SBR- Content.pmd - INBO

State of the Basin Report - 2003Viet Nam’s agricultural policies must be seen against the context of the country’s ongoing transitionfrom a command economy to a market-based system. As with the other LMB countries, theoverriding national goals involve increasing food security and export earnings through expandedrice, industrial crop and non-rice food production. However the policy focus is mostly on thereform of relevant legislation so as to support market-driven development. Key areas for reforminclude land registration, the rural financial sector, and more generally the transformation of thegovernment’s role from ownership of agricultural production to supporting farmers throughextension, research, irrigation and water management, flood control, and infrastructureimprovement. 131 Of particular relevance to the natural resources of the Mekong Basin are plansto expand irrigation, improve existing schemes, and expand the delta water management systemsto deal with acid-sulphate soils and salt intrusion. 132Agricultural policies for the delta and highlands regionsare very different. In the delta, the government iscommitted to protecting most rice land, but proposes toconvert up to 500,000 ha of low-productivity land fromrice production to other cash crops. 133 Public researchefforts have been focused on improving various ricebasedfarming systems, including: rice and fishintegrated with fruit trees; rice and shrimp in salineareas; rice and fish in deepwater areas, and rice withcash crops in floating rice areas. 134 The policy for theCentral Highlands is strong support for non-rice cashcropssuch as coffee, tea and rubber. Expansion of thesecrops is one of the reasons that the government hasresettled lowlanders into the Central Highlands, so theyprovide a labour force to exploit the available land. Moregenerally, the focus of the 2001-2005 socio-economicplan for Viet Nam is strongly biased towards increasedindustrialisation. This includes a programme of ruralindustrialisation to reduce the dependence of ruralpeople on agriculture. As a result, the GDP share ofagriculture is projected to drop by 10 percent by 2020.5.2 Land tenure issuesIn some upland areas, shifting cultivationis degrading watershedsIn all four LMB countries there are problems of unclear or insecure tenure over land and other naturalresources in rural areas. These are having serious social, environmental, and economic consequences.Most land in the LMB technically belongs to the state, but there are mechanisms in each country forgroup or private tenure. 135 However, the lack of clarity and transparency of these mechanisms, and thedegree to which they overlap with other traditional or state decreed laws and rights causes ambiguityand conflict. One major problem is a general lack of land-title for rural small holders. In Thailand in1992, for example, 40 percent of Thai farmers were estimated not to have title over their land. 136 Itwas therefore relatively easy for big developers to annex smallholders’ land, creating a situation ofinsecurity that gave farmers little incentive to invest in the sustainable environmental management oftheir land. Lack of title also means that land cannot be used as collateral for loans, cutting farmers offfrom financing and stunting the development of rural credit markets.Titling problems are particularly pronounced in forest areas and areas designated unclassified orunused, which are usually utilised for shifting cultivation or grazing. In such areas, overlappinglocal claims are difficult to verify and are often at odds with the results of government-driven174