Programs and Events

U.S. Supports Soybean Production in Laos
August 25, 2005

Mr. Thone and Mr. Thi  at  the Soybeam fields

Martin Newport, a Lao-American Project Field Advisor, visited local farmers' soybean fields along Houayla Brook in Phonexay Village, Ngoy District, Luangprabang Province. The project focuses on poor families that until recently were involved with opium cultivation and consumption.

Here Mr. Thone and Mr. Thi, together with their families, farm upland plots that also include pineapple and a nitrogen fixing legume. The latter is used as a contour control, to retain top soil, and as feed for Khang, the aphid like insect that produces a marketable native glue called “sticklac”.

In conjunction with Nabong Agricultural University, the project is hosting Mr. Sopha Khamin, a researcher who is studying soybean yields on upland plots. Mr. Sopha has been working with Mr. Thi, planting and maintaining trial plots of various varieties of soybeans. He will use the data gathered for his thesis. Mr. Sopha noted that farmers are expert at judging which varieties perform best on their land.  

Mr. Thone and Mr. Thi are only two of many farming families selected for a project program supported and supervised by Wilaikul International Group. With the plentiful rain and timely planting, they expect to obtain a good yield and sufficient returns to replace the income lost when they stopped growing opium.