While Laos remains, at one level, a country of
farmers where agriculture predominates this can lead to
two problematic simplifications. First, even traditional
livelihoods were (and are) complex. Rural households
farm diverse agro-ecosystems and are pluriactive. For
example, subsistence rice farming is allied with the cultivation
of upland cash crops, the raising of livestock, market gardening for home consumption and sale,
handicraft production, and the collection and sale of
non-timber forest products. Second, market integration
has meant that non-farm activities, sometimes involving
a delocalisation of livelihoods, are growing in importance.
Researchers working in many areas of the poorer
world have noted the degree to which non-farm activities
are protecting and, often, raising rural livelihoods. It
has been the engagement, in some instances, of ‘farm’
families with the non-farm market economy that has
permitted the non-market rural economy to survive (see
for e.g. Blaikie et al., 2002, p. 1265). In other words,
sustaining subsistence agricultural production is
becoming predicated on a certain level of engagement
with the non-farm market economy. The important role
of non-farm activities in understanding rural livelihoods
is reflected in numerous studies.