Local perspectives on futures amidst crop booms: insights from a Southeast Asian upland landscape

Abstract. In Southeast Asia, the rapid expansion of intensive agriculture has triggered radical land-use changes and posed significant challenges to local livelihoods. While macro-level land use patterns of crop boom to bust cycles are relatively well understood, local community perspectives on grappling with negative consequences of the intensive farming systems and seeking livelihood pathways beyond the bust phase remain understudied. Gaining insights into local visions of futures and ideas for transition pathways helps ensure that development programs and policies resonate well with peoples’ actual desires and mindsets, as well as the prevailing environmental conditions. This study examines how local stakeholders in a northern upland landscape of Laos envision sustainable futures and ideas for transitioning out the boom-and-bust trajectories of hybrid maize monocropping, using the Nature Futures Framework and the Three Horizons Framework.

Despite ongoing environmental deterioration, local stakeholders frame their visions around their immediate needs which reflect maintaining the status quo. Context-specific socio-economic limitations may have constrained their capacity to envision sustainable futures that reflect desires. Our findings suggest that a mix of policies may be required to support locals in transitioning away from unsustainable farming practices. This study contributes to the growing literature on the application of the Nature Futures Framework and the Three Horizons Framework in boom crop contexts where people struggle to meet basic needs and may be less capable of developing future scenarios based on their desires. We suggest that refining these frameworks for similar contexts could be an important focus for future research.