Lao Farmers’ Products (LFP) and Batieng Products (Bapro) are two Lao cooperative companies founded in 1994 and 2001 respectively. At the heart of their raison d'être is the development of Lao farmers communities through the building of long-lasting trade relationships based on trust and mutual respect.
Everything started in the Kasi district of the Vientiane province at the end of the 1980’s. An association was created in France, named “Association for the support to Lao farmers’ communities” (ASDSP). The ASDSP created and implemented a development project aimed at providing access to finance (micro-credit) and irrigation to the farmers of the district. After a few years, the founders of the project realized that a lot of what was being produced by the farmers, as well as some of the forest products, remained largely unused, or unsold, due to the lack of market. That is when LFP was created.
Out of forest fruits, LFP first produced jams, then candies. Seeing that there was potential for the marketing of these products, LFP started building solid partnerships with the farmers of the project. The product line extended to fruit juices. LFP built a new workshop and developed news relationships with farmers in the Xieng Khouang province (Khoun district) to develop passion fruit plantations – a great alternative to opium poppy plantations. At the same time, the product line extended to rice, both from Vientiane province (jasmine and black rice) and Xieng Khouang province (sticky Khao Kai Noi rice).
Batieng Products was created in order to enter a new market, tea, and to work in close partnership with the producers of the Bolaven plateau. Batieng Products’ factory was hence built at the foot of the plateau, in Batieng district, in 2001. At that time, the farmers of the plateau were in the process of cutting their tea trees in order to plant catimor coffee trees. They were entering the risky business of monoculture. Bapro hence decided to offer the producers a fair price for their tea. The farmers who entered in agreement with Bapro started receiving a steady income throughout the year, as opposed to coffee-only farmers, who harvest the cash of their crop only once a year.
