Resettlement has evidently undermined the formerly
self-sufficient and self-reliant existence of Ban Nong Hai
Kham’s inhabitants. However while one livelihood
opportunity has been restructured with generally adverse
effects, another has been opened up. Today the
villagers have much easier access to a range of off-farm
employment opportunities. These include work on a
French-funded irrigation project and, rather more
commonly, agricultural labouring on the fields of
neighbouring villages and on a nearby commercial farm.
However returns to these types of labour are not great,
just 15,000 kip/day (US$1.50). In a focus group discussion
involving nine women from the village the desired
occupation for their children was government work ––
this would, they agreed, deliver stability of income
which was seen as at least as important as high income.
This explains the desire for education and skills acquisition
reflected in the struggle to keep children in school
to secondary level and the surprising number of young
people taking English language evening classes. While
Ban Nong Hai Kham can be highlighted as a village
where, notwithstanding some exceptions, distress
diversification was the norm, there were many more
individual households across all the survey villages
where diversification into activities outside traditional
own-account farming, for reasons of necessity, had occurred.