Khammouane Province is a province in the center of Laos. It
is a very suitable province for this pilot survey of the
“Project for Supporting Agricultural Survey on Promoting
Sustainable Agriculture because Khammouane Province is
consists of various agricultural productions such as crops,
livestock, fishery, aquaculture, non-timber forestry
products, and forest. Especially,it is cover all lowland,
hill, and upland area. It is a priority province of
agriculture and forestry development plan of the Ministry of
Agriculture and Forestry of Laos for commodity production,
and food security. Khammouane Province covers an area of
16,315 square kilometers and is mostly of forested
mountainous terrain. Many streams flow through the province
to join the Mekong River. The vast forests of the Nakai-Nam
Theun National Park are an important watershed that feeds
many Mekong tributaries as well as form the catchment area
for Nam Theun 2, the largest hydropower project in Laos. The
population of the province according to the 2015 Population
census is 392,052.

AFSIS Secretariat has been providing time series data by Database, as well as reports on supply and demand information and production forecasts for five main crops. These reports are known as the Agricultural Commodity Outlook (ACO) and Early Warning Information (EWI). Initially, the activities focused only rice-related data, but over time, the scope expanded to include all five major crops in alignment with the AFSIS database. Under the implementation of the SAFER project, the AFSIS Focal Points had discussed on the appropriate agricultural commodity to be added as a new target commodity apart from five main crops. Following deliberations, the meeting concluded that “Laying Hens” would be the new commodity added to the AFSIS Database, as well as the ACO and EWI reports. The AFSIS Secretariat developed a guidebook outlines the data collection process and provides clear definitions and descriptions of the necessary data items to support the integration of this new commodity into AFSIS’s reporting mechanisms.

Sub-indicator 1:

Farm output value per hectare

Sub-indicator 2:

Net farm income

Sub-indicator 3:

Risk mitigation mechanisms

Sub-indicator 4:

Prevalence of soil degradation

Sub-indicator 5:

Variation in water availability

Sub-indicator 6:

Management of fertilizers

Sub-indicator 7:

Management of pesticides

Sub-indicator 8:

Use of biodiversity-supportive practices

Sub-indicator 9:

Wage rate in agriculture

Sub-indicator 10:

Food insecurity experience scale (FIES)

Sub-indicator 11:

Secure tenure rights to land

1. The government should find ways to increase crop and
   livestock productivities of farmers by introducing new
   technologies including state-of-the-art equipment and
   machinery.
2. The government should support and promote farmers in
   establishing farmer associations or agricultural
   cooperatives to have more strong bargaining power
   especially for smallholder farmers. Moreover the
   government should organize the training program for the
   farmers on how to apply improved crop varieties and use
   chemical fertilizer on crop cultivation in an
   appropriate way to achieve higher productivity.
3. The government should pay more attention in extending
   services and improving technology in farming as both
   factors in agricultural sector are still practiced in a
   small scale which leads to low production.
4. It would be better if the survey period match with
   the crop growth stage of Lao PDR because it is very
   complicated and confusing for respondents and difficult
   to obtain accurate data when asking farmers and
   crop-producing companies about their production and
   value. Furthermore, some definitions such as type of
   pesticide, chemical fertilizer...etc were not familiar
   to Lao people and it was difficult for the enumerators
   and respondents to understand. Thus, if the questions
   are adjusted to the contexts of Laos, the answers will
   be smoother and more accurate.
5. There are difficulties in merging all data into one
   file as some data were exported from CAPI in separated
   files. In the future, this problem might have been
   solved by keying zero (0) in the CAPI in case some
   question is not applicable (N/A) instead of leaving it
   blank or use another software for data analysis such as
   STATA, Eview, R software which CAPI can export roster
   question data easily.
6. The government and other donors should continuously
   be supporting agricultural surveys in the whole country
   of Laos on SDG indicator 2.4.1 to know the status of
   sustainable agriculture in Laos, and also promote and
   improve sustainable agriculture in the future.

This output focuses on strengthening the capacity of
officers from ASEAN Member Countries, in collaboration with
JAXA and RESTEC, to develop the necessary skills to operate
the INAHOR system using satellite imagery (ALOS-2 data) for
estimating rice cultivation areas in target regions. Upon
completion of the training, participants are expected to be
able to prepare training data for INAHOR, estimate rice
cultivation areas in their respective countries, and
generate corresponding maps using the software. Furthermore,
they will be equipped with the knowledge and capability to
adopt and integrate satellite-based technologies into
agricultural statistics within their national statistical
systems. The AFSIS Secretariat conducted both regional
workshops for member countries and in-countries activity in
Lao PDR, Cambodia in 2023, Thailand and Vietnam in 2024, and
Indonesia and Myanmar in 2025, respectively.