restore soil fertility for the next cultivation cycle. The traditional fallow period of 15 years is considered to be sustainable, but in some areas of Myanmar and Lao PDR, population pressure has caused land shortage, and the fallow period declined to an unsustainable three years, leading to soil erosion, land degradation, and reduced yields. For these reasons, many families will not able to meet annual food needs by expanding the area cultivated.

Collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs)

Although upland households have always collected wild forest products for food and for cash, this activity has greatly intensified in recent years. In Wa's Naung Khit Township, for example, virtually all households were collecting NTFPs instead of cultivating opium poppy during the first season of the opium ban, in a scramble to access even a small amount of cash (see Yaung Khaung Village case example). The market for saleable products such as orchids, bamboo shoots, rattan, medicinal roots, leaves and bark, and starchy tubers has been facilitated by recent improvements in roads and communications that enabled an extensive NTFP trade network to reach from China into Myanmar and Lao PDR. But the market for specific products is variable, and forests can become quickly depleted. The market for NTFPs is much more developed in Laos than in the Wa Region, and high-value products such as sappanwood and sticklac[15] are now being cultivated in a promising development for both household income generation and forest protection.

15 Sticklac is a resinous substance secreted on trees by the insect Tachardia lacca. Lac is used in industry and for crafts.

Casual wage labour

In Laos and Myanmar, most casual labourers work in or near their villages in agricultural activities or in construction and road-building if they are near towns and roads. For example in Naung Khit Township, Wa region, 55% of the households have increased casual labour in response to food insecurity[16]. But the labour market is seasonal and highly variable, and work is not always available. In Yaung Khaung Wa (see case example) households are more dependent on labour than on other sources of income. With competition for labour increasing since the opium ban, and an end to high-paying labour opportunities in opium poppy fields, Yaung Khaung Wa is in an especially vulnerable position.

16 UNODC/Wa Project. Naung Khit Township Baseline Survey Report. Draft. UNODC TCU, Pang Kham, Myanmar. March 2006, p. 14.

Sale of livestock

About one-quarter of the households in opium poppy regions of Lao PDR had sold livestock to generate income during the transition from opium to other source of income. Since opium poppy- growing households are generally poorer than other households, they tend to own fewer livestock. Therefore, livestock sales are likely to represent an erosion of the household assets. In 2005, livestock sales in the Laos' opium poppy region constituted 63% of the annual household income for those villages still growing opium, but only 35% in non-opium poppy growing villages.

Farmers in Special Region 2 Wa derive much less of their annual income from livestock[17], ranging from 23% to only 10%. In Special Region 2 Wa, only better-off households sell pigs and cattle, while households in difficulty derive income from casual labour and forest products. Despite these regional differences, a common feature throughout the (former) opium poppy regions is that farmers would like to develop livestock as a post-opium poppy income-generating activity, but lack credit and in some cases animal husbandry technologies.

17 UNODC/Wa Project, November 2005 and UNODC/Wa Project, March 2006.

Agricultural diversification

Crops such as canola, sweet pea, and sesame have recently been introduced to the opium poppy regions for their cash potential, while soybean and peanut are promoted for improved household nutrition. A favourite cash crop is the hybrid or high-yield variety corn that sells well to the China livestock feed market. Of the villages visited in Oudomxay Province, all those with road access are now selling hybrid corn to China as a result of access to traders, who provide credit and supplies. Ban Soon Village, for example, was able to easily diversify out of poppy cultivation because the access road and trade network enabled traders to come to the village and encourage corn, NTFPs and livestock. Unfortunately, few villages in the (former) opium poppy regions meet all the basic conditions for a successful agricultural diversification.

Most lack access to one or even several of these critical conditions, which include:

• Access to market (market and road access exists, ability to transport)
• Availability of fertile land to cultivate the crop
• Material inputs: seed, credit
• Technical ability: training and extension

Case Example 4: Ban Soon Village, Muong La District, Oudomxay Province, Lao PDR

A successful example of a farmer coping with change:

Ban Soon, a Khmu village of 23 households, was resettled to this location after the war about 30 years ago and now has a dirt access road to the sealed road to town. Before the year 2000, all families grew opium poppy to help make up for the rice shortage, along with cassava, banana, and collecting NTFPs. In those days households harvested about six months supply of rice from their upland fields. Since the opium ban in 2000, although rice cultivation is still the main activity, households also sell pigs and chicken, non-timber forest products, and high-yield corn and sesame. In the past, each household would raise about four to five pigs, but they never grew very well; now some households have up to 18 pigs, and all are fattened on the new high-yield corn.

Households began cultivating galangal, a ginger variety, this year in their upland fields and in the forest, and some plan to plant sappanwood as they have seen farmers in a nearby village do.

Traders supply the planting material and technical assistance.

Mr. Kham Seng is the head of the most affluent household in the village, and since last year his household is one of the two households that no longer cultivate rice. Instead, they raise livestock and cultivate more valuable crops, with the income of which they then are able to buy rice. Last year, Mr. Seng's household income included US$240 from pig sales, US$50 from chicken sales, US$100 from sticklac (an NTFP), and US$20 from sesame. He expects an additional US$20-30 from selling of chilli.

Villagers report that life after the opium ban became easier fairly quickly. Opium cultivation was very demanding on labour, and now the women have time to collect NTFPs and grow corn as well as other crops. Now, they are able to eat rice as their staple food all year long, while in the past they had to rely on less preferred foods of corn and cassava for some of the time. Their cash income is also more reliable now.

Targeting vulnerable households

The 2005 socio-economic survey in Lao PDR found evidence that poor households are being marginalized within the village[18], for example through exclusion from rice banks and other credit schemes or from village groups. Conditions indicating a high degree of vulnerability include:

18 UNODC Lao PDR, Socio-economic Study Annexes, 2005. p. 34.

• Existing opium addicts or recent addiction cases in the household
• Lack of land
• Less than six months worth of food needs produced from own land
• High dependency on opium income for food sufficiency

However, comprehensive information on many of these issues is lacking, and proper targeting will therefore require baseline surveys and rapid assessments to identify vulnerable households and villages.

Future risks and challenges

The current amount and scope of development assistance is clearly insufficient to help all vulnerable former opium poppy households in Myanmar and Laos achieve food and livelihood security. In Lao PDR, for example, only half of the former opium poppy-growing communities have received some external assistance related to opium elimination[19,20]. In Myanmar's Special Region 2 (Wa), less than US$20 millions were spent on development assistance since 1998 or less than US$3 per person per year in that region. Yet farmers in the Wa Region have reduced cultivation from 20,000 ha in 2003 to 12,900 ha in 2005, and to virtually zero in 2006. In contrast in Thailand, the much larger amount of US$250 millions was spent over the last 25 years to reduce the much smaller initial area of only 9,000 hectares of opium poppy in the 1980's to around a hundred hectares today.

19 UNODC Lao PDR. UNODC Strategic Program Framework, Lao PDR 2006-2000. UNODC Lao PDR. January 2006.

20 Renard, Ronald D. Opium Reduction in Thailand 1970-2000: A Thirty-year Journey. Chiangmai: Silkworm. 2001.

There is an imminent danger that without a timely effort on the part of governments, donors and aid agencies, the gains achieved over the last decade in terms of poverty alleviation and opium poppy reduction will be lost.