Sustainable Agriculture Project Sangthong

After we had come, Micah was responsible for arranging his own work in the district. We were given a home (a lovely traditional bamboo house, on stilts, at the edge of the forest along the hospital grounds). At first, we used this area for the development of a demonstration garden, while we worked up a project with the government’s Department of Agriculture and Forestry. We will be more detailed later, but for now, we began the Sustainable Agriculture Project Sangthong, which Micah manages jointly with Songkhan, an employee of the District Agriculture and Forestry Extension Office for Sangthong district. This project works in the 8 poorest villages in the district, focusing on skills training, microlending, and village-specific projects to do with sustainable agriculture. Sustainable is an oft-bandied word, here we mean agriculture with a focus on low-capital inputs (for instance, educating farmers in the techniques of integrated pest management rather than using pesticides, or composting rather than using purchased fertilizers), on environmental sustainability (IPM again), and on integrated, or polyculture farming rather than large monocultures. Farming, as such, is still a relatively new idea in Laos, and there is a great need for basic training in various techniques and theories of agriculture. Like anywhere, there are some farmers who are more progressive or knowledgeable about such skills, and we work together with these farmers in each project village. Farmers who are chosen by the village as having particular skill or experience are assisted to develop demonstration gardens in their village, and these gardens are then used as grounds for doing practical sessions during trainings, and as an area to demonstrate the techniques which are taught.