Date Received: 30-06-2025
Date Accepted: 14-08-2025
Date Published: 28-08-2025
##submissions.doi##: https://doi.org/10.31817/tckhnnvn.2025.23.8.11
Views
Downloads
Section:
How to Cite:
Impact of Large-scale Agricultural Investment Program on the Livelihood Strategies of Ethnic Minority Communities in the Northwest Region
Keywords
Livelihood strategy, large-scale agricultural investment, ethnic minority, Northwest region
Abstract
This study analyzed the consequense of large-scale agricultural investment program on the livelihood strategies of the ethnic minority communities in Vietnam’s Northwest region based on integrated theoretical framework that combines sustainable livelihoods, livelihood pathways, and political economy in agriculture, using the case study of rubber cultivation program in Điện Biên province. Based on surveys with 205 ethnic minority households, 15 local government officials, and 5 company representatives, the research revealed that following land lnad allocation to state rubber farm ethnic minority households deliberately shifted their livelihoods from subsistence-based farming to a diversification of livelihood strategies. These strategies were shaped by the livelihood assets available to each ethnic group, as well as their socio-political relationships and market conditions. The study findings suggested several policy implications for improving the livelihoods of ethnic minority populations, i.e. designing large-scale agricultural investment programs that are ecologically and socially appropriate for the Northwest region; protecting land use rights and promoting sustainable livelihoods for ethnic minorities; and identifying and supporting vulnerable population groups during the investment process.
References
Baird I. (2011). Turning Land into Capital, Turning People into Labour: Primitive Accumulation and the Arrival of Large-Scale Economic Land Concessions in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry. 5: 10-26.
Borras S.M. & Franco J.C. (2013). Global Land Grabbing and Political Reactions ‘From Below’. Third World Quarterly. 34(9): 1723-1747. doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.843845.
Đỗ Kim Chung, Lưu Văn Duy, Lê Thị Thu Hương & Kim Thị Dung (2015). Ảnh hưởng của một số yếu tố đến giảm nghèo ở vùng Tây Bắc. Tạp chí Kinh tế và Phát triển. 222(II): 32-43.
Edelman M., Oya C. & Borras S.M. (2013). Global Land Grabs: historical processes, theoretical and methodological implications and current trajectories. Third World Quarterly. 34(9): 1517-1531. doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.850190.
Friis C., & Nielsen J.Ø. (2016). Small-scale land acquisitions, large-scale implications: Exploring the case of Chinese banana investments in Northern Laos. Land Use Policy. 57: 117-129. doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.05.028
Gyapong A. . (2020). How and why large scale agricultural land investments do not create long-term employment benefits: A critique of the ‘state’ of labour regulations in Ghana. Land Use Policy. 95: 104651. doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104651.
Hall R., Edelman M., Borras S.M., Scoones I., White B. & Wolford W. (2015). Resistance, acquiescence or incorporation? An introduction to land grabbing and political reactions ‘from below’. The Journal of Peasant Studies. 42(3-4): 467-488. doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2015.1036746
Kaag M. & Zoomers A. (2014). The Global Land Grab: Beyond the Hype. Manitoba: Fernwood Publishing.
Luu Van Duy, Le Thi Thu Huong, Hiroshi Isoda, Yuichiro Amekawa, Le Thi Thanh Loan & Do Kim Chung (2025). Rubber Plantation Land Grabs and Agrarian Change: A Political Economy Analysis of Livelihood Pathways of Ethnic Minority Groups in Northwest Vietnam. Land. 14(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/land14061201
Li T.M. (2011). Centering labor in the land grab debate. The Journal of Peasant Studies. 38(2): 281-298. doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2011.559009.
Liao C. & Agrawal A. (2024). Towards a science of ‘land grabbing’. Land Use Policy. 137: 107002. doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.107002.
Scoones I. (2009). Livelihoods perspectives and rural development. The Journal of Peasant Studies. 36(1): 171-196. doi.org/10.1080/03066150902820503.
Scoones I. (2015). Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Development: Fernwood Publishing. Practical Action Publishing.
Tafon R. & Saunders F. (2019). The Politics of Land Grabbing: State and corporate power and the (trans)nationalization of resistance in Cameroon. Journal of Agrarian Change. 19(1): 41-63. doi.org/10.1111/joac.12264
Van Duy L., Amekawa Y., Isoda H., Nomura H. & Watanabe, T. (2020). Are socialist domestic land grabs egalitarian? Insights from a case involving a rubber plantation in Dien Bien Province, Vietnam. Geoforum. 114: 89-106. doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.009
Wolford W., Borras S.M., Hall R., Scoones I. & White B. (2013). Governing Global Land Deals: The Role of the State in the Rush for Land. Development and Change. 44(2): 189-210. doi.org/10.1111/dech.12017.
Wolford W.W., Ben W., Ian S., Ruth H., Marc E. & and Borras S.M. (2024). Global land deals: what has been done, what has changed, and what's next? The Journal of Peasant Studies. pp. 1-38. doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2024.2325685.
Zoomers A. (2010). Globalisation and the foreignisation of space: seven processes driving the current global land grab. The Journal of Peasant Studies. 37(2): 429-447. doi.org/10.1080/03066151003595325.