Abstract
Between Vietnam’s independence and its reunification in 1975, the country’s socialist land tenure system was underpinned by the principle of “land to the tiller”. During this period, government redistributed land to farmers that was previously owned by landlords. The government’s “egalitarian” approach to land access was central to the mass support that it needed during the Indochinese war. Even when the 1993 Land Law transitioned agricultural land from collectivized to household holdings with 20-year land use certificates, the “land to the tiller” principle remained largely sacrosanct in state policy. Planned amendments to the current Land Law (issued in 2013), however, propose a fundamental shift from “land to the tiller” to the concentration of land by larger farming concerns, including private sector investors. This is explained as being necessary for the modernization of agricultural production. The government’s policy narrative concerning this change emphasizes the need to overcome the low productivity that arises from land fragmentation, the prevalence of unskilled labor and resource shortages among smallholders. This is contrasted with the readily available resources and capacity of the private sector, together with opportunities for improved market access and high-tech production systems, if holdings were consolidated by companies. This major proposed transition in land governance has catalyzed heated debate over the potential risks and benefits. Many perceive it as a shift from a “pro-poor” to “pro-rich” policy, or from “land to the tiller” to the establishment of a “new landlord”—with all the historical connotations that this badge invokes. Indeed, the growing level of public concern over land concentration raises potential implications for state legitimacy. This paper examines key narratives on the government-supported land concentration policy, to understand how the risks, benefits and legitimacy of the policy change are understood by different stakeholders. The paper considers how the transition could change land access and governance in Vietnam, based on early experience with the approach.
Highlights
After the twelfth Communist Party Congress Meeting of January 2016, the Vietnamese government issued an official statement (a “Party Principle Document”) that signaled a need to “restructure the agricultural sector towards large-scale commodity production through the intensive deployment of high-technology methods” [1]
We interviewed some key Vietnamese informants who have a detailed knowledge of land governance and the land concentration policy
Government assumptions about household-based agricultural production system are evident in the words of this senior government official, who stated that the country’s agricultural system reflected the “many problems of a country that is left behind: It is a backward mode of production and management, small-scale production largely dominated by smallholders, unable to mechanize and to adopt high-tech [ . . . ]
Summary
After the twelfth Communist Party Congress Meeting of January 2016, the Vietnamese government issued an official statement (a “Party Principle Document”) that signaled a need to “restructure the agricultural sector towards large-scale commodity production through the intensive deployment of high-technology methods” [1]. Since the country’s independence in 1954, the government has cited “land to the tiller” as its guiding principle This approach was crucial in mobilizing villagers’ support during the Indochinese wars and to secure state legitimacy after the conflict [4], as land previously owned by landlords was redistributed to local households. Prioritizing the private sector raises the risk of smallholder exclusion and further marginalization of Vietnam’s many landless people It provides new opportunities for collusion and corruption [12,13,14,15], issues for which the state is already receiving public criticism.
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