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Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development (AJAD) - Call for papers!

Economic Analysis of the Effect of Agricultural Land Revocation on Poverty and Food Insecurity of Farm Households, Duy Tien District, Ha Nam Province, Vietnam

(Vietnam), Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural Economics (University of the Philippines Los Baños)

Dissertation Abstract:

The study analyzed the poverty and food insecurity patterns of farm households affected by agricultural land revocation for industrialization and urbanization in Duy Tien district, Ha Nam province, Vietnam. Results showed that the farmland size of households has become more fragmented after agricultural land revocation and there is inequality in ownership of farmland between the two household groups, namely, those with partial (PALR) and entire farmland revoked (FALR). Agricultural land revocation also caused a decrease in farm employment and increase in off-farm employment of affected households. The average monthly income per capita of PALR households was significantly higher than that of FARL households. Formal wage work contributed most to total household income. Food expenditure, especially for rice, was significantly higher in FALR households than in PALR households.

Poverty incidence was 17.2%, 16%, and 18% for all respondents, PALR, and FALR households, respectively. Only 5.7% of all household - respondents were food insecure. The proportion of food insecure households in PALR and FALR groups was 5.4% and 6.3%, respectively. This means that there were poorer and food insecure farm households in FALR group than in PALR group.

Determinants of poverty situation are dependency ratio, proportion of revoked farmland size, formal and informal credit, time of farmland revocation, proportion of non-farm labor, sex, and education of household head. Time of agricultural revocation, sex and education of household head are also determinants of food insecurity situation. Also, cultivated land, and non-farm income of households had relationship with probability of household being food insecure.

The time of agricultural land revocation negatively influenced the probability of household being poor and food insecure. The result reveals that the probability of household being poor and food insecure will be reduced by 10.8% and 97.6%, respectively if such household's farmland was revoked prior to 2015. The proportion of revoked farmland had negative effect on poverty situation. An additional unit in the proportion of revoked farmland leads to an increase by 0.2% in the probability of household being poor.

The study recommends that farm households affected by land revocation policy should be assisted in terms of education improvement, vocational training, and shift to non-farm employment. The government should also reconsider the size of farmland revocation, provide adequate time in serving notice of land revocation, and review the compensation package (amount and use) for revoked farmlands.