Prospects and limitations of ‘Responsible Agricultural Investment’ for governing transboundary agri-food systems in Mekong Southeast Asia: Implications for upland maize in the Lao-Vietnamese borderlands

Agri-food production in the Mekong countries of Southeast Asia, as is the case globally, has become increasingly dominated by commodity crops, often produced in transboundary networks of smallholder farmers, traders and downstream agribusiness firms. These trends are likely to continue along with regional demand, raising questions of how to address impacts on communities and the environment from conversion of diverse farm-forest landscapes towards monocultures. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations recently endorsed guidelines on ‘Responsible Agricultural Investment’ (ASEAN-RAI) as a transboundary governance framework for improving the social and environmental outcomes of agribusiness. Application of this voluntary framework remains in its infancy and has so far received limited research attention. This article aims to contribute to this nascent evidence base by examining the prospects and limitations of ASEAN-RAI in the context of a transboundary maize network spanning the Lao-Vietnamese borderlands. One area of potential for ASEAN-RAI to have a positive impact is by influencing higher visibility firms with interests in demonstrating social and environmental commitments. However, transboundary agribusiness somewhat undermines this by spatially separating lead firms from responsibility for impacts, and crossing different regulatory jurisdictions via networks of intermediaries. The article elaborates on such limitations, though argues that voluntary governance frameworks such as ASEAN-RAI can make an important contribution as part of wider multi-stakeholder movements to sharpen attention and policy debates on agribusiness impacts that may otherwise go unchallenged.

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