 To ensure that the project meets its livelihood goals, researchers in the Aplands have focused their objectives on establishing food security, racing household income to improve household debt, and preserving the land through environmental sustainability. Although 80% of arable land in Laos is dedicated to rice, the climatic variability and lack of sustainable crop management practices has led farmers to a desperate yearly ritual of slash and burn. We need to have a way to improve our land, so that we can continue to grow. This is a big problem, because we need to be able to share the land with the people. We have already built the land in the area, and now we need to use the land as a means to build the land. This objective we want to introduce to farmers, not only to grow rice in the same land, but maybe they can grow rice, and after that they can grow maize, and then the year they can grow rice to continuous cropping system. We're going to diversify crops in Laos so that there's not such a rice-based economy, which is fairly unstable. Once again, the only way to do it is to take land from the rice area, produce more rice on less land. So there's still a long way to go and a lot of research that needs to be done. AIRI has made a critical contribution to the continuing success of rice production in Laos, but without the collaboration of national and international networks, the sustainability of the research and training could not be guaranteed. The idea was that after some time, the project itself would come to an end, but the research would continue, carried on by well-trained, well-qualified Laotian staff. I'm pleased to say that we've arrived at that point. With an increase of 66% more people by the year 2020, the estimated rice requirement for self-sufficiency is approximately 3 million tonnes. To meet the challenge of feeding its millions of rice-eaters in the coming decade, Laos has to pull its resources and overcome constraints in rice production. In the livelihood of our farmers, or Lao people, we can say the rice is the life. If every family can help a lot of the rice, they seem to be happy. The Lao-Iri project has given the people of Laos the momentum to build on their already considerable success.