Large-scale land acquisitions repeatedly fall short of their acclaimed socioeconomic benefits. In Laos, the government has started to question its own “Turning Land into Capital” policy, and reviews land acquisitions or concessions with regard to their socioeconomic impacts.
About 100 families from two villages in southern Laos were forced to give up 190 hectares of farmland to a company that will build a cassava processing plant after Lao soldiers threatened them if they did not comply.
Article analyses the effects on local actors, their land access, land use and tenure security of a large-scale land deal in northern Laos that a Chinese company initiated but subsequently abandoned.
HAGL currently has some 10,000 hectares of fruit trees, including 2,500 ha under banana in Vietnam, 1,500 ha in Laos and 1,000 ha in Cambodia.
Villagers in southern Laos’ Saravane province are refusing to hand over community land to a planned Chinese banana farm, saying if they lose their land they will have no way to feed their families.
Local farmers want the NAMPheung company to stop leasing at least 180 hectares of land in Ngeun district to Chinese farmers to grow watermelons.
Illnesses and deaths have long been reported among workers at foreign-owned banana farms in Laos.
Laos reveals Chinese investor requests 3,200-4,800 ha of land concessions to grow durian for export to the China.
China-invested banana plantations in Laos are sickening Lao villagers exposed to agricultural chemicals.
Villagers in Laos say a Chinese-owned banana plantation has unfairly acquired the land of 46 families in the northern part of the country, many of whom were coerced by authorities into selling for a miniscule compensation package.
The Laos government has awarded land concessions to foreign and domestic companies for the use of about 11.7 million hectares. “But the amount of land actually being used for development is about 549,248 hectares,” Chairman of the Assembly’s Committee on Economy, Technology and Environment said.
Villagers detained for defending their lands from land grabs were beaten and subjected to electric shocks in the days following their arrest, with another later reported to have died in custody.
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Laos: New Forests buys into Burapha
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