Abstract ID: 3.20095 | Not reviewed | Requested as: Talk | TBA | TBA

Agrarian transitions imply a shift from extensive, multifunctional landscapes towards increasingly intensive, simplified land uses driven by agricultural commercialisation. Although this often implies a change in local livelihoods from semi-subsistence farming, foraging, and livestock rearing activities towards commercial farming and non-farm activities, disentangling the effects on livelihoods can be challenging because of the various context-dependent geographic, political and socio-economic factors that influence how agrarian transitions manifest in local contexts. This paper presents an analytical framework that elucidates the cross-scale, spatiotemporal, and multidimensional processes of agrarian transitions and their effects on local livelihoods. It presents the results from a recent empirical study in a mountainous region bordering northern Laos and Vietnam that has undergone shifts in forest-tree-farm systems. The study targeted four spatially proximate sites and employed a comparative mixed-methods case study that combined remote sensing, interviews, focus group discussions, and a household survey. We compare agrarian changes and demonstrate the variegated rural income portfolios across each site, disaggregating subsistence and cash incomes. The findings reveal an enduring importance of subsistence-oriented incomes and site-specific features of agrarian transition dynamics. The Vietnamese sites are marked by high levels of farm intensification and land tenure formalisation, while income benefits from agricultural commercialisation, especially for cash crops, fruit, and livestock, are highly unevenly distributed. In contrast, the Lao sites exhibit shifting cultivation systems with varying rotation lengths and mixed tenure systems. Households have comparable incomes to those in Vietnam and rely on an extensive, low-input farming system that helps maintain low costs for farming and livestock rearing, supplemented by income from collecting products from forests and other non-cultivated areas. The analytical framework offers a heuristic to analysing livelihood change across local contexts as agrarian transitions unfold, while the results provide evidence for the diverse and unequal income trajectories. Improved characterisation of the site-specific mechanisms shaping rural livelihoods can help pinpoint leverage points for improving sustainable livelihoods in contexts experiencing dynamic landscape change.