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500 Kip 1988, Laos

in Krause book Number: 31a
Years of issue: 1988
Edition:
Signatures: no signature
Serie: 1979 and 1988-2015 Issue
Specimen of: 1988
Material: Cotton fiber
Size (mm): 148 х 67
Printer: China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation (CBPM)

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500 Kip 1988

Description

Watermark:

watermark

Five-pointed stars, hammer and sickle.

Avers:

500 Kip 1988

coat

On right side is the coat of arms, used till 1991.

The national emblem of Laos shows the national shrine Pha That Luang. A dam is pictured which as a symbol of power generation at the reservoir Nam Ngun, an asphalt street is also pictured, as well as a stylized watered field. In the lower part is a section of a gear wheel. The inscription on the left reads "Peace, Independence, Democracy" (ສັນຕິພາບ ເອກະລາດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ) and on the right, "Unity and Prosperity" (ເອກະພາບ ວັດຖະນາຖາວອນ).

Irrigation system.

Localized irrigation in Laos.

Localized irrigation is a system where water is distributed at low pressure through water mains to a predetermined reservoir and the water is applied to a small amount of water for each plant or adjacent plants. There are three main categories: drip irrigation (where emitters are used to apply water slowly to the soil surface), spray or micro-sprinkler irrigation (where water is sprayed into the soil near plants or individual trees) and bubbler irrigation (where a small stream is used to fill small catchment structures with water or soil adjacent to individual trees). The following terms are also sometimes used to refer to localized irrigation: micro irrigation, trickle irrigation, daily flow irrigation, drip irrigation, intermittent trickle irrigation, annual irrigation. (ru.knoema.com .rus)

Revers:

500 Kip 1988

book

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a long, narrow country of 7 million people. Laos has been a coffee-producing country since French colonists established plantations there in the early 1900s. The main production is concentrated on the Bolaven plateau and is located in the southern part of Laos, in the provinces of Sekong, Attapa. The borders of the plateau are the Truong Son mountain range located in the east, along which the eastern border of Laos with Vietnam runs, and the Mekong River in the west. The height of the plateau ranges from about 1000 to 1350 meters above sea level. The plateau is crossed by several rivers, on which there are many picturesque waterfalls. Its eastern and southern borders are near the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was the main supply route used by North Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War. From 1964 to 1973, American aircraft carried out 580,000 bombing raids on Laos and dropped 270 million bombs in an attempt to disrupt North Vietnamese supply operations. There was one bombardment every eight minutes, every day for nine full years. Today it is believed that about 80 million bombs did not explode in Laos. Many of these bombs disintegrated into smaller "bombs" mid-air, hit the ground without detonating, and remained intact as plants and trees grew around them. These bombings were not officially known to the public until 1969.

book

Today, 50,000 farming families across the country are associated with coffee production. 95% of all coffee in Laos is produced on the Bolaven mountain plateau in the south of the country and coffee farmers in Laos perform one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Coffee is grown at high altitude, so areas like the Bolaven Plateau are ideal for growers. However, these mountainous regions make up a significant part of the Laotian border, which was commonly crossed by North Vietnamese forces as part of the Ho Chi Minh route. Unsurprisingly, this virtually destroyed the Laotian coffee industry. Although it has since recovered decades later, unexploded ordnance limits safe access to much of this rich agricultural land. The head of Dak Chung village, located in Sekong province in southeastern Laos, says: “It is difficult for us to expand our coffee production. The land must be cleared by the bomb disposal agencies, but we are too far from the main villages; they don't come here to clean them up. For many of the poor coffee farmers in Laos, there is no other choice but to risk their lives working on land littered with mines and bombs.

Unexploded ordnance limits the spread of coffee communities that use agricultural land to grow crops. This prevents safe access to roads, collection of firewood, access to clean drinking water, and even travel to markets and health centers. Unexploded ordnance in Laos hit 25% of all villages in 15 of the country's 18 provinces. More than 300 people die every year. In total, more than 12,000 people have been killed or injured since 1973. The removal of unexploded ordnance is a methodical but agonizingly slow process, and carries enormous risk for those who undertake it. Manual "clearing" involves checking minefields meter by meter using metal detectors and various earthmoving tools. Every day, about 3,000 people inspect and destroy unexploded ordnance across the country, at an estimated cost of $3,000 per hectare. Clearing is further hampered during the rainy season, difficult terrain and dense forest. The task of clearing the entire country will take considerable time, and although the number of mines is decreasing, injuries and deaths continue to occur. The Lao government has said it aims to clear all unexploded ordnance from priority farmland by the end of 2020. So far, however, only about 25% of affected people have benefited from land clearing and demining.

In the 1950s, most of the coffee on the Bolaven Plateau was replaced with Robusta to improve yields and plant resilience. However, since 2014, the Lao government has promoted the widespread cultivation of arabica varieties of typica and bourbon to meet global demand for specialty coffees. Production expanded to the mountainous regions of the country's central and northern provinces, and some forest areas were cleared for coffee cultivation. In these areas, many coffee farms are off the beaten track, making it difficult to properly clean up unexploded ordnance. Having no other choice, the Lao farmers themselves "clean up" the ammunition. The main risk group is new coffee producers.

Many of the old farms have been cleared by UXO teams, but the poorest farms in the least developed areas are still at the highest risk of death from UXO. With each season, more and more farmers are learning about agronomic and flour milling methods to produce the highest quality products worthy of a specialized market. Over the past 10 years, the quality of coffee from Laos has been steadily increasing. Coffee is exported to Germany and the USA. Today it is the third largest coffee producer in Southeast Asia after Vietnam and Indonesia. In 2015, local stores sold decent fresh-roasted coffee, and in the capital, in the Le Trio Coffee boutique coffee house, you could drink specialty coffee and incredibly delicious cold brew from Lao typica, which is roasted on PROBAT roasters, right in the coffee house, with 2009. (sbmrne.ru .rus)

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