The price of spice: Ethnic minority livelihoods and cardamom commodity chains in upland northern Vietnam

Abstract

The northern uplands of Vietnam are witness to rapidly developing commodity markets for a range of forest and agricultural products. Since the early 1990s the cultivation of black cardamom (Amomum aromaticum) has become a source of cash income for a growing number of ethnic minority households in these uplands. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, and utilizing a commodity chain and livelihoods approach, this article investigates the contemporary dynamics surrounding the cultivation, harvesting and trade of dried cardamom fruit from Hmong cultivators in Lao Cai province to consumers elsewhere in Vietnam and beyond to China and the global market. We analyse the spatial and social structures of these commodity chains, drawing attention to a range of mechanisms of access. We find that these mechanisms are reliant upon specific ethnic relations as well as different forms of capital that together sustain economic advantages for particular actors. While focusing on the ethnic minority cultivators active in these commodity chains, we also call for more nuanced understandings of how the trade in forest products fits within local agricultural systems and household livelihood decision making processes in the Vietnam uplands.

Making a Living the Hmong Way: An Actor-Oriented Livelihoods Approach to Everyday Politics and Resistance in Upland Vietnam

“…Everywhere they could, states have obliged mobile, swidden cultivators to settle in permanent villages." Nowadays Hmong composite agriculture involves a mix of permanent terraced rice paddy fields (or maize, depending on localized rainfall), rotating swidden plots (officially banned) and small gardens with the collection of forest products including fuel wood, herbal medicines, game, and honey (Kunstadter and Lennington Kunstadter 1983;Leisz et al 2004;Vuong Duy Quang 2004;Tugault-Lafleur and Turner 2009). Hmong households are also integrated into commercial circuits through selected agricultural intensification practices, including purchasing government-subsidized hybrid rice and maize seeds that supplement or replace their own traditional rotating supplies, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides.…”

‘The weather is like the game we play’: Coping and adaptation strategies for extreme weather events among ethnic minority groups in upland northern Vietnam

“…Livelihoods are dynamic and need to be understood in a framework of changing social and political contexts and emerging opportunities (de Haan and Zoomers, ). In Vietnam, for example, since the end of the French colonial period in 1954, government policies have influenced access to commercial livelihood opportunities for Hmong and Yao households in the northern highlands (Donovan et al ., ; Michaud, ; Tugault‐Lafleur and Turner, ). A ban on independent tourism until 1993 meant that livelihood diversification related to this sector occurred relatively recently.…”

“…They also ate substitute foodstuffs such as maize or cassava, or foods foraged from the forest in extreme circumstances (cf. Tugault‐Lafleur and Turner, ).…”

Moral economies and markets: ‘Insider’ cassava trading in Kon Tum, Vietnam

“…This suggests that under particular circumstances, some elements of moral economy may endure in and shape market‐oriented production and engagement. The configuration and quality of certain relationships amongst market actors, notably between traders and smallholders, may be particularly important in shaping market practices and engagement (Nevins and Peluso, ; Tugault‐Lafleur and Turner, ). Rigg (), for example, finds that in rural, Thailand traders have often played multiple roles through which they gain bargaining power and can extract benefits from farmers.…”