Vietnam's Agriculture: Processes of Rich Peasant Accumulation and Mechanisms of Social Differentiation

Abstract

Vietnam's agrarian transition is reviewed and, against the World Bank view that land markets in Vietnam have been pro‐poor, it is suggested that access to land has become stratified within specific provinces, districts and communes. Aggregate data and field research both demonstrate that the technical coefficients of production differ between farms when grouped according to a proxy for wealth, and that this is correlated with productivity per unit of land. It is therefore argued that there are emerging differences between farms that reflect divergence in the scale of production. At the same time, when grouped according to wealth there are differences between farms in terms of crop mix, the degree of market integration, and the extent of rural diversification. Holistic examination of the evidence suggests that Vietnam has an emergent group of rich peasants with relatively larger landholdings, amounts of capital stock, and use of hired labour‐power; and higher yields per unit of land, a greater degree of market integration, and more marked productive diversification. This class can be set beside a numerically preponderant class of relatively small peasants, with smaller landholdings and amounts of capital, a heavier reliance on family labour, lower yields per unit of land, and less market integration and diversification. The evidence further demonstrates the rapid growth of a class of rural landless who are largely separated from the means of production, who survive by intermittently selling their labour, and who are the poorest segment of rural society.

Land, farming, livelihoods, and poverty: Rethinking the links in the Rural South

“…The opening section of the paper noted the centrality of land and land policy in many visions of rural/agricultural development. Griffin et al (2002) have recently made a renewed call for redistributive land reform as a means of tackling rural poverty arguing that such reform will raise yields and agricultural output, lead to higher total factor productivity, raise average incomes, narrow inequalities and, therefore, reduce poverty (see also Akram-Lodhi, 2005 andByres, 2004). In contrast to the position adopted by Griffin et al (2002), this paper argues that redistributive land reform does not, in the main, offer a solution to rural poverty, for two reasons.…”

Does rising landlessness signal success or failure for Vietnam's agrarian transition?

“…The distribution of land was more equal in the north. 6 It is also likely that non-land inputs to farming were more dependent on own wealth in the south (Akram-Lodhi, 2005). The pressures toward further land consolidation are likely to be stronger in the south.…”

Crop Diversification, Economic Performance and Household's Behaviours: Evidence from Vietnam

“…The family labour can then allocate more hours to off-farm activities or migrate to urban areas (D'Antoni et al 2014). This can result in increasing inequality and social stratification within rural areas as shown by Akram-Lodhi (2005).…”