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3.6 Alternative Models for Creating an Enabling Environment forSmallholdersExamples of alternative models for the creation of an enabling environment for promoting sustainablelabour and income-generating opportunities for rural women and men also emerged from thegovernment side during the fieldwork, with respect to two projects supporting smallholders beyondinvolvement in agricultural investments either as contract farmers using their own land or aspermanent employees or casual labourers on plantations. The first was a government smallholderdevelopment project supporting the formation of farmer’s groups and helping to link them to markets,while the second was a donor-funded agricultural extension project providing gender-sensitivetechnical support to farmers – in both cases to strengthen their production and income-generatingcapacities so they could gain more benefits from engaging with agricultural investments.3.6.1 NAFES’ Smallholder Development ProjectThe first project, funded by the ADB, was run by the National Agricultural and Forestry ExtensionService (NAFES), part of MAF, whose mandate is to establish and strengthen the capacity of farmers’organizations through setting up smallholder groups and village extension systems. There werearound 2,700 farmers’ groups involved in different aspects of agricultural and livestock production inLaos at the time of the fieldwork, more in the lowland than highland areas, and some of which havebeen formed under NAFES’ ADB-supported Smallholder Development Project. This project startedin 2004 and was operating in 16 districts within the four provinces of Vientiane Capital, Champasak,Savannakhet and Khammouan at the time of the fieldwork. The project has coordination units atdistrict level who visit target villages to talk to farmers about the possibilities for forming groups;those farmers who want to participate then form a group in their village. At the time of the fieldworkthe project was working with some 50,000 agricultural households in total. Mixed focus groupdiscussions were carried out with members of three groups, in three different villages of Thourakhondistrict in Vientiane Capital province. Details of the groups are provided in Box 3, overleaf.The feedback from the focus groups was very positive about participation in this model of groupbasedsmallholder development. The implications for both food security and cash income werereported to be positive, although more significant for cash income. For example, participants in theChoum focus group said they did not feel vulnerable to food problems in their area. They depend onrice and fish and both are plentiful; they also plant a domesticated species of edible bamboo shootswhich they sell. When their farms are flooded they have problems with cash income but not withfood. In general they reported an increase in cash income of around 40% since they started theNAFES project group in 2009. The extra income has been used by group members to reinvest inagriculture as well as to finance their children’s education and purchase medicines and motorcycles.In Cheng village, the availability of additional cash has made a big difference to group members’lives, enabling member households to buy household appliances and send children to school.Participants in the Bungphao focus group similarly reported a key advantage of group membership tothem as being that they now have higher cash income. In particular, they can get more money fromselling their organic vegetables during the rainy season because they are using greenhouses; they arethus able to produce what other farmers cannot. In the dry season, however, prices drop becausevegetables are more widely available.42