Summary of PhD thesis:
The dynamics of dietary change of transitional
food systems in the tropical forest areas of Southeast Asia. The
contemporary and traditional food system of the Katu in the Sekong
Province, Lao PDR.
Jutta Krahn
e-mail: jukrahn@gmx.de
Bonn University
Institute for Agricultural Policies, Market Research, and Economic
Sociology
Department of World Food Economics
August 2005
Background
Rural Southeast Asia is confronted by high rates
of malnutrition and maladjusted diets. Development research has
attested to the fact that ethnic minorities are highly vulnerable
to nutritional problems, especially the indigenous people of the
uplands. The geographical dominance of malnutrition in these areas
with cultural and biological diversity is an issue of particular
concern.
Customary diets of ethnic minorities often met nutritional
recommendations. At the same time, however, research revealed
that in several instances the contemporary nutrient intake has
fallen below the recommended level. With a lack of data, many
therefore tended to share the pejorative attitude that ethnic
people have always been eking out a miserable living, and have
been suffering high rates of malnutrition mainly a result of a
poor diet. But indeed, in many cases it can be suggested that
an insufficient nutrient intake (“negative dietary change”)
is a recent phenomenon.
Despite the lack of consensus about the evolution
of negative dietary change, the fact remains, that many food security
strategies for tropical forest areas have been proved fallacious,
and often they run the risk of resulting in purely temporary benefits.
Many argue that this is connected to an insufficient understanding
of eating patterns, nutrient intake, especially nutrients provided
through forest foods. Generally, researchers have been less vigilant
to assert that food security strategies mainly act on the materialistic
dimension. This means targeting the food chain with its focus
on agricultural production. Anthropologists more than any other
scientists, have continuously argued that the cultural dimension
of food systems is not thoroughly addressed. Indeed, culinary
principles are often completely ignored. Also, despite being called
for, food security strategies still do not tackle the more underlying
causes such as the political and environmental context.
Research Area
The Lao People’s Democratic Republic is an
extraordinary country. Economists attest high levels of poverty.
Nutritionists and doctors compare the high levels of malnutrition
to the Sub-Saharan belt. At the same time however, anthropologists
and biological scientists alike together praise the country’s
richness in cultural and biological diversity. However, the fact
remains that Laos is one of the least-known countries in the world.
Currently many of the upland minority groups are experiencing
rapid dietary change. It is safe to surmise that some areas, especially
the uplands, were once food abundant, but are now classified as
being both food insecure and extremely poor. Following the cessation
of the COMECON aid in the early 1990s, the Lao Government has
been receiving tremendously high levels of foreign development
aid. However, up until now, the balance between aid and the alleviation
of poverty has failed to reach an equitable level.
The Katu, an Austro-Asiatic group, indigenous to
the Annamite Corderilla (along the Vietnam border), were selected
as a research group for a two-year case study. These peoples,
who inhabit the remote and mountainous Province of Sekong, posed
an ideal group for cultural and biological investigation. The
varied ethnic groups who live in the region still use a wide variety
of flora and fauna that have recently become extinct in nearby
provinces, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. At the same time,
the potential for a sustainable change in the economic and agricultural
development, in particular wetland rice production, is very limited.
In order to investigate the dynamics of the Katu’s
dietary change, four villages in three districts were selected.
Two villages are located in the remote Kaleum District, which
is still highly forested and is the area of the Katu’s origin.
The other two villages are located in the Thateng and the Lammam
District, where there have access to infrastructure, markets,
and governmental services; however, severely degraded areas of
forest are already extant there.
Out of the four villages for study, only the one
deepest within the forest revealed strong dependence on the traditional
forms of survival, namely: shifting cultivation, hunting gathering,
and fishing. In the three other villages transformation is far
more pervasive and wetland rice production has been introduced.
It should be noted however that none of these villages are “modern”
by any means. Transformation from a subsistence towards a market
oriented food system is still lacking.
Objectives and methods
From a nutritional point of view, this thesis started
with the hypothesis that Laos is lacking a food security concept
which sufficiently responds to the country’s unique cultural
and biological resources, and as such to provide local solutions
for its nutritional problems.
The author concentrated on the following five issues:
(1) The traditional and contemporary food systems were portrayed
through description of their main elements. (2) The traditional
and contemporary diets were described in terms of the main food
groups. The present nutrient intake was assessed. The health and
nutrition situation was analysed. (3) Determinants for dietary
change were identified. (4) Recommendations about harnessing positive
dietary change were proposed. (5) Assumptions within the current
Lao food security concept were discussed and tentatively corrected.
In the absence of any existing research framework
suitable for analyzing the cultural and materialistic dimensions
of traditional food systems, the author developed her own research
framework. This comprises of seven elements. It complements aspects
of the food chain (the materialistic dimension) with principles
of cuisine (the cultural dimension). At the food chain level the
author investigated into three aspects: food acquisition, processing,
and distribution, referring to Pelto (1992). Following the model
from Rozin (1982), at the level of cuisine, she analysed another
three elements: basic food selection, manipulation techniques,
and flavouring principles. Eating patterns were analysed separately
as the seventh element. In addition to these elements the author
analysed the nutrition and health status, and continuously monitored
potential influencing factors. As such, this research framework
necessitated complementing classical methods from natural sciences
together with anthropological techniques. These were participatory
observations, open and structured interviews, focus group interviews
(e.g. oral history), transect walks, ethnozoological and ethnobotanical
classifications, chemical analysis of food items, anthropometry,
physical examination, stool and blood sampling, weighed and estimated
food recalls among others. Where possible, the retrospective analysis
involved timelines from the 1960s until today.
The challenge of conducting a multidisciplinary
study under the conditions in the Lao PDR, and in the Sekong Province
in particular, was formidable. Research was hooked up to the Cultural
Research Institute (CRI), a line agency of the Lao Ministry of
Information and Culture (MIC). Between 2001 and 2003, fieldwork
was conducted exclusively with the CRI’s seconded governmental
staff. For the chemical analysis of food samples the author cooperated
with the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, Bangkok.
For the health survey she received generous technical and financial
support from the WHO. While running her own research project,
the author was not connected to any development organization,
but received most generous support from the staff of the Sekong
Ethnic People Development Project (SEP DEV) of the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP).
Results
It is generally acknowledged that the nutritional
status is a function of both the health status and nutrient intake
(or dietary practices). To begin with the nutritional status,
the anthropometric measurement showed that the children (under
five years old) of all villages suffered from high levels of stunting,
wasting, and underweight. The extent does not however vary significantly
between the different villages and complies with other studies
conducted in the Lao uplands. Through blood sampling and palpation
low levels of anaemia and iodine deficiency disorders were identified.
With the analysis of the coronae not a single case of vitamin
A deficiency could be detected.
The analysis of the Katu’s health status had
only a tentative cast; many intricacies remain unknown. Epidemics
are absent now, but the villagers are increasingly suffering from
what might be malaria together with infectious diseases (conjunctivitis,
upper respiratory infections such as tuberculosis, and diarrhoea,
etc.). In all villages the Katu reported the advancing severity
of helminithic infections. Stool sampling revealed high levels
of parasitic infections (Ascaris lumbricoides, Anclystoma duodenale,
and Trichuris trichuria). Concurrently, it became clear that the
traditional belief and medical systems (mainly based on animal
medicine) is continuously eroding. As a result, coupled with inaccessible
health services, the villagers are left in a vacuum for the diagnosis
and treatment of new diseases.
The analysis of the diet revealed that the traditional
dietary practices of the Katu before the onset of the war in the
1960s (Laos was involved the Viet Nam War) were found to be fundamentally
different from those witnessed today. Contrary to the generally
held view, that traditional diets of ethnic minorities were in
most cases inadequate, it has been shown that the traditional
Katu diet had been seasonally variable, diverse, and although
never more than adequate, it was arguably still in the range of
sufficiency. From weighed and estimated food recalls it was calculated
that the contemporary diet is deteriorating towards inadequacy
due to unbalanced ratios of food groups. One of the most striking
differences found is the contemporarily higher consumption of
rice, but lower consumption of various species of wild and cultivated
roots and tubers, coarse grains, maize, and other starchy “filling
foods”. This was paralleled by the finding of lower wild
meat consumption which could not be supplemented by domestic meat
intake. On top of that, decreased meat consumption has coincided
with the lower vegetable intake as forest vegetables were used
not only as filling foods, but also as aromatic condiments for
meats. The reduced consumption of forest fruits and vegetables
was found to have been continuously substituted (but not sufficiently)
by cultivated species. Finally, the author was able to infer that
the identified changes in the Katu diet have indeed not been favourable.
She concluded that dietary transformation has resulted mainly
in a lower intake of B-vitamins, iron, zinc, calcium, fat, and
protein, which is now for some nutrients below the recommended
levels. She supported this assertion with the results of her chemical
analysis of 40 Katu food items alongside her calculations from
international, but mainly Thai food composition tables.
At this point, it was instructive that negative
dietary change could be ascribed in particular to the two villages
which are apparently more “modern” and which theoretically
have access to infrastructure, markets, and governmental services.
There, the lower nutrient intake might only be buffered by a better
health system or by access to medicines. The two villages in the
forest, away from the lowland societies, showed a more acceptable
nutrient intake, but factors other than nutrient intake might
have had an impact on their nutritional situation. These could
be, for example, disease, excessive smoking and a continuous exposure
to potential sources of dioxins (e.g. 2,3,7,8-TCDD in Agent Orange),
furans or other congeners from the Viet Nam War.
Generally, the author concluded that it is becoming
increasingly more difficult for the Katu to either improve or
sustain their nutrient intake. This was shown to be mainly the
result of two direct determinants: The disruption of the traditional
food chain and the fading principles of the Katu cuisine.
The retrospective socio-economic analysis and participatory
observations have shown that the increasing production loss in
the agroecosystem constitute the major force in the disruption
of the food chain. It was found that the reduced wildlife harvest
rates (per capita/kg) could not be sufficiently substituted by
domestic livestock production. Accordingly, an increasing and
potentially unsustainable pressure on aquatic resources was observed.
Moreover, it was suggested that traditionally the Katu hunting
system was more elaborate than their agricultural production system
(a system of shifting cultivation). The introduction of wetland
rice production, which followed the land allocation, was found
not to be able to buffer the increasing loss in dry rice production.
Also, vegetable and fruit production appeared not to be able to
substitute the reduced harvest yields of wild vegetables and fruits.
At the same time, a higher individualization of the Katu consumption
units was observed, resulting in increasingly reduced kinship
solidarity (including reduced levels of communal feasting) and
opportunistic marketing of marginal surplus. It was inferred that
this affects the poorer strata of the Katu society in particular.
Concurrently, it was shown that with their continuous low income
the Katu cannot even slightly increase the purchase of market
foods. Taken together it can be attested that the changes in the
traditional Katu’s means of food acquisition have resulted
into a shift away from a formerly stable food supply, towards
an opportunistically unstable one.
In contrast to the disruption of the food chain,
the fading principles of cuisine have until now been largely unnoticed.
Through further interviews and participatory observations, the
author observed that the disruption of the Katu’s food chain
is intrinsically linked to fading culinary principles and vice
versa.
With ethnozoological and ethnobotanical classification
the author found out that the originally broad food base, which
consisted of a large variety of plant and animal taxa (she listed
about 700 entries) has been tremendously reduced in recent times.
Nowadays the Katu cuisine revolves exclusively around some core
species. As such, the formerly “dual Katu cuisine”,
focusing on a varied combination of meat and staples, is currently
shifting towards culinary monotony (rice humdrum). The adaptation
of new food taboos was found to further diminish food variety,
especially for pregnant women. While it was observed that fermentation
and preserving techniques are fading rapidly, many manipulation
and cooking techniques were identified to have been largely maintained.
More generally however, it appears that the Katu women are lacking
recipes to prepare tasty vegan dishes as they currently do not
use pulses anymore, nor do they use any dairy products. Next,
the taste ranking revealed that the Katu are increasingly coerced
to consume foods with flavours they do not really appreciate (shrimps,
crabs, snails, bamboo, dishes with low-fat content, etc.). As
a corollary, the Katu’s use of mono-sodium-glutamate is
exceeding the use of salt. Finally, it became safe to assert that
the disruption of the social organisation as well as the lack
of available free time put additional pressure on the Katu’s
low level of gastronomy.
Moreover, the Katu food chain and cuisine was found
to be strongly affected by underlying, less direct determinants.
Using the framework from Huss-Ashmore and Thomas (1988) which
describes potential determinants of upland food systems, the author
has shown that the Katu food system is influenced by four salient
forces. These were biocultural maladaptation, environmental degradation,
national control, and disadvantages in regional integration. Increasingly
these underlying causes are slipping out of the Katu’s control.
As a backbone of “biocultural adaptation”,
the Katu’s local knowledge of shifting cultivation, hunting,
gathering edible forest products, food selection, manipulation,
customary rules, etc., was observed as being lost at a rapid pace.
At the same time, it is safe to argue that the Katu do not have
sufficient access to or control over new knowledge elements. This
situation leaves the Katu in profound unawareness of the opportunities
that they have to change their diet in a beneficial way. The “environmental
degradation” and the loss of ecosystem balance appeared
to have reached a level whereby the Katu are now unable to intervene,
such as with getting control over wild boar populations, over
encroaching elephants or over new strains of livestock and crop
diseases. In addition, the Katu’s lack of political clout
prevents them from having any influence over the decisions that
effect their diet such as logging, poaching, and other causes
of the destruction of their habitat. Next, it was tentatively
suggested that attempts of national integration have shifted to
“national control” (e.g. the inadequate implementation
of the land allocation, the ban on shifting cultivation and on
customary practices). With regard to the disadvantages of “regional
integration” it was shown that the emerging affiliation
with the cash economy is likely to act counterproductively on
the Katu food chain, rather than providing monetary or other tangible
benefits (e.g. exploitation and disadvantages in marketing).
Recommendations
As a next step, recommendations about harnessing
positive dietary change were proposed. Indeed, it appeared that
there is still a great potential to increase nutrient intake using
the Katu’s own biological and cultural resources. It was
found the Katu’s diet could be improved if current principles
of the Katu cuisine were to be expanded (by new combinations of
food, changing adverse preparation techniques, thus transforming
the rejected food into “novel comestibles”, etc.).
As such, it was inferred that the potential to change the Katu
cuisine compares favourably with the mere focus on the materialistic
dimension of the food chain (e.g. increase production). Additionally,
the author outlined four requisites which were considered necessary
in order to put the food-based recommendations into practice,
and without fulfilment positive dietary change is unlikely to
be attained. The fading of biocultural adaptation should be redirected
towards continuous innovation. Environmental degradation should
be stopped and replaced by a new ecosystem balance which allows
for sustainable cuisines. Disadvantages in regional integration
should be reversed to comparative advantages. National control
should come to a halt so as to enable local food sovereignty.
Discussion
The author felt safe to expostulate that the current
Lao food security concept is neither based on a comprehensive
understanding of the changing dynamics of upland food systems,
nor does it attempt to draw on the full potential of traditional
food chains, cuisines, and diets. As reflected in the research
hypothesis, the underlying argument is that the current concept
does not sufficiently respond to the suggested ever decreasing
intake of fat, protein, Fe, Ca, Zn, and B-vitamins. In the same
vein, insufficient attention is paid to the trend towards the
decreased intake of ß-Carotene and vitamin C. In the following,
the author highlighted four major fallacies in the Lao food security
concept. She proposed instead that its rationale is based on questionable
assumptions.
Firstly, the current food security concept ill-defines
many uplanders as food insecure when in reality there are not.
Rice deficiency is an old phenomenon. Ergo: with the high availability
of forest food, rice insecurity in Laos does not readily fit with
conventional definitions of food security. Accordingly, the definition
of food insecurity should be corrected. Indeed, a further increased
rice intake has many risks attached to it, if the adverse preparation
techniques are not changed. Besides rice, alternative food groups
have not, as yet, been sufficiently investigated. Conversely,
the loss of wild meat, which is a major issue in changing diets,
appears not to have been taken into account. From the argumentation
surrounding the Katu nutrient intake, the idea surfaced to develop
and quantify recommendations for a dynamic trilogy of staples,
meat, and fruits/vegetables (based on nutritional principles).
However, this requires more concerted efforts to analyse the nutrient
content of local foods, especially wild foods, and to establish
the ever first Lao food composition table.
Secondly, in the case of the Katu we have seen that
the goal of reaching food security via market integration becomes
illusive when considering that the village, with the best market
access shows the lowest annual per capita income (due to forest
destruction and resultant lower harvest and sale of Non-Timber-Forest-Products).
In contrast to this, the villages in the forest with a higher
per capita income have no access to the market. Given the high
inaccessibility throughout the Lao uplands, at this stage, it
seems therefore highly unrealistic to rely on market foods to
cope with increasing production losses. It appears more advisable
to strengthen the efforts to increase harvest rates in the local
agroecosystems. Additionally, the literature abounds with empirical
evidence questioning nutritional benefits from increased income
generation.
Thirdly, until now, most of the food security activities
are localised at the food chain level. It should be understood,
however, that production cannot be equalled to consumption. Ergo:
comparing potential interventions at the food chain with options
for the cuisine, it seems that interventions at the cooking pot
would yield tangible benefits in a very cost-efficient and effective
way. Strategically, a more dual approach would also better support
the idea of help towards self-help and thus allow to involve more
women into proactive project activities.
Fourthly, the food security concept is completely
detached from the underlying causes of nutritional problems. Similar
to the case of the Katu food system, it can be argued that also
in other areas of Laos the disruption of the food chain and the
emergence of culinary monotony (as main determinants of negative
dietary change) is directly linked to underlying factors. The
author has detailed four major prerequisites to adequately respond
to the indirect causes of emerging food insecurity. a) Regarding
“continuous innovation”, which means a more resilient
nature of the processes of change, the author has called for truly
building on traditional knowledge. In Laos, there is however scant
information on the knowledge of the various ethnic groups. It
is therefore recommended that the Government of the Lao PDR and
development institutions should put more efforts into supporting
local self-help strategies, rather than provide the technical
and financial aid that inevitably results in dependence to the
detriment of the communities to which that aid is donated. There
is still a great potential to draw upon the knowledge, skills,
and practices of more than 200 ethnic groups. b) It is the author’s
view that aiming at food security whilst turning a blind eye to
environmental degradation in the uplands, undercuts the ethnic
minorities own ability to provide for themselves a sustainable
and satisfactory diet (“sustainable cuisines”). It
is recommended that linking environmental issues on the food security
agenda should be given higher priority, and that international
organisations should exercise more influence on such issues in
connection to their provision of foreign development aid. More
research was found to be needed in the field of the carrying capacity
of the Lao shifting cultivation systems and hunting systems, but
also to assess the exact impact of the increased wildlife trade
and logging on animal populations. c) Regarding “food sovereignty”,
it was recommended that threats to the integrity of the upland
food system need to be continuously identified and incorporated
into the food security concept. The author could not support the
current view of mainstreaming cultural practices of ethnic minorities
(in order to truly develop), as this process is likely to profoundly
jeopardise the preservation and further elaboration of Laos’
cultural and biological diversity resources. In this vein, it
is suggested that in order to optimise local food sovereignty
less political control over ethnic minorities should be exercised.
d) In terms of facilitating “comparative advantages”,
regional integration in the uplands have not up until now resulted
in any measurable benefits, not to mention those cases of economic
and cultural exploitation. As such, it was advised that the mere
vision of providing access to markets, services, and education
should be replaced by real opportunities from which tangible,
and in particular economic benefits can be drawn.
Conclusions
Conclusively, the author infers that not only in
Laos, but also in other tropical areas, such as in the Amazon
region, the local self-help potentials are not sufficiently utilised
to arrest the trend of negative dietary change. Up until now,
food security concepts have mainly derived from ideas and experiences
in areas penetrated by the cash economy and agricultural intensification.
Despite success in these areas, inert assumptions appear not be
applicable to regions with high biological and cultural diversity.
On the contrary, intricate culinary principles of the diverse
ethnic groups together with the unexplored nutritional values
of wild foods constitute a high potential to improve the nutrient
intake. These resources have until now been left untapped.
