On 1 February 2021, National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) and collaborate with NARDT for hosting the Second Annual Steering Committee Meeting in Vientiane Capital.
From 26 to 27 December 2020, NARDT-Laos organized a country-level training course on Kobo Toolbox for data collection and designing questions in Kobo Toolbox. The training was held in Vangvieng district, Vientiane province, Lao PDR.
Senior officials in the Lao government and concerned organizations and business enterprises are increasingly interested in policy formulation based on science and evidence-based research. Technical assistance and funding for policy research is increasingly linked to hard scientific evidence and demonstrated success in the belief that better policies will be formulated, and existing policy implementation gaps will be addressed. Decision-makers continue to seek solutions to persistent challenges to sustainable agricultural development that form the research agenda for the Policy Think Tank. These are: Agricultural technology issues, Farmer organization issues, Livestock technology and fishery issues, Agro-economic issues, Agrobiodiversity issues, Agricultural land issues, Forest management issues, and Nutrition agriculture sensitivity
The purpose of this research brief is to synthesize the f ndings of ten policy research studies conducted by NAFRI’s Policy Think Tank (PTT) research team between 2016 and 2020, and complementary research studies. The research was related to commercialisation of agricultural products in Lao PDR.
Tea plants are native to East Asia and evidence of tea consumption in China goes back to the 2nd century BC. In Laos, tea was presumably cultivated and traded as early as the 7th century (Earth Systems, 2016). Forest tea, which includes both ancient and wild tea1, has been grown in Northern Laos for centuries (Marseille, 1990). In the 1920s, the French brought tea from Vietnam to cultivate on the Bolaven plateau and recognized the quality of wild forest teas from Xieng Khouang (Pedersen et al., 2016).
The Network for Agriculture and Rural Development Think-tanks in Lao PDR (NARDT-Laos) was launched on 13 November 2019 in Vientiane
The Network for Agriculture and Rural Development Think-tanks in Mekong Sub-region was launched in the Lao PDR by the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) in Vientiane on 13 November 2019