How do agrarian transitions affect rural incomes? Insights from a borderland region in northern Vietnam and Laos

Agrarian transitions driven by agricultural commercialisation are often associated with detrimental consequences, including forest loss and environmental degradation. Income effects are less well understood, in part because disentangling the causal processes that affect rural livelihoods is challenging. This paper aims to improve understanding of how agrarian transitions impact rural incomes. First, we develop an analytical framework that elucidates the cross-scale and multidimensional processes by which agrarian transitions manifest in local contexts. Second, the framework is applied to the empirical case of agrarian change and rural livelihoods in a mountainous region bordering northern Lao PDR and Vietnam. We used a comparative mixed-methods approach, combining remote sensing, interviews, focus group discussions, and a household survey (n = 320) to measure rural incomes. We characterised and compared agrarian changes via histories of land-use change, land tenure formalisation, and farming and land-use practices. We disaggregated rural income into average subsistence and cash incomes, focusing on crop farming, livestock rearing, and the collection of environmental products. The findings demonstrate the variegated local income trajectories associated with agrarian transition dynamics in the region. We highlight the enduring importance of subsistence-oriented incomes, even in the Vietnamese sites exhibiting late-transition features. Income from agricultural commercialisation – from hybrid maize, fruit, and livestock – is unevenly distributed. Households in the Lao sites have comparable income levels generated from low-input long-rotation shifting cultivation farming supplemented by environmental income from forests and fallows. Improved characterisation of the site-specific mechanisms shaping rural livelihood change as agrarian transitions unfold can help pinpoint leverage points for improving rural household incomes.