Livestock Banks and Food Security in Laos

The literature analysing the impacts of livestock banks is limited to a small number of papers, mostly of a qualitative nature. This paper contributes to the knowledge on the impacts of this type of intervention on short- term household food security through the analysis of original data form 112 households that participated in a pig bank in Laos. Taking advantage of the staggered implementation of the program, we use propensity score matching the show that receiving pigs reduces household rice production by approximately 34 percent in the first harvest after participation commenced. However, the effects are differentiated across initial wealth status of the beneficiary: if the household was classified as being poor before the start of the program, participation has no meaningful impact on rice production. The policy implications of the analysis are examined.