Laos is one of Korea’s priority partner countries for official development assistance (ODA) where four sectors are mainly focused such as water management and health, energy, education, and rural development based on the country partnership strategy (CPS). As of 2015, total population rises to almost 7 million among which urban population is 38.6%, and rural population is 61.4%. Although the overall trend of urban population increases rapidly, rural sectors such as agriculture and forestry that utilize abundant natural resources of land, water, grass, tree, and mining are still dominating Lao people due to the high portion of primary industry resulted from land uses. Total land in Laos consists of 78.4% of forestry (18.6 million ha), 10% of the agricultural area (2,369 thousand ha) and others.
  This research studies Korea’s agricultural development cooperation with a focus on rural development that is one of the focal areas approved by Korea’s CPS with Laos. It starts from current agricultural development and future needs for Laos scheduled in particular by agricultural development strategy to 2025 and vision to the year 2030 (ADS 2025) approved by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) of Lao government in 2015. Agricultural programs in Laos supported by other countries or international organizations such as Japan, Australia, Germany, Swiss, Asia Development Bank (ADB), World Bank Group (WB), World Food Program (WFP), and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are discussed in detail for finding possible cooperation each other at the same fields or drawing any significant implication for suggesting promising agricultural programs. On the other hand, Korea’s agricultural capacity is essential for implementing agricultural programs suitable to Laos so that current Korea’s agricultural programs of using both grant and loans are studied for better understanding of finding bottlenecks or challenges in Laos. Based on agricultural needs in Laos and Korea’s capacity in agricultural development cooperation, it suggests several agricultural programs.
  ADS 2025 indicates specific targets and programs in both food production and agricultural commodity production. The target rate for agricultural growth by 2020 is 3.4%, and the one for nutrition is 2,600 kcal/person/day. Agricultural food crops, livestock, and fishery are the main areas for its development. The 9 action plans in agricultural food crops production include 1) agricultural land development, 2) infrastructure development, 3) clean agriculture development, 4) production management, 5) plant protection and quarantine development, 6) food crops research, 7) commercial crop production, 8) plant variety and technical research for commercial cultivation and 9) personnel development for plant protection and quarantine. There are 7 action plans in livestock and fishery development such as 1) improvement of productivity in livestock and fishery production, 2) improvement and development on sanitary measures for animal products, 3) livestock and fishery production research, 4) livestock and fishery commodity production research, 5) livestock and fishery production extension, 6) livestock production, veterinary and fishery management and administration improvement, and 7) commercial livestock and fishery production promotion.
  Laos has received almost $500-650 million annually on average from international societies. Japan’s agricultural programs focus on enhancing agricultural policy and administration capacity, land management, water resources, food production, and livestock industry by inviting private sectors as well as local farmers. Australia has agricultural programs on developing livestock and agricultural technology as well as policy and administration. Germany focuses on rural development, climate change, forestation, and enhancing various natural species in agriculture. Swiss has provided to enhance agricultural extension services for 12 years aiming at enhancing agricultural productivity, especially for small farmers. ADB’s strategy indicates enhancing local/regional connectivity and irrigation, agricultural value chain, regional infrastructure, and water resource management for food security. WB has many agricultural programs including land management and forestry cooperation to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). WFP has supported food assistance for enhancing children’s nutrition especially using school programs. FAO has helped Laos facilitate agricultural market and technology through agricultural education programs such as farmers’ field school (FFS).
  Korea as one of important donors in Laos has provided many projects such as technical assistance through Korea Program on International Agriculture (KOPIA) center of Rural Development Administration (RDA), integrated agriculture and rural development project through Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) supported by Korea Rural Community Cooperation (KRC), agricultural and rural activities through KOICA, consulting agricultural policies through Korean Agricultural Policy Experiences for Food Security (KAPEX) from Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) and Knowledge Sharing Program (KSP) from Korea Development Institute (KDI). These activities should be more aligned each other in the near future for increasing aid effectiveness in Laos.
  Korea has a great experience to enhance agricultural production and marketing system within a short period of time such as increasing agricultural technology especially in rice productivity for small farmers, livestock and milk industry, forestation, farm financing and marketing through agricultural cooperatives, information on agricultural price and markets, and so on.
  In conclusion, for future direction in agricultural development cooperation with Laos, sustaining agricultural policy framework, first of all, should be continued such as KAPEX and KSP in order to initiate pilot programs for implementing good agricultural policies in Laos for mutual recognition. There are potential areas such as enhancing food security, responding to the climate change for agricultural resilience, achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Second, facilitating and implementing agricultural policies in Laos should be supported by Korea government’s programs in areas such as technical assistance, capacity building, and agricultural value chain. Third, agricultural development programs should be linked with current frameworks such as Korea-Laos, Korea-Mekong, and Korea-ASEAN cooperation. Fourth, incorporating private sectors and/or non-government organizations (NGOs) throughout the programs are important for sustainable agricultural development activities in the long run. These programs should contribute to the social and economic growth for Laos to graduate from the least developed country by 2020 and transform into a middle-income country by 2030 led by National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP, 2016-2020).