Assessment of governance mechanisms, livelihood outcomes and incentive instruments for green rubber in the Lao PDR 2016

In the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR or Laos), a small amount of rubber was planted by the colonial French in the southern province of Champasak during the 1920s. However, the sector did not expand until the late 1990s and early 2000s, in response to demand from neighboring Vietnam and China, and to a rapid rise in global and regional prices for latex. Through exchanges of expertise, planting material and capital across the Lao–Chinese border, particularly through kinship and ethnic ties, a small number of farmers in Luang Namtha Province, northern Laos, began planting rubber.