Blog Post #26 - LOPA Business Planning Workshop

This past Friday and Saturday SAEDA facilitated a business planning workshop for the new Laos Organic Promotion in Agriculture (LOPA) organization. Xiengkhouang District (i.e County) and Provincial agriculture / forestry officials, along with farmer representatives, were all in attendance.

Asleep or captivated?

Apart from sleep, there are few things that I'd rather be doing on a Saturday morning ;)

The workshop was an opportunity to provide stakeholders with an overview of ongoing business planning initiatives, while simultaneously giving them an opportunity to explain challenges faced, share priorities and contribute feedback. Although LOPA still has many important decisions to make, Lao business culture emphasizes seeking mutual agreement, so workshops like this are important to gauge support and give all stakeholders an equal opportunity to voice an opinion. Lao culture is also generally unconfrontational, and therefore reading body language and facial expressions is important to guide the discussion.

Brainstorming!

Below is a sample collection of some of the materials created. Fortunately I kept them high-level so that you do not have to commit to too much reading (and so that my translator did not pass out from exhaustion by the end of the day).

We spent a good portion of the day reviewing the value chain, along with the challenges stakeholders face along it. We received some very good insight into unforeseen headaches.

These priorities highlight how farmers foresee an organization like LOPA helping them overcome the challenges they face.

The challenges and priorities of the Lao farmers are not unique. There have been many successful NGO's that have created unique organic agriculture business models, and I wanted to inspire them with some of these other strategies.

LOPA will need to leverage lessons from these case studies to frame their own business model.

LOPA cannot do everything to solve all challenges along the value chain. The team must continue to assess the feasibility of various initiatives, and address the most important priorities of stakeholders involved.

Although many in Xiengkhouane seem to think that KKN is the next big global craze, I ask them to step back and make sure that we first confirm there are people actually willing to buy the stuff. Otherwise I may be putting on some serious tonnage from all the extra product that needs to be eaten. Talk about spoilage.

We have a lot of work still to do, and I will need to facilitate a more comprehensive internal workshop with the LOPA leadership team to address these next steps.

It wouldn't be a Lao meeting without an assortment of snacks to complement coffee....

My guess, the most exciting part of their day

...And a post-workshop big karaoke dinner with local Xiengkhouang dishes.

You'd think the Xiengkhouang farmers would want a change from their usual meals when visiting Vientiane,
BUT no, they are passionate about the Khao Kai Noi, so we went to a Xiengkhouang restaurant

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!!!