* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“About 90 out of 137 hectares of our rice fields were affected in the floods. Snails and other pests came and ate the crops as well,” said Ms Pot, the deputy village chief of Tong Hap village in Bolikhamxay Province, Laos.
In the floods that hit Bolikhamxay Province in July 2011, rice paddies in Ms Pot’s village were destroyed and livestock killed. It was triggered by heavy rains brought on by Typhoon Haima and Tropical Storm Nock-Ten. Bolikhamxay Province was the worst affected with 63,000 hectares of farmland, including over 20,000 hectares of rice paddy land, destroyed.
Many locals reported infestations or outbreaks of diseases as they cannot afford the necessary inputs to protect their crops and livestock. For the worst-affected households in Ms Pot’s village, the inability to protect their assets meant months of food insecurity for their families. The rice harvest that year for some families only provided about two months’ worth of meals, while many others lost their entire crop following the floods.
To help families through the flood recovery and improve their resilience to future floods, Save the Children conducted an ECHO-funded livelihoods program in Bolikhamxay which includes three main activities: rice distribution, cash grants for the worst-affected and vulnerable households and training communities to help manage rice yields and livestock issues following floods.
The importance of the training cannot be understated. While the richest households are able to purchase chemical pesticides and animal vaccines, the poorest are left exposed to many risks that they cannot afford, or lack the necessary knowledge, to protect themselves against.
To improve pest management in rice cultivation, district government staff were taught the underlying causes of certain diseases and infestation, the importance of nursery/seedling stage, and practices needed to reduce outbreaks based largely on natural repellent insecticides made with locally available ingredients. They would pass the information and practices on to the communities they oversee.
Getting the right vaccines in the correct quantities and intervals are key to preserving poultry, costing just US${esc.dollar}{esc.dollar}0.80 per year for each chicken. Yet many are not aware of it. From the descriptions given by families, the poultry are generally killed by two common diseases – fowl cholera and Newcastle disease. Participants were given training on the underlying conditions such as environmental sanitation and meteorological conditions which contribute to outbreaks, identifying diseases affecting their poultry as well as demonstrations on handling chickens and administering the vaccines.
"This training is important for the communities as it provides knowledge that will enable families to better respond to floods in the future,” said Mr. Sythanong Choumalavong, who works for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in the District of Bolikhan. "This training allowed us to expand upon and add value to our common knowledge of rice cultivation and poultry raising."
Indeed, for vulnerable families such as those living in Ms Pot’s village, these lessons will provide them with the knowledge that they need to protect valuable food and income sources during the next floods – thus improving their ability to recover as well as assuring more stable food security for their children.
Joshua Leighton is a Food Security and Livelihoods Technical Advisor for Asia, Save the Children
