Farming has changed dramatically over the last 50 years in the Ngoc Phai Commune, as in all mountainous areas of northern Vietnam. Major external policy changes have periodically altered the environment in which farmers plan their livelihood strategies. Historically, ethnicity has long been the key determinant of access to land in Vietnamese uplands, and therefrom the determinant of farmers' agricultural practices. Agricultural cooperatives were established throughout the country in the 1950s, and then dismantled some 30 years later, returning the land to individual family farms. During the collective period, all ethnic groups contributed to the intensification of paddy-land productivity, thereby limiting agricultural pressure on the uplands. Nonetheless, rice production was not sufficient to cover food needs because of management problems in the cooperatives. Therefore, upland rice production became indispensable to meet the deficit in paddy-land production. In the 1990s, the allocation of paddy fields first, and of uplands later on, helped to slow the deterioration of the ecosystem of the mountain. However, the local reinterpretations of national land policies resulted in further inequalities, placing certain ethnic groups into extreme poverty and food insecurity. Tay farmers who could reclaim ancestral paddy lands were often privileged over the Dao, who had traditionally been shifting cultivators and thus were forced to return to slash-and-burn cultivation systems that were no longer sustainable under higher population pressure and a new institutional environment. Ethnicity has been a major determinant of livelihood strategy in the past, and it thus greatly contributed to the household differentiation now currently enforced. However, distinctions among livelihood strategies can no longer be drawn along ethnic lines.
Keyword(s)
access, crop production, ethnic groups, ethnicity, farming systems, food supply, land ownership, land policy, mountain areas, rice, social impact, sustainability, upland areas, Vietnam, man, Oryza, Homo, Hominidae, Primates, mammals, vertebrates, Chordata, animals, eukaryotes, Poaceae, Cyperales, monocotyledons, angiosperms, Spermatophyta, plants, APEC countries, ASEAN Countries, Developing Countries, Indochina, South East Asia, Asia, agricultural systems, ethnic differences, livelihoods, paddy, Viet Nam, Agricultural Economics (EE110), Structure, Ownership and Tenure (EE165), Field Crops (FF005) (New March 2000), Plant Production (FF100), Social Psychology and Social Anthropology (UU485) (New March 2000)
