the forests. How to resolve such erosion or destruction of the forest is the ot her issue to be considered.

Although the time of our survey was limited, and the infrastructure required fo r the sur-vey was lacking, we could not cover a wide enough area during the lim ited time of our field survey. Therefore, the only area we selected was the Lua ng Phabang Province, about 40 minute plane ride from Vientiane, as has been dep icted on the cover page of this re-port. We interviewed the heads of the six vi llages in the Luang Phabang Province. Through these face-to-face interviews we tried to learn the current issues they are facing and their current status.

Within the Luang Phabang Province, we selected two villages. The first village selected was in the neighborhood of the trunk road, or about 3 kilometers away from the road with truck transportation. The second village selected was 20 kil ometers away from that big road. We visited these two villages to interview the village residents and fanners.

Why did we select two villages, one village in the neighborhood of the trunk ro ad and other at a distance from the vehicle road? Its advantageous infrastructu re and truck transportation will enable the village closer to the highway to ha ve better purchasing ca-pacity, as well as enabling the sale of agricultural pr oducts produced in that village. With the truck transportation access such vill ages could obtain fertilizers or agricultural chemi-cals more cheaply. We tried to compare the two respective villages in terms of their dif-ferent in levels o f income and living standard. In the village far away from the trunk road it is rather difficult for the villagers to purchase agricultural fertilizers. The ex tension workers, the facilitators of the agricultural development, find it more difficult to visit the village far away from the trunk road. We tried to verify the importance of improvement of infrastructure during this comparative survey, the results of which have included in this report.

The agricultural and economic development will require the construction of the roads and bridges to enable the access of trucks to the village. It is then eas ier to sell the agricultural products, and it is easier to buy the other foodst uffs or the fertilizers as well. It is easier for the agricultural extension wo rkers to visit the village if it is in the neighborhood of the highway or withi n the truck access. As I mentioned in the beginning, the shifting cultiva-tion and its results may affect the surrounding countries, so we have to think about how to minimize the shifting cultivation. Shifting cultivation enables the upla nd foodstuff production, In other words, we have to improve productivity, rice- yields or the foodstuff yields per area, or modify the species subject to the s hifting cultivation, or improve the fertilizer for higher productivity. Though this report did not clearly mention it, the area subject to shifting cultivatio n in the vicinity of the Mekong River Delta is smaller, as well as the yield pe r hectare is low and unstable in comparison to paddy-rice cultivation in the sa me vicinity. The area subject to shifting cultivation has an increased populati on ratio as well.

In order to minimize this increase in shifting cultivation, the Laos government introduced