Health Care and Education: Laos is an underdeveloped country with a population of about 3 million people. 85 percent of whom are engaged in subsistence agriculture. The avowed primary goal of the Lr.o Government is to improve the economic ck ndition of the people by a socialist transformation of the economy. most importantly by collectivization of agriculture. In early 1978. instances of attempted coercion of some farmers to join agricultural cooperatives were reported. causing for the first time some lowland Lao farmers to join the refugee stream. According to the Lao Government. this coercion was the result of lack of understanding by both cadre and farmers. and not a LPDR government policy. As a result. the formation of new cooperatives has been halted until after the 1979 harvest.