Ethnic minority livelihoods contesting state visions of 'ideal farmers' in Vietnam's northern borderlands

TitleEthnic minority livelihoods contesting state visions of 'ideal farmers' in Vietnam's northern borderlands
Annotated RecordAnnotated
Year of Publication2023
AuthorsSlack P, Turner S
Secondary TitleJournal of Political Ecology
Volume30
Issue1
Pagination448-470
Key themesAgriculturalModernization, MarginalisedPeople, Policy-law
Abstract

Since the 1990s, several Vietnamese state policies have focused on whole-heartedly integrating upland ethnic minority farmers into the market economy. These policies revolve around interventions related to natural resource use, agricultural intensification, and cash-cropping, in a quest to produce 'ideal farmers.' Simultaneously, the growing frequency of extreme weather extremes has been impacting upland livelihoods in important ways. Consequently, farmers must now navigate an increasingly complex socio-political and natural environment when making livelihood decisions. This study focuses on a mountainous district in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands. Through in-depth qualitative fieldwork with ethnic minority semi-subsistence farmers and local officials, we delve into the ways in which farmers respond to the unpredictable interplay of state interventions and extreme weather events. Rooted in contemporary political ecology debates, we adopt a multi-scalar approach while drawing on actor-oriented livelihood conceptualizations. Our findings show that the Vietnamese state has failed to convince upland farmers to fully commit to state-endorsed cash-cropping schemes. Yet, farmers do not necessarily reject such opportunities outright. Rather, they navigate and rework state-supported opportunities, all while remaining acutely attuned to local physical environment limits, important social networks, and cultural norms and expectations.
URLhttps://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/5650/
Availability

Available for download
Countries

Vietnam
Document Type

Journal Article

Annotations

Overall relevance: 

For the past several decades, Vietnamese state policies and programs have sought to integrate upland ethnic minorities into the market economy. Agricultural intensification, cash cropping and the promotion of hybrid corn and rice varieties are some of the key mechanisms through which the state endeavours to transform semi-subsistence farmers into ‘ideal farmers’ and encourage their full integration into an agrarian transition. The intensification of black cardamom has been a key livelihood response by farmers to the need for more cash for state-promoted livelihood activities. Yet, this key cash-generating crop has now come into question as a result of recent government policy seeking to restrict farmers from growing black cardamom due to its perceived negative impact on forests, and because of the rise of extreme weather events that have decimated the crop. This article examines how ethnic minority farmers in a mountainous district in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands navigate relentless state policies that are not always suited to local physical, socio-cultural or market conditions, while at the same time dealing with rising number of extreme weather events. By nuancing livelihood decision-making of ethnic minority farmers, this article highlights how and why upland farmers selectively rework state-supported opportunities, and sometimes defy them altogether, in order to reduce risks and build more resilient and sustainable futures that are locally appropriate.

Key Themes: 
  • Agricultural modernisation: key ideas and debates relevant to land tenure security - The Vietnamese government works persistently to integrate its northern borderlands and their residents into the state's ideal vision for its agricultural landscapes. State discourses of appropriate agricultural development aim to modernize, intensify, and commoditize rural smallholder farmers to create ‘ideal agricultural subjects’. In the remote borderlands, this includes persuading upland ethnic minority farmers to intensify their agriculture, engage fully with cash cropping, adopt farm mechanization, and increase the surplus of farm produce available for sale and taxation. Such policies have championed the benefits of state-sponsored hybrid rice and maize, bringing with them a new dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Additionally, they have encouraged the monocropping of rubber, eucalyptus, cinnamon, and coffee.
  • Marginalized people's land rights and access: ethnic minorities, poor and women - Ethnic minorities in Vietnam’s upland areas are often regarded by state agencies as ‘uncivilized’ and ‘poor’, and thus in need of intervention. State policies and programs geared toward transforming semi-subsistence cultivators into ‘ideal farmers’ are presented as development interventions to improve socio-economic circumstances and food security. Yet, as shown in the article, they often fail to account for local, ecologically and culturally appropriate livelihoods. The paper emphasizes the agency of ethnic minority farmers by honing in on their responses to broader structures and processes, examining the diverse and carefully selected livelihood strategies employed by Yao (Dao), Hmong, Hani ethnic minority farmers to navigate the array of challenges stemming from state-promoted initiatives along with weather-related difficulties.
  • Land policy and land law - The article highlights the need for a multi-scalar approach to understanding policy dynamics at play and their impacts on livelihoods in the Sino-Vietnamese uplands. In particular, it points to the incongruence of policies promoted at different administrative scales. Many national and provincial level interventions to promote alternative livelihoods in the northern uplands are developed by ethnic majority Kinh officials. However, these interventions are frequently impractical or implausible to implement at the household and hamlet levels. As a result, farmers (as well as local level officials who are sometimes ethnic minority farmers themselves) have often been frustrated with new, state-supported interventions ‘from above’ that they know are not suitable to the local context and are likely to fail. Meanwhile, local farmer’s traditional ecological knowledge is often ignored in the formulation of policies and interventions. To deal with this, farmers devise a range of strategies to decide which interventions to implement, experiment with, or ignore.
Research basis: 

The research is based on 5-months in-depth qualitative fieldwork with ethnic minority farmers and local officials conducted from 2018 to 2023 by the first author in Bát Xát District, Lào Cai Province, Vietnam. The primary sources of fieldwork data for the article are semi-structured interviews conducted with farmers in 2018. Additional insights by the second author are backed by 25 years of research in the province, most recently in the summer of 2023. The study is rooted in contemporary political ecology debates, and adopts a multi-scalar approach while drawing on actor-oriented livelihood conceptualizations. (Provided by Tran Thi Kim Liên)