caa a22 4500 555285332 20200410031630.0 cr unu---uuuuu 190206s2018 xx s 000 0 eng 1932-6203 10.1371/journal.pone.0209166 doi (BORIS)oai:boris.unibe.ch:125120 30596672 pmid Balancing cash and food: The impacts of agrarian change on rural land use and wellbeing in Northern Laos [Elektronische Daten] [Puwadej Thanichanon, Dietrich Schmidt-Vogt, Michael Epprecht, Andreas Heinimann, Urs Martin Wiesmann] publishedVersion openAccess eu-repo This study investigates the effects of improved market accessibility on agricultural land use and basic wellbeing, defined by income and rice sufficiency, in Xayaburi province, Lao PDR through a meso-scale and actor-oriented approach with data collection at both district and household level. It also investigates farmers' decision-making as it relates to regional markets. Increasing market accessibility in rural areas facilitates cash crop trade leading to agrarian change from subsistence to commercial agricultural systems. This transformation raises concerns about food security and vulnerability to market uncertainties as farmers are likely to grow cash crops intensively and in place of food crops, leading to lower food production. Meanwhile incomes from cash crop trade are highly vulnerable to market uncertainties. We found that farmers in the south of Xayaburi, where market accessibility is higher than in the north, primarily grow cash crops and do not suffer from rice insufficiency while farmers in the north, where market accessibility is lower, rely more on subsistence agriculture and have a lower level of basic wellbeing. The major factors of better basic wellbeing in the south include: (1) better market accessibility which can mitigate the risks of market uncertainty and create enough income to compensate for and overcome losses in rice production, (2) availability of more arable land due to a larger amount of level terrain which allows farmers to expand cash crop cultivation and continue growing rice at the same time, and (3) farmer strategy to keep a part of their land for growing rice to meet their minimum consumption needs and prevent the risks of rice insufficiency. Thanichanon Puwadej joint author Schmidt-Vogt Dietrich joint author Epprecht Michael joint author Heinimann Andreas joint author Wiesmann Urs Martin joint author PLoS ONE 13(12), e0209166 1932-6203 https://boris.unibe.ch/125120/1/Epprecht_2018.pdf text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository 1 info:eu-repo/semantics/article boris PeerReviewed boris peerstatus BORIS 856 40 https://boris.unibe.ch/125120/1/Epprecht_2018.pdf text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository BORIS 700 1- Thanichanon Puwadej joint author BORIS 700 1- Schmidt-Vogt Dietrich joint author BORIS 700 1- Epprecht Michael joint author BORIS 700 1- Heinimann Andreas joint author BORIS 700 1- Wiesmann Urs Martin joint author BORIS 773 0- PLoS ONE 13(12), e0209166 1932-6203 BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 BORIS BORIS BORIS info:eu-repo/semantics/article openAccess