Abstract
This study aims to investigate the earning capability of rice-farming households in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The Delta is recognized as the largest rice-producing region in Vietnam that is known as the world’s third rice exporter. We used data collected from a farm-household survey with 110 rice farmers and applied descriptive statistics and correlation model for data analysis. We found that although the production scale of rice farmers is relatively small, their rice cultivation is profitable. The findings illustrated that the rice-farming household’s income was significantly associated with rice income and rice land size. This suggests that the rice households’ income is likely to rely on their farm size. Evidence from the study showed that rice households, particularly small-scale farms earn low income and they are likely to remain poor and in a state of poverty. The implication of the study may be that the Vietnamese government should amend the policy on rice land use and pay more considerable attention to small-farm households.
Highlights
The developmental performance of Vietnam in the last three decades is seen as the most spectacular among developing countries (OECD, 2013)
This study aims to investigate the earning capability of rice-farming households in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
We found many previous studies on rice issues in Vietnam and in the Mekong Delta, which focused on technical efficiency of rice production (e.g., Hien et al, 2003; Chi & Yamada, 2005; Huy, 2009; Khai & Yabe, 2011; Duy, 2015; Dang, 2017b) and profit efficiency of rice farming (e.g., Hoang & Yabe, 2012; Trong & Napasintuwong, 2015; Dang, 2017a)
Summary
The developmental performance of Vietnam in the last three decades is seen as the most spectacular among developing countries (OECD, 2013). The rice industry in the Mekong Delta, the country’s rice “bowl”, has transformed Vietnam from being a rice deficit to being a rice surplus economy (Demont, 2017). The Delta supplies annually over 56% of the total paddy production and 95% of the total volume of export rice in Vietnam (GSO, 2016) while occupying only 12% of the total national land area. The major goals of this renovation policy are to promote the liberalization of the domestic market allowing free trade and the free market prices, to reform state-owned enterprises, and to acknowledge private enterprises and companies with foreign investment. In the agricultural sector under the framework of this policy Politburo Resolution No 10 was promulgated in 1988, which placed great emphasis on granting land use rights to individual households, and allowing private sector participating in agricultural markets (liberalization of output market and input supply)
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