Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
in Vietnam’s Post-Socialist Transition
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
ABSTRACT
This article presents a critique of Vietnam’s agricultural modernization in the
context of its post-socialist transition and the emerging climate crisis. Agricultural modernization has led to impressive rates of wealth creation that
have pulled many Vietnamese out of poverty and food insecurity over the
past two decades. However, the model’s own logic of accumulation has also
made the country increasingly reliant on complex processes and has locked
in various technological path dependencies. These include energy- and inputintensive production, engineered landscapes, reduced agro-biodiversity, and
weakened social networks, knowledge and skills. As a result, Vietnam is
becoming more sensitive and less able to adapt to structural shocks, notably
that of climate change. Furthermore, and crucially, the post-socialist transition since the launch of D̄ổi mới (market reform) has given rise to a political
economy with dominant interests increasingly vested in the continuity of
this modernization model. The article argues that it is this new dynamics of
class and state–society relations that now represents the main obstacle to the
development of credible solutions to the climate crisis.
INTRODUCTION
Over the second half of the twentieth century, Vietnam’s model of agricultural modernization, particularly when coupled with the market reforms and
global integration of the last twenty-five years, has made it a proud textbook example of economic growth and poverty reduction (Ravallion and
Walle, 2001; World Bank, 2002). Vietnam’s agricultural success has been
robust, with the production of rice, the main food security crop, more than
doubling from 16 million tonnes in 1986 to 36 million tonnes in 2008. Average productivity jumped by 86 per cent from 2.6 to 4.9 tonnes per hectare
(IRRI, 2009, using FAO and USDA data). The Mekong Delta has generated the largest share of that increase, delivering 57 per cent of the national
We would like to thank the editors of Development and Change as well as the three anonymous
reviewers who provided most helpful suggestions.
Development and Change 44(1): 81–99. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12001
C 2013 International Institute of Social Studies.
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA
82
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
production gain between 1995 and 2008 (GSO, 2009b). While Vietnam
was long a food-deficit country, it has since the 1990s become the second
largest global exporter of rice, selling 4 to 5 million tonnes per year —
that is, 15–20 per cent of the globally traded volume (IRRI, 2007). Yet,
regardless of such achievements, the country’s capacity to keep food production growing at par with demand appears uncertain. As recognized by the
Vietnamese government (Government of Viet Nam, 2009; MARD, 2008),
two factors are casting a shadow over the country’s hard-won food security and sufficiency: the steady decline in cropping areas, particularly paddy
fields, observed over the past decade; and the soaring impacts of climate
change.
To better understand the nature of these threats and the political economy of the responses that are emerging to face them, this article presents
a critical review of Vietnam’s agricultural modernization in the context of
its post-socialist transition. We argue that this modernization has locked
both family and large-scale farms into technological path dependencies of
energy- and input-intensive production, notably for agrochemicals, biotechnologies and water. This, in turn, has led to a vicious circle of induced systemic fragility through engineered landscapes, reduced agro-biodiversity,
and weakened social networks, knowledge and skills. As a result, Vietnam has become more sensitive to structural changes and less able to
adapt to the unpredictable context of climate instability. Beyond those systemic contradictions, however, we argue that the most damaging impact
of modernization under D̄ổi mới (market reform) has been to generate a
new class dynamics and transform state–society relations in ways that now
undermine the country’s ability to respond to climate change. Dominant
interests have become firmly vested in the continuity of the globally integrated, neoliberal modernization, seeking solutions to the threat of climate
change through technological fixes while fiercely obstructing the search for
alternatives.
To demonstrate this argument, the article first examines the model of agricultural modernization that transformed Vietnam’s physical and politicaleconomic agricultural landscape in recent decades, particularly since the
launch of D̄ổi mới. It then considers how that model has been made vulnerable by climate change, through biophysical exposure, socio-economic
sensitivity and weakened adaptability, and discusses the government’s response to that threat. The second part of the article examines the changes
that have taken place since the reform was launched, analysing the rise of
new class interests and relations, and the ensuing dynamics of resistance.
It considers the inability of the current political economy to promote more
robust but paradigmatically different approaches to the rising threat of climate change. The conclusion reflects on what those alternatives might be in
the context of emerging transnational movements in agro-ecology and food
sovereignty.
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
83
THE PROMISES AND COSTS OF AGRICULTURAL MODERNIZATION
Aspiring to Modernity
While the process of agricultural modernization in Vietnam had already
started by the early twentieth century, it intensified in the early 1960s on both
sides of the divided country, as reflected by increasing hydraulic engineering,
mechanization and the use of modern seed varieties and agrochemicals
(Taylor, 2007: 10). The government of the northern Democratic Republic
of Vietnam aimed for agricultural transformation in both technological and
organizational terms. In the decade following 1955, agricultural budgets
soared by a factor of five, with irrigated land increasing from 42 to 64 per
cent (by 1960) and 200,000 hectares being added to production (Bhaduri and
Rahman, 1982: 42; Ha Vinh, 1997: 104–6). Modern high-yielding varieties
of seeds were introduced, with shorter cycles that enabled two and sometimes
three seasons of rice and other crops per year (Wiegersma, 1988: 167). By
the end of the 1970s, the use of agrochemicals had become common, mostly
with imports from the Soviet Union (Fforde and Sénèque, 1994: 21). The
government promoted some agricultural mechanization, but through what it
called ‘technical duality’, avoiding excessive labour displacement by highly
capital-intensive equipment. As a result, only 16 per cent of the land was
tilled by tractors by 1977 (Pingali et al., 1997: 353).
Modernization was more intensive in the southern Republic of Vietnam,
where French colonial capitalism had most flourished. Commercial agriculture was already widespread by the 1950s, while the intensifying American
involvement provided a testing ground for the tenets of Modernization Theory, including those of Walt Rostow himself (Pearce, 2001). Large-scale
hydraulic engineering projects modelled on the Tennessee valley were designed for the Mekong Delta (Käkönen, 2009: 206). By the late 1970s,
high-yielding varieties provided about 30 per cent of paddy output (Young
et al., 2002), and tractors were used on 30 to 40 per cent of the land (Pingali
et al., 1997: 353).
The end of the American war in 1975 was soon followed by a crisis of
collectivized farming which, by 1979, prompted the government of the reunified Socialist Republic of Vietnam to undertake various reforms. This led
to the formalization of D̄ổi mới (literally, ‘renovation’) in 1986, incentivizing producers by liberalizing the organization of production and markets
(Kerkvliet, 1995; Ngo Vinh Long, 1993). With D̄ổi mới, the government
maintained course and intensified modernization, committing to more irrigation, drainage and sea protection, increasing agrochemical use, and spreading
modern rice varieties. In the late 1970s and 1980s, 62 per cent of agricultural
capital investment went to water-control schemes (Miller, 2007: 197), many
of them in the Mekong Delta, aimed at improving productivity and, to a
lesser extent, reclaiming new land.
84
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
[T]he delta is one of Vietnam’s most technologically modified rural regions. Most of its
watercourses have been dredged and widened over more than a century. Drainage and
irrigation channels have greatly expanded the area for agricultural exploitation. Mangroves
have been stripped from the coastal region, mudflats excavated for salt pans and shrimp ponds,
and marshes drained for the relentless extension of paddy fields. An enormous amount of
silt has been scooped from the beds of watercourses to create elevated settlements, roads,
and cultivation areas. Ponds have been dug for fish rearing, wells sunk for drinking water.
Gravitational water flows are manipulated by sluice gates and dikes, and new flows are
manufactured by mechanized pumps and propellers. (Taylor, 2007: 33)
Landscape engineering, notably hydraulic controls regulating floods and
preventing saline intrusion, have indeed boosted production in the Mekong
Delta. This has partly been through land reclamation, gaining about 10 per
cent more arable land between 1975 and 1996 (Young et al., 2002: 8), but
mostly by enabling double or triple cropping in a single year through irrigation, drainage and salinity control. In this way, approximately 300,000
hectares of low-yielding floating rice fields had been converted to shortcycle, multiple-crop irrigated paddy by the early 1980s (Bui Ba Bong,
2000). Furthermore, water-controlling infrastructure has enabled the adoption of high-yielding cultivars across the country, surging to about 90 per
cent by 2000 (Tran Thi Ut and Kajisa, 2006). Additional productivity gains
were obtained through the application of chemical fertilizers, which increased by an average of 10 per cent a year from 1976 to 2009, reaching
8 million tonnes nationally (AgroViet, 2010; Pingali et al., 1997). Similarly,
the use of pesticides grew from 20,000 tonnes to 50,000 tonnes from 1991 to
2009 (AgroViet, 2010; Dasgupta et al., 2005). Although a latecomer to the
agrochemical-based ‘green revolution’, Vietnam quickly caught up with the
rest of Asia, and now surpasses other countries in some respects (Nguyen
Huu Dung and Tran Thi Thanh Dung, 2003; Pingali et al., 1997).
Structural Crisis: From Boom to Bust?
In spite of these successes, the Vietnamese government has become concerned by the constant pressure to convert agricultural land to other uses,
which could eventually threaten outputs, food security and national food sufficiency. Paddy coverage has declined significantly from 4.5 million hectares
in 1978 to 4.1 million in 2009; if this trend continues, there will be only
3.5 million ha of paddy by 2020 (GSO, 2000: 15; MOIT, 2009). When multiple crops in a single year are factored in, areas of rice harvests grew from
5.5 million ha in 1980 to a peak of 7.7 million in 1999, then decreased by
4 percent to 7.4 million ha in 2008 (IRRI, 2009).
This drop is the result of the conversion of rice land for other higher valued
food crops and aquaculture, as well as for urban expansion, the creation of
industrial zones and recreational developments such as golf courses (Nguyen
Van Suu, 2009: 12; Tran Minh Ton, 2008). Besides withdrawing land from
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
85
staple food production, such conversions can cause environmental damage
that further affects agriculture, including untreated discharges from industrial
activities (Tran Dac Hien, 2010), and the diversion of water and use of
agrochemicals for the maintenance of golf greens (Tran Minh Ton, 2008).
This trend threatens not only the aggregate production of food, but also
the livelihoods and hence the food security of many rural poor. Across the
country, more than 600,000 households have already been affected by land
conversion, reducing living standards for half of those (Ngan Tuyen, 2008).
Land conversion has been discussed at length by one of the authors elsewhere (Tran Thi Thu Trang, 2011); for the argument made here it suffices
to point out that the process not only presents a threat to food production,
but also reflects the re-emergence of agrarian tensions and intensification of
land-based class struggles as a result of D̄ổi mới. As we will discuss below,
this new power dynamics is a key feature of Vietnam’s emerging political
economy, and a serious obstacle to building resilience and adaptability in
the face of climate change.
Beside land conversion, the Vietnamese government has rightly identified climate change as another serious threat to its agriculture and food
security. Vietnam’s particular vulnerability stems from its exposure to extremes of weather, the acute sensitivity of its society and economy to those
extremes, and its limited adaptive capacity.1 The magnitude and pace of
climate change remain difficult to forecast; they will depend partly on the
uncertain unfolding of biophysical changes, and partly on mitigation efforts
which societies will (or will not) undertake. While some uncertainty and
controversy thus persist (see Hulme, 2009), the natural science literature
reflects a strong consensus on the likely severity of those changes over the
next few decades in Vietnam. With over 3,200 km of coastline, two major
and several smaller deltas, monsoon rains and strong typhoons, Vietnam is
already exposed to sea-level rise (SLR), coastal and hillside erosion, floods,
inundations, salinization, cold spells, heat waves and droughts which subject local ecosystems to increasingly severe stress (Nguyen Van Viet, 2011;
Yu et al., 2010). For example, an SLR of just 1 metre by 2100 (now seen
as optimistic by most accounts) would submerge up to 31 per cent of the
Mekong Delta (Carew-Reid, 2008: 14–15).
Vietnam’s population is acutely sensitive to this biophysical vulnerability,
notably through its coastal and riparian habitats, infrastructures and rural
livelihoods. About three quarters of the country’s population live in — and
live from — areas vulnerable either to SLR and fluvial floods, to hillside
flash floods, or to droughts (Asian Development Bank, 2010; Carew-Reid,
2008: 6). Furthermore, and despite rapid industrialization, 70 per cent of
the population is still registered as living in rural areas (GSO, 2009c), while
agriculture generates 21 per cent of Vietnam’s GDP (GSO, 2012). Climatic
change will greatly affect agricultural activities; Vietnam, like other tropical
1. On the concept of vulnerability, see Füssel (2007) and Nelson et al. (2007).
86
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
areas, will suffer a net loss of arable land, water and productivity as a result
of any temperature increase (Ericksen et al., 2011; for the case of Vietnam
specifically, see Nguyen Van Viet, 2011; Yu et al., 2010). Global studies
that examine the output of rice, wheat, maize, millet and sorghum predict
declines ranging from a few percentage points to as much as 19 per cent
(rice) and 34 per cent (wheat) by 2050 for developing countries. In a context
of increasing and competing demand for grains and biofuels, this could push
up food prices by anything between 10 and 100 per cent (Nelson et al., 2009:
5–7).
Induced Vulnerability
As indicated above, the third factor of vulnerability is adaptive capacity.
There are many definitions for this in the literature, but here it is understood as the ability to structurally change when homeostasis fails, i.e. when
systemic resilience to shocks is overstretched (Eakin and Luers, 2006). The
process of modernization itself, always seeking to expand opportunities of
accumulation, has made Vietnam and its agricultural producers increasingly
dependent on complex but fragile production and distribution regimes, both
within and outside of agriculture. This has increased sensitivity and weakened adaptive capacity by foreclosing options for structural change, thus
inducing new forms of vulnerability to climate change, despite modernist
claims to have enhanced control over nature.
Vietnam’s fragility and dependency have simultaneously deepened on
several fronts. A first front relates to systemic dependence on global energy
and commodity markets. On the one hand, agricultural modernization is now
embedded in industrial commodity chains requiring the continuous infusion
of fossil fuels for both energy-intensive production and agrochemical inputs,
commodity processing, transportation and storage (Martı́nez-Alier, 2011).
On the other hand, those commodity chains have also developed on the back
of a stable global trade regime for Vietnam’s import of many inputs and
the export of a large share of its outputs. More than a third of Vietnam’s
agrochemicals are either imported or manufactured from imported resources,
while three quarters of high-yielding but sterile hybrid rice seeds are bought
each year from China (GRAIN, 2008). Conversely, it depends increasingly
on global trade to realize its production, having exported nearly 80 per
cent of its GDP in 2008 (GSO, 2009a). According to the KOF Index of
Globalization — which tracks economic, social and political indicators of
a country’s global linkages — Vietnam’s index nearly doubled under D̄ổi
mới, from 25 in 1987 to 48 in 2008 (KOF, 2011).
Yet, both energy and trade are areas of uncertainty. In Vietnam as elsewhere, the end of cheap fossil fuels is pushing energy and agrochemicals
prices upward (Viet Nam Business News, 2010). The country’s hydroelectric production already suffers from chronic water shortages, particularly
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
87
impacting mechanized irrigation and processing (Vietnam Peasant Association, 2010). At the same time, global agricultural trade has shown its
fragility through fluctuations of commodity prices and occasional market
contractions (Tran Thi Thu Trang, 2009). In the longer term, the possible
return of protectionism to foreign markets would foreclose many of the
opportunities that the Vietnamese model of global integration is built upon.
Second, by heavily relying on infrastructure and mechanization, agricultural modernization has locked farming systems into a path-dependent
perpetual need for maintenance and systemic adjustments to environmental
attributes that are becoming unstable, changing at an ever accelerating rate.
Within such a ‘polder syndrome’ (whereby once water has been pumped
out, soils subside and there is no way back), failing to commit increasing
amounts of resources to maintenance and upgrades would quickly threaten
outputs. For example, many engineered landscapes and areas that have been
reclaimed from the flood plains and wetlands of the Mekong Delta are increasingly threatened by SLR, unexpected river flows and aquifer depletion
(Mekong River Commission, 2010). As the resulting floods and salinization become more frequent, intense and damaging, the Delta’s extensive
hydraulic systems require increasing levels of maintenance, while becoming
less and less effective.
Finally, modern agriculture systematically impoverishes ecosystems and
threatens the resilience of societies, notably by weakening genetic diversity
and limiting the human capacity to respond. The green revolution thrived
on high-yielding monoculture crops, displacing numerous landraces which
offered a wider tolerance for humidity, salinity, acidity, temperature or pests.
A similar loss of agro-biodiversity has occurred in animal husbandry and
aquaculture. Such impoverished ecosystems have progressively eroded not
only biodiversity itself, but also the knowledge, skills and tools that are
increasingly needed to deal with fast-changing environmental attributes
(ETC Group, 2009). Studying such processes among ethnic communities
of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, Beckman (2011) showed how adaptive capacity has been reduced through modernization policies in agriculture,
forestry and hydraulic infrastructure. In addition to agro-biodiversity loss,
communities have had their access to forest-based coping mechanisms curtailed, while facing heightened risks of indebtedness through cash-crop intensification, and increased security concerns over land allocation to lowland
migrants.
It is undeniable that agricultural modernization has provided huge productivity gains under conditions of intensive resource use and a controlled,
predictable environment. However, a systemic ‘biophysical override’ (Weis,
2010) and dependency on energy, technologies, engineered landscapes, infrastructure and trade have also increased the fragility of this system, which
can be seriously threatened if any element of its production and commodification cycle are disrupted. The fragile complexity of modern agriculture is already bumping against the ecological limits of its ‘metabolic rift’
88
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
(Foster et al., 2010; McMichael, 2009; Moore, 2010), and the situation is
further exacerbated by the destabilizing context of climate change.2
A Techno-Centric Response
The Vietnamese government has responded on numerous fronts to the threat
posed by climate change. It has adopted several policy documents, either
specific to agriculture and food security (Government of Viet Nam, 2009;
MARD, 2008), or dealing more broadly with environmental change from
a sustainable development perspective (Government of Viet Nam, 2011).
Beyond commitments to mitigation through energy efficiency and the use of
renewable energy sources, the focus has been on adaptation through better
irrigation and improved crops of hybrid and genetically engineered varieties
with higher tolerance to heat, drought, water logging, pest or salinity (Biggs
et al., 2009: 212; Viet Nam News, 2011). This response is consistent with
the country’s modernizing aspirations, ecologically repackaged as a green
growth form of sustainable development (Fortier, 2010).
The government’s strategy rests on the assumption that only modern
agriculture, with its intensive monocultural production, mechanization and
chemicalization, can realistically feed the growing Vietnamese population
while maintaining exports in the context of competing demands for land, water and energy. Yet, the presumed advantage of this model over low-input,
labour-intensive peasant farming has long been contested (ETC Group, 2009;
van der Ploeg, 2008), an issue which has recently surfaced in the policy literature (De Schutter, 2010; McIntyre et al., 2009). In fact, an overwhelming
body of evidence is emerging to suggest that small, agro-ecological farms
are significantly more productive, ‘if total output is considered rather than
yield from a single crop’ (Altieri et al., 2011: 4).
There is therefore a paradox: despite recognizing the problem of climate
change, the dominant response fails to recognize how modernization itself
has rendered agriculture more vulnerable to that problem by weakening
resilience and the ability of farmers to adapt. It also denies the possibility
of a paradigmatic shift in the agricultural model that could maintain food
security while ending the metabolic rift. In so doing, the response reaches for
solutions that are themselves part of the problem. Observing this paradox
is only a first step in recognizing the limits of the dominant response to
the threat of climate change. The next question is: why, despite mounting
evidence of systemic contradictions and vulnerability, is the paradigm of
modern agriculture so tenacious? In the next section, we argue that the
answer to this question is to be found in the transformation that D̄ổi mới
has brought to the Vietnamese political economy and state–society relations
over the past twenty-five years.
2. For discussions of multiple stressors, see Eakin and Luers (2006) and O’Brien et al. (2004).
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
89
?
CLASS FORMATION AND STATE–SOCIETY RELATIONS: D̄ ÔI MÓI’S
CREEPING POLITICAL ECONOMY
While being labelled a market reform, D̄ổi mới has had consequences reaching far beyond the organization of markets. On the one hand, the process
revived and intensified inequalities along gender, ethnic, regional and urban–
rural lines, throwing some groups back into poverty and food insecurity
(Kolko, 1997; Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen, 2004; Taylor, 2004).
Despite Vietnam being the second largest exporter of rice, 14 per cent of its
population still suffers from undernourishment, notably small landholders,
landless peasants and poor urban migrants (FAO, 2008: 48). A recent study
found that nearly 840,000 rural people suffered from hunger early in 2011 —
‘the highest number since 2007 and nearly double the number in the same
period in 2010. In 2008 food inflation drove 4 million people into hunger,
the highest number on record for the 2006–2010 period’ (United Nations
Vietnam, 2011). This has affected overall poverty, also on the rise since
2008 (ibid.).
On the other hand, and beneath those symptoms, D̄ổi mới has structurally
fuelled a horizontal capital accumulation and class differentiation. For example, in the Mekong Delta, capitalist farmers have reappeared while many
peasants have become landless rural labourers (Akram-Lodhi, 2005). In the
Red River Delta, shrimp growers supported by local authorities have enclosed communal mangrove forests.3 Such rich farmers are concentrating
land to engage in large-scale commercial production, being both the vanguard and guardians of agricultural modernization.
In other places, where land concentration is not significant, D̄ổi mới has
instead led to a growing vertical capital accumulation. Through upward and
downward linkages, industrialists, merchants, service providers and technocrats are benefiting from the dependency of farmers on commercial seeds,
irrigation services and agrochemicals, as well as processing and trading
oligopsonies. As a result, modernized farming with higher capitalization
thresholds, larger production scales, deeper dependence on industrial inputs
and wider risks has often resulted in reduced profit margins for producers,
caught between upstream service providers and downstream wholesalers. In
turn, and despite their smaller production scale, farmers have been enticed or
compelled into committing much of their capital and credit to increased productivity through chemicalization, mechanization and commercialization.
They consequently often find themselves locked in to these processes in the
hope of making a quick profit or, at least, of recovering their investments in
a context of diminishing returns (Young et al., 2002).
The contemporary Vietnamese class structure has therefore taken
shape and is settling around new accumulation opportunities created by
3. Fieldwork by the authors in Giao Thuy District between May 2009 and June 2010; see also
Adger (1999).
90
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
modernization under D̄ổi mới. As a key agent of that transformation, the Vietnamese state had long claimed that it would guard against the re-emergence
of a class dynamics that would privilege the interests of a would-be capitalist elite. The state partly rested its legitimacy on that claim, with some
commitment from the Communist Party for socialist equity (Kolko, 1997:
121–4). Despite the claim, however, the transformation has inexorably redefined class and state–society relations, enabling the emergence of a new
bourgeoisie which includes government officials who now enjoy — and defend — the privileges of market capitalist relations (Kolko, 2001; Painter,
2005: 267–9). A well-documented example of this process is that of landscape engineering. Giving rise to significant accumulation opportunities,
hydraulic projects are often planned with little consideration for social and
ecological appropriateness. Instead, water management technocrats and construction contractors form ‘strategic groups’ eager to develop and maintain
infrastructure serving their own particular interests (Evers and Benedikter,
2009). While less engineered forms of hydraulic management have long
been known in Vietnam, such as the ‘living with floods’ practices (Nguyen
Hieu Trung et al., 2008), ‘large-scale “command-and-control” approaches
continue to dominate [as] modern era institutional, political and technological legacies prevent the easy adoption of new policy alternatives’ (Biggs
et al., 2009: 204).
Another incubator of class formation under D̄ổi mới has been land conversion, the magnitude of which was discussed earlier. Conversion has allowed
a new class of speculators to accumulate either from the overt development
and ownership of industrial zones, golf courses and housing projects, or
from the covert profiteering and rent-seeking practices that those projects
engender. The continued enthusiasm of authorities for the expropriation and
investment of public funds in industrial zones, despite peasant resistance
and the frequent lack of profitability, cannot be simply explained by inadequate planning or inter-provincial competition for investors (as claimed for
example in Sai Gon Giai Phong, 2010; see also Ngan Tuyen, 2008). In fact,
the creation of those industrial zones may have served, in many cases, as a
conduit for expropriating agricultural land and price speculation. For example, when the Cat Lai industrial zone in Ho Chi Minh City was re-converted
to housing developments in 2004, land was sold at rates ranging between
30 and 150 times the original compensation paid for expropriated farms
six years earlier (Doan Trang and Huy Giang, 2004). In the province of
Vinh Long, local authorities were caught falsely assessing the productivity
of paddy fields as 4 tonnes per hectare, much lower than the actual 6 to
7 tonnes per hectare, in order to downgrade the land’s category and legalize
its conversion to industrial zones (Sai Gon Giai Phong, 2010). Such conspicuously unfair land grabbing and conversion has grown markedly under
D̄ổi mới. According to an officer of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development, ‘Vietnam’s agricultural land is being uncontrollably devoured
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
91
by industrial parks and golf courses. No country in the world can reclaim
rice cultivation land as easily as Vietnam can’ (Nguyen Tri Ngoc quoted in
Thanh Tung, 2009).
Predictably, this process of class formation has generated a number of
responses, ranging from coping to resistance and systemic rejection. One
coping strategy adopted by many farmers has been to abuse both accredited and prohibited agrochemicals, or to resort to other dubious practices to
ward off pests and mitigate market fluctuations, in order to maintain some
profits or mere viability. This has led over the last decade to numerous food
scares surfacing on both the domestic and the export markets, highlighting
the overuse of pesticides and preservatives in vegetables and fruit production, of drugs, hormones and other chemicals in pork meat and seafood,
of formaldehyde in rice noodles, of urea in fish sauce, and of carcinogenic
agents in soy sauce (APEC, 2006; World Bank, 2006). Needless to say, such
coping mechanisms have had dire consequences on public health and the
environment.
Rather than trying to cope with the new class relations of commercial
farming, other peasants have opted instead for resistance, placing land at
centre stage. The grabbing of agricultural land for ventures in higher valued
crops or for industrial, urban or entertainment developments has met with
mounting resistance from farmers who seek to retain control of their main
means of production. Such resistance has taken different paths, including
official complaints and informal strategies, of individual or collective nature,
and spontaneous or organized initiatives. Events of resistance have increased
rapidly in both numbers and intensity (Tran Thi Thu Trang, 2009). Formal
complaints about land use received by the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment (MONRE), for instance, surged from 5,000 to 12,000 between
2003 and 2007 (World Bank, 2010: 47). Similarly, the number of legal land
disputes rose from 18,000 to 31,000 from 2005 to 2007, accounting for 70
to 80 per cent of all litigations in the country (Le Quang Binh, 2009). Extrajudicial means are also used by farmers, such as the rural unrest seen in
the Central Highlands in 2002, following the expropriation of ethnic community land for the benefit of state farms and Kinh immigrants who wanted
to grow coffee and other cash crops (Tran Thi Thu Trang, 2009). Numerous
other protests have been reported, notably against land appropriations in
peri-urban areas for commercial or recreational projects (BBC, 2009; Quoc
Phuong, 2009).
Yet other farmers have opted for a less confrontational ‘fence-breaking’
approach (pha rao in Vietnamese). This was for example the case with
farmers in Binh Phuoc province who lost their land to the creation of the
Nam Dong Phu Industrial Zone in 2002. While the 205 hectare area had failed
to attract investors by 2009, authorities nevertheless prevented farmers from
renting land they had once held in usufruct within the zone, prompting some
to squat fallow plots as plant nurseries (Tung Quang, 2009).
92
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
In addition to coping and resistance, there are also indications, through
a few incidents, that some peasants are stepping back from modernized
agriculture. In the province of Nam Dinh, for example, many farmers
have stopped relying solely on hybrid and modern rice varieties and have
replanted traditional cultivars, which provide lower productivity but a better
quality of grain at lower input costs.4 A few Vietnamese researchers and
non-governmental organizations have also introduced the relatively new
concept of ‘food sovereignty’ in their analyses and project activities. They
nevertheless tend to use that concept merely as ‘the right to food’, falling
short of a broader understanding of food sovereignty that also includes the
control of productive resources, agro-ecological practices and local trading
(Tran Thi Thu Trang, 2011; see also Borras, 2010).
Under D̄ổi mới, new accumulation opportunities have appeared through
both horizontal and vertical differentiation. While landholding has become
concentrated in some areas, much of the country faces expropriations through
land conversion. The reform has also enabled forms of peasant exploitation
both upstream and downstream of agricultural production. The capital invested in the technological intensification of rice and seafood exports, the
allocation of public funds to authorities and contractors for lucrative public
works, and the returns on foreign-invested manufacturing attracted by the
cheap labour of rural migrants, are all interests that have been created or
redefined during the reform years. These have led inexorably to the formation of new class dynamics and the gradual recomposition of state–society
relations, including the coalition of capitalists, contractors, service providers
and technocrats. This is well illustrated by cases in which state officials have
abused administrative discretion or broken the law to expropriate farms and
hand over land to developers.
Faced with the double challenge of surplus extraction and ecological
degradation, some farmers seek to cope with, resist, and maybe even delink
from, the model of modern agriculture. But the beneficiaries of D̄ổi mới’s
new political economy now have interests which are firmly vested in the
reproduction of that model, and are fuelling the politics of continuity. The
emergence and alignment of these class interests and power relations may
be the most daunting obstacle to climate change adaptation — one not based
on carelessness for the environment, ignorance of impacts, or even illusions
about the green economy, but on high-stake material interests for the spoils
of late modernity.
CONCLUSION
In Vietnam over the past two decades, modernization has brought tremendous improvements in food production and productivity, leading to
4. Field research by authors, 2010; see also GRAIN (2008).
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
93
significant surpluses and exports. However, land conversion and climate
change could quickly reverse those gains and affect the country’s food security. Conscious of such threats, the government proposes to protect land with
better dykes and drains, raise production and productivity with expanded irrigation systems, and adopt higher yielding and climate-proof cultivars which
are resistant to warmer temperatures and salinity, water logging, droughts
and new pests. This conforms to the developmental continuum that Vietnam has adopted for half a century, and the globally prevalent discourse of
ecological modernization.
However, by resting its national climate change strategy on a ‘more of the
same’ technological paradigm, the government is failing to recognize the
inherent limits and contradictions of modern agriculture. As this article has
shown, agricultural modernization has boosted outputs under favourable and
stable conditions, but at high environmental and social costs. This model of
development has locked agriculture into a path dependency of high energy
and agrochemical inputs, reduced biodiversity, complex hydraulic engineering projects and intensive international trade — all of which are vulnerable
to structural disruptions. Even before factoring in climate change, this agricultural and food system is already prone to crisis. It is a roaring but frail
paper tiger, now threatened and unmasked by a destabilizing climate.
A new model is therefore urgently needed to address these inherent contradictions and structural stressors. Yet, policy makers are showing no sign
of changing course, while the technological fixation of the prevailing climate
change strategy conveniently distracts from the new political economy of ¯
Dổi mới. We have argued in this article that the paradigmatic persistence of
the modernization model rests on the creation of a new class structure: this
structure has aligned the emerging bourgeoisie and technocrats and gained
the support, or at least the complacent acceptance, of other groups. Those
classes are locked in to modernist development and capitalist accumulation
and committed to the continuity of the model. While this new and intense
class dynamics emerged as a result of policy changes only two decades
ago, it will make it extremely difficult for Vietnam to achieve the kind of
paradigmatic shifts that will be needed to face climate instability.
In the contemporary context of high population density, searching for
alternatives cannot rely on a naı̈ve return to pre-industrial agriculture. As
the emerging resistance of bankrupt and expropriated peasants may suggest,
addressing the contradictions of modernization will not only imply various forms of agricultural de-industrialization, but also rethinking the type of
products being delivered, and the mode of distributing and accessing that surplus. This points towards an agro-ecological model, with food sovereignty as
its principle of social organization (Altieri, 2009; Rosset, 2011; for a longer
discussion of this model for Vietnam see Fortier, 2011). In contrast to modern agriculture, agro-ecology and food sovereignty can rebuild productive
resilience and access capacity through diversified and localized species, short
and robust commodity chains — commodity webs, in fact — that rely less on
94
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
energy and infrastructure, have no agrochemical dependency, and can flexibly adapt to an as yet unknown pace and magnitude of climatic change. Such
transformation may well involve some form of repeasantization (van der
Ploeg, 2008; Sevilla Guzman and Montiel, 2009) and deglobalization (Bello,
2004), whereby labour is again committed as a larger factor of food production than in energy-rich economies. Remodelling agriculture cannot be done
in isolation from the rest of the capitalist economy, as linkages between
sectors either prevent or enable the reallocation of factors of production,
including labour (Woodhouse, 2010). This implies a radical shift in overall
development strategies, in Vietnam and elsewhere, that will enable degrowth
of production while redefining accumulation and consumption (Brooks
et al., 2009; Jackson, 2009; Latouche, 2009; Martı́nez-Alier, 2009).
As the new power relations of D̄ổi mới settle in, it becomes increasingly
difficult to imagine a state-driven transition beyond modern agriculture, let
alone post-growth economics. The post-socialist Vietnamese state is steered
by a young but already powerful bourgeoisie, flanked by compromised technocrats and urban elites with insatiable consumerist and cosmopolitan aspirations. As it cements its power and privileges, that class formation shows
no sign of questioning the trajectory of its model of development, even in
the face of such ecological vulnerability. Perhaps the best hope is that, as
the momentum of agro-ecology and food sovereignty builds globally, it may
offer in Vietnam a platform for the Polanyian re-embedding of agriculture
into peasant society. Not only would this credibly contest the political economy underlying D̄ổi mới, but it would also build the resilience and adaptive
capacity that will be needed to confront climate change.
REFERENCES
Adger, W.N. (1999) ‘Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam’,
World Development 27(2): 249–69.
AgroViet (2010) ‘Fertiliser Law Urged to Stop Losses’. http://www.agroviet.gov.vn/en/
Pages/news_detail.aspx?NewsId=292&Page=1 (accessed 22 September 2010).
Akram-Lodhi, H. (2005) ‘Vietnam’s Agriculture: Processes of Rich Peasant Accumulation and
Mechanisms of Social Differentiation’, Journal of Agrarian Change 5(1): 73–116.
Altieri, M.A. (2009) ‘Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty’, Monthly Review: An
Independent Socialist Magazine 61(3): 102–13.
Altieri, M.A., F.R. Funes-Monzote and P. Petersen (2011) ‘Agroecologically Efficient Agricultural Systems for Smallholder Farmers: Contributions to Food Sovereignty’, Agronomy for
Sustainable Development 32.
APEC (2006) ‘APEC Regional Study on Food Safety: Focal Point on Vietnam’. Singapore: Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat.
Asian Development Bank (2010) ‘Ho Chi Minh City Adaptation to Climate Change: Summary
Report’. Manila: Asian Development Bank.
BBC (2009) ‘Ba.o oông vı̀ oất oai ở D̄ồng Nai’ [‘Land Riot in Dong Nai’]. BBC Vietnamese.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/story/2009/02/090218_dong_nai_trouble.shtml
(accessed 22 September 2010).
Beckman, M. (2011) ‘Converging and Conflicting Interests in Adaptation to Environmental
Change in Central Vietnam’, Climate and Development 3(1): 32–41.
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
95
Bello, W. (2004) Deglobalization: Ideas for a New World Economy. London: Zed Books.
Bhaduri, A. and M.A. Rahman (eds) (1982) Studies in Rural Participation. New Delhi: Oxford
and IBH Publishing.
Biggs, D., F. Miller, Chu, Thai Hoang and F. Molle (2009) ‘The Delta Machine: Water Management in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives’,
in F. Molle, T. Foran and M. Käkönen (eds) Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region: Hydropower, Livelihoods and Governance, pp. 203–225. London and Sterling, VA:
Earthscan.
Borras, S.M. Jr. (2010) ‘The Politics of Transnational Agrarian Movements’, Development and
Change 41(5): 771–803.
Brooks, N., N. Grist and K. Brown (2009) ‘Development Futures in the Context of Climate
Change: Challenging the Present and Learning from the Past’, Development Policy Review
27(6): 741–65.
Bui Ba Bong (2000) ‘Bridging the Rice Yield Gap in Vietnam’, in M.K. Papademetriou, F.J.
Dent and M.H. Edwards (eds) Bridging the Rice Yield Gap in the Asia-Pacific Region,
pp. 157–62. Bangkok: FAO.
Carew-Reid, J. (2008) ‘Rapid Assessment of the Extent and Impact of Sea Level Rise
in Viet Nam’. Brisbane: International Centre for Environmental Management (ICEM).
http://www.icem.com.au/documents/climatechange/icem_slr/ICEM_SLR_final_report.pdf
(accessed 29 October 2012).
Dasgupta, S., C. Meisner, D. Wheeler, N.T. Lam and K. Xuyen (2005) ‘Pesticide Poisoning of
Farm Workers: Implications of Blood Test Results from Vietnam’. Policy Research Paper
3624. Washington, DC: World Bank.
De Schutter, O. (2010) ‘Report Submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food,
Olivier De Schutter’. New York: United Nations General Assembly.
Doan Trang and Huy Giang (2004) ‘Dat khu cong nghiep: Ai huong loi?’ [‘Land for Industrial Zones: Who Benefits?’], Tuoi Tre Online 16 July. http://tuoitre.vn/Chinh-tri-Xahoi/41625/Dat-khu-cong-nghiep-Ai-huong-loi.html (accessed 22 September 2010).
Eakin, H. and A.L. Luers (2006) ‘Assessing the Vulnerability of Social-Environmental Systems’,
Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31(1): 365–94.
Ericksen, P., P. Thornton, A. Notenbaert, L. Cramer, P. Jones and M. Herrero (2011) ‘Mapping Hotspots of Climate Change and Food Insecurity in the Global Tropics’. Copenhagen: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
(CCAFS).
ETC Group (2009) ‘Who Will Feed Us? Questions for Food/Climate Crises Negotiators in Rome
and Copenhagen’. http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/4921 (accessed 1 March 2011).
Evers, H-D. and S. Benedikter (2009) ‘Strategic Group Formation in the Mekong Delta:
The Development of a Modern Hydraulic Society’. ZEF Working Paper Series No.
35. Bonn: Centre for Development Research, University of Bonn. http://mpra.ub.unimuenchen.de/17131/1/MPRA_paper_17131.pdf (accessed 20 January 2011).
FAO (2008) ‘The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008. High Food Prices and Food
Security: Threats and Opportunities’. Rome: FAO.
Fforde, A. and S. Sénèque (1994) ‘The Economy and the Countryside in Vietnam: The Relevance of Rural Development Policies’. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian
Studies.
Fortier, F. (2010) ‘Taking a Climate Chance: A Procedural Critique of Viet Nam’s Climate
Change Strategy’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint 51(3): 229–47.
Fortier, F. (2011) ‘Viet Nam’s Food Security: A Castle of Cards in the Winds of Climate Change’,
Kasarinlan, Philippine Journal of Third World Studies 26(1–2): 136–82.
Foster, J.B., B. Clark and R. York (2010) The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth.
New York: Monthly Review Press.
Füssel, H-M. (2007) ‘Vulnerability: A Generally Applicable Conceptual Framework for Climate
Change Research’, Global Environmental Change 17(2): 155–67.
96
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
Government of Viet Nam (2009) ‘Nghi quyet so 63/NQ-CP ngay 23 thang 12 nam 2009 cua
chinh phu ve dam bao an ninh luong thuc quoc gia’ [‘Government Resolution No. 63/NQ-CP
of 23 December 2009 on Ensuring National Food Security’]. Hanoi: Government of Viet
Nam.
Government of Viet Nam (2011) ‘Quyêt i.nh 2139/Qd -TTg năm 2011 phê duyệt Chiến lược
quốc gia về biến ổi khi hậu do Thủ tướng Chı́nh phủ ban hành’ [‘Decision on the Approval
of the National Strategy on Climate Change by the Prime Minister, No. 2139/QD-TTg of 5
December 2011’]. Hanoi: Government of Viet Nam.
GRAIN (2008) ‘Vietnam: The High Stakes of Hybrid Rice for Farmers’. Barcelona: Genetic
Resources Action International (GRAIN).
GSO (2000) Statistical Data of Vietnam Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery 1975–2000. Hanoi:
Statistical Publishing House, General Statistics Office of Vietnam.
GSO (2009a) ‘Key Indicators on National Accounts’. Hanoi: General Statistics Office
of Viet Nam. http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=468&idmid=3&ItemID=8681
(accessed 1 December 2009).
GSO (2009b) ‘Production of Paddy by Province’. Hanoi: General Statistics Office of Viet
Nam. http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=469&idmid=3 (accessed 28 November 2009).
GSO (2009c) ‘The 2009 Population and Housing Census: Part III, Tabulated Tables’. Hanoi:
General Statistics Office of Viet Nam. http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=
617&ItemID=9811 (accessed 23 February 2012).
GSO (2012) ‘Structure of Gross Domestic Product at Current Prices by Types of
Ownership and Kinds of Economic Activity’. Hanoi: General Statistics Office of
Viet Nam. http://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=468&idmid=3&ItemID=12104
(accessed 23 February 2012).
Ha Vinh (1997) Nong Nghiep Viet Nam Trong Buoc Chuyen Sang Kinh Te Thi Truong [Vietnamese Agriculture in Transition to the Market Economy]. Hanoi: Social Sciences Publishing
House.
Hulme, M. (2009) Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
IRRI (2007) ‘Important Rice Production System Under Pressure’, ScienceDaily 10 October.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009132035.htm (accessed 27 November
2009).
IRRI (2009) ‘IRRI World Rice Statistics (WRS)’. http://beta.irri.org/solutions/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=250 (accessed 26 November 2009).
Jackson, T. (2009) Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. London and
Sterling, VA: Earthscan.
Käkönen, M. (2009) ‘Mekong Delta at the Crossroads: More Control or Adaptation?’, AMBIO:
A Journal of the Human Environment 37(3): 205–12.
Kerkvliet, B.J.T. (1995) ‘Village–State Relations in Vietnam: The Effect of Everyday Politics
on Decollectivization’, The Journal of Asian Studies 54(2): 396–418.
KOF (2011) ‘KOF Index of Globalization’. Zurich: KOF Swiss Economic Institute.
http://globalization.kof.ethz.ch/query/ (accessed 18 February 2012).
Kolko, G. (1997) Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace. London and New York: Routledge.
Kolko, G. (2001) ‘China and Vietnam on the Road to the Market’, Journal of Contemporary
Asia 31(4): 431–40.
Latouche, S. (2009) Farewell to Growth. Cambridge: Polity.
Le Quang Binh (2009) ‘A Brief on Industrialization, Urbanization and Land Conflicts in Vietnam’. Paper presented at the Seminar on Commercial Pressures on Land, Utrecht, The
Netherlands (8 July).
MARD (2008) ‘Action Plan Framework for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Agriculture
and Rural Development Sector Period 2008–2020’. Hanoi: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development.
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
97
Martı́nez-Alier, J. (2009) ‘Socially Sustainable Economic De-growth’, Development and Change
40(6): 1099–1119.
Martı́nez-Alier, J. (2011) ‘The EROI of Agriculture and its Use by the Via Campesina’, Journal
of Peasant Studies 38(1): 145–60.
McIntyre, B.D., H.R. Herren, J. Wakhungu and R.T. Watson (eds) (2009) Agriculture at a
Crossroad: International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology
for Development (IAASTD) — Global Report. Washington, DC: Island Press.
McMichael, P. (2009) ‘Contemporary Contradictions of the Global Development Project:
Geopolitics, Global Ecology and the “Development Climate”’, Third World Quarterly 30(1):
247–62.
Mekong River Commission (2010) ‘Assessment of Basin-wide Development Scenarios Technical Note 8: Impacts of Changes in Salinity Intrusion’. Vientiane: Mekong River
Commission.
Miller, F. (2007) ‘Seeing “Water Blindness”: Water Control in Agricultural Intensification and
Environmental Change in Mekong Delta, Vietnam’, in J. Connell and E. Waddell (eds)
Environment, Development and Change in Rural Asia-Pacific: Between Local and Global,
pp. 186–207. New York: Routledge.
MOIT (2009) ‘News: Food Security Programme Will Stop Hunger by 2012’. Hanoi: Viet Nam
Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Moore, J.W. (2010) ‘The End of the Road? Agricultural Revolutions in the Capitalist WorldEcology, 1450–2010’, Journal of Agrarian Change 10(3): 389–413.
Nelson, D.R., W.N. Adger and K. Brown (2007) ‘Adaptation to Environmental Change: Contributions of a Resilience Framework’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources 32(1):
395–419.
Nelson, G.C., M.W. Rosegrant, J. Koo, R. Robertson, T. Sulser, T. Zhu, C. Ringler et al.
(2009) ‘Climate Change: Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation’. Washington, DC:
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Ngan Tuyen (2008) ‘O at thu hoi dat nong nghiep’ [‘Massive Appropriation of Agricultural
Land’], An Ninh Thu Do Newspaper 24 March. http://www.anninhthudo.vn/Phong-su/Khibo-xoi-ruong-mat-thanh-khu-cong-nghiep/321663.antd (accessed 16 August 2010).
Ngo Vinh Long (1993) ‘Reform and Rural Development: Impact on Class, Sectoral, and Regional
Inequalities’, in W.S. Turley and M. Selden (eds) Reinventing Vietnamese Socialism: Doi
Moi in Comparative Perspective, pp. 165–207. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Nguyen Hieu Trung, Le Anh Tuan and Tran Thi Trieu (2008) ‘Multi-level Adaptation to Floods
and the Governance of Risk in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam’. Can Tho, Viet Nam: College of
Environment and Natural Resources and the Mekong Program on Water Environment and
Resilience.
Nguyen Huu Dung and Tran Thi Thanh Dung (2003) ‘Economic and Health Consequences of Pesticide Use in Paddy Production in The Mekong Delta, Vietnam’. Ottawa:
IDRC.
Nguyen Van Suu (2009) ‘Industrialization and Urbanization in Vietnam: How Appropriation
of Agricultural Land Use Rights Transformed Farmers’ Livelihoods in a Peri-Urban Hanoi
Village?’. Working Paper 38. Hanoi: East Asian Development Network.
Nguyen Van Viet (2011) ‘Climate Change and Agricultural Production in Vietnam’, in W.
Leal Filho (ed.) Climate Change Management: Economic, Social and Political Elements of
Climate Change, pp. 227–43. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer.
O’Brien, K., R. Leichenko, U. Kelkar, H. Venema, G. Aandahl, H. Tompkins, A. Javed et al.
(2004) ‘Mapping Vulnerability to Multiple Stressors: Climate Change and Globalization in
India’, Global Environmental Change Part A 14(4): 303–13.
Painter, M. (2005) ‘The Politics of State Sector Reforms in Vietnam: Contested Agendas and
Uncertain Trajectories’, Journal of Development Studies 41(2): 261–83.
Pearce, K.C. (2001) Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid. East Lansing, MI:
Michigan State University Press.
98
François Fortier and Tran Thi Thu Trang
Pingali, P.L., T.K. Nguyen, R.V. Gerpacio and T.X. Vo (1997) ‘Prospects for Sustaining Vietnam’s Reacquired Rice Exporter Status’, Food Policy 22(4): 345–58.
van der Ploeg, J.D. (2008) The New Peasantries: Struggles for Autonomy and Sustainability in
an Era of Empire and Globalization. London and Sterling, VA: Earthscan.
Quoc Phuong (2009) ‘Hàng nghı̀n’ nông dân biêu tı̀nh’ [‘Thousands of Peasants Demonstrate’]. BBC Vietnamese 7 January. http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/story/2009/
01/090107_hung_yen_dispute.shtml (accessed 22 September 2010).
Ravallion, M. and D. van de Walle (2001) ‘Breaking up the Collective Farm: Welfare Outcomes
of Vietnam’s Massive Land Privatization’. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Rosset, P.M. (2011) ‘Food Sovereignty and Alternative Paradigms to Confront Land Grabbing
and the Food and Climate Crises’, Development 54(1): 21–30.
Sai Gon Giai Phong (2010) ‘Tràn lan khu công nghiệp ở ồng bằng Sông Cửu Long — Cha.y ua và
lãng phı́’ [‘Saturation of Industrial Zones in the Mekong Delta — Competition and Waste’],
Sai Gon Giai Phong 9 August. http://www.sggp.org.vn/thongtincanuoc/2010/8/233595/ (accessed 22 September 2010).
Scott, S. and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen (2004) ‘Behind the Numbers: Social Mobility, Regional
Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development in Rural Vietnam’, in P. Taylor (ed.)
Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, pp. 90–122. Singapore: Institute
of Southeast Asian Studies.
Sevilla Guzman, E. and M.S. Montiel (2009) ‘Del desarrollo rural a la agroecologia. Hacia un
cambio de pardigma’ [‘From Rural Development to Agro-Ecology: Toward a Change of
Paradigm’], Documentación social 155: 23–39.
Taylor, P. (2004) ‘Social Inequality in a Socialist State’, in P. Taylor (ed.) Social Inequality in
Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, pp. 1–40. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies.
Taylor, P. (2007) ‘Poor Policies, Wealthy Peasants: Alternative Trajectories of Rural Development in Vietnam’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2(2): 3–56.
Thanh Tung (2009) ‘Eating the Feeding Hand’, Vietnam Investment Review 25 August. http://www.vir.com.vn/Client/VIR/index.asp?url=content.asp&doc=19330 (accessed
29 March 2010).
Tran Dac Hien (2010) ‘O nhiem moi truong o nuoc ta hien nay — Thuc trang va mot so
giai phap khac phuc’[‘Pollution in Vietnam — Situation and Solutions’]. http://moitruong.
xaydung.gov.vn/moitruong/module/news/viewcontent.asp?ID=1457&langid=1 (accessed
13 September 2010).
Tran Minh Ton (2008) ‘Nhung moi de doa tu san gon’ [‘Dangers from Golf Courses’],
Tap chi cong san 14 August. http://www.tapchicongsan.org.vn/Home/Nghiencuu-Traodoi/
2008/1325/Nhung-moi-de-doa-tu-san-gon.aspx (accessed 22 September 2010).
Tran Thi Thu Trang (2009) ‘State–Society Relations and the Diversity of Peasant Resistance
in Viet Nam’, in D. Caouette and S. Turner (eds) Agrarian Angst and Rural Resistance in
Contemporary Southeast Asia, pp. 159–79. London and New York: Routledge.
Tran Thi Thu Trang (2011) ‘Food Security vs. Food Sovereignty: Choice of Concept, Choice of
Policies, and Choice of Classes in Vietnam’s Post-Reform’, Kasarinlan, Philippine Journal
of Third World Studies 26(1–2): 112–35.
Tran Thi Ut and K. Kajisa (2006) ‘The Impact of Green Revolution on Rice Production in
Vietnam’, Developing Economies 44(2): 167–89.
Tung Quang (2009) ‘Dan lieu trong mi trong khu cong nghiep’ [‘People Dare to Plant
Cassava in Industrial Zones’], Phap Luat Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh 20 October. http://
phapluattp.vn/274758p0c1014/dan-lieu-trong-mi-trongnbspkhu-cong-nghiep.htm (accessed
22 September 2010).
United Nations Vietnam (2011) ‘Re-establishing and Maintaining Macroeconomic Stability and
Protecting the Poor. UN Country Team Statement for the Consultative Group Meeting of
June 2011’. Ha Tinh, Viet Nam: United Nations. http://www.un.org.vn/en/feature-articlespress-centre-submenu-252/1841-re-establishing-and-maintaining-macroeconomic-stabilityand-protecting-the-poor.html
Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change
99
Viet Nam Business News (2010) ‘Fertiliser Prices Rising Fast’, Vietnam Business News
20 April. http://vietnambusiness.asia/fertiliser-prices-rising-fast/ (accessed 22 September
2010).
Viet Nam News (2011) ‘Need for Viet Nam to Create Top Brand Rice’, Viet Nam News 19
July. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Agriculture/213460/Need-for-VN-to-create-topbrand-rice.html (accessed 26 August 2011).
Vietnam Peasant Association (2010) ‘Cat dien nong thon trien mien: San xuat lay lat, nguoi
song quay quat’ [‘Continous Blackout in the Countryside: Production Dropping, Humans
Suffering’], Nien giam Nong nghiep – Thuc pham 15 May. http://niengiamnongnghiep.vn/
index.php?self=article&id=10576 (accessed 15 September 2010).
Weis, A. (2010) ‘The Accelerating Biophysical Contradictions of Industrial Capitalist Agriculture’, Journal of Agrarian Change 10(3): 315–41.
Wiegersma, N. (1988) Vietnam: Peasant Land, Peasant Revolution: Patriarchy and Collectivity
in the Rural Economy. Hong Kong: Macmillan Press.
Woodhouse, P. (2010) ‘Beyond Industrial Agriculture? Some Questions about Farm Size, Productivity and Sustainability’, Journal of Agrarian Change 10(3): 437–53.
World Bank (2002) ‘Globalization, Growth, and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy’. Washington, DC: World Bank.
World Bank (2006) ‘Vietnam Food Safety and Agricultural Health Action Plan’. Washington,
DC: World Bank.
World Bank (2010) ‘Modern Institutions’. Hanoi: World Bank.
Young, K.B., E.J. Wailes, G.L. Cramer and T.K. Nguyen (2002) ‘Vietnam’s Rice Economy:
Developments and Prospects’. University of Arkansas Research Report No. 968. Fayetteville,
AR: University of Arkansas. http://arkansasagnews.uark.edu/968.pdf
Yu, B., T. Zhu, C. Breisinger and N.M. Hai (2010) ‘Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture and
Policy Options for Adaptation: The Case of Vietnam’. IFPRI Discussion Paper. Washington,
DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
François Fortier is Associate Member at the Centre d’études de l’Asie
de l’Est (CETASE), University of Montréal (e-mail: ttff21@gmail.com).
His current work and writing focus on the political economy of global and
national climate change strategies, climate knowledge systems, as well as
the alternative movements of food sovereignty and de-growth.
Tran Thi Thu Trang is Assistant Professor at the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa (e-mail: trangtran@uottawa.ca). Her research and
writing focus on Vietnam’s rural transformation under market reforms and
globalization, including issues of social differentiation, local politics, peasant resistance, and food safety and sovereignty.