Special research on well-being and earning of rice farmers in Laos: Survey of Official Development Assistant (ODA) projects and economic analysis
Abstract
Farmers in rural areas can only earn revenue from rice farming which rice farming supports their better lives. Agricultural knowledge is a potential incentive for promoting well-being. This paper was survey research, there were two sections: 1) the author utilized an econometric approach to analyze the earnings of farmers from 10 provinces from 2017–2021; there were 1120 farmers involved in the survey; 2) the author used an economic evaluation approach to analyze effectiveness and efficiency of ODA by using data from 1110 farmers in 2018; 1205 farmers in 2019; and 1330 farmers in 2020. ODA is Instrumental Variables (IV) in the mincer model, ODA promotes agricultural knowledge for farmers, and of course, agricultural knowledge promotes revenue for farmers. The 2SLS and maximum likelihood are essential for the quartic function of mincer. Evaluation approaches from OECD/DAC and PCAP/JICA were utilized to compare the results of well-being indicators called basic human needs (BHN). According to the results of this study, the earnings of farmers who joined ODA projects were higher than the earnings of farmers who did not join ODA projects. The result of the economic evaluation approach found ‘ineffectiveness’; on the other hand, the author could find the efficiency of ODA projects. Finally, the recommendation is that the government policy on BHN should be consistently linked to the ODA program made by both the government and donors. Certainly, BHN policy for farmers who are minorities is necessary such as providing rice fields to be utilized for free, this will lead to chances for farmers to enhance their well-being from rice production.
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