Agricultural commercialization in the uplands of northern Vietnam: how to achieve both poverty reduction and environmental sustainability goals?

The trade-off between wealth enhancing effects of intensive commercial agriculture and adverse long-term effects on farmers&rsquo; livelihoods due to natural resource degradation is a Vietnamese concern. This paper clarifies that the poorest Vietnamese farmers are particularly specialised in commercial maize production, while effective soil conservation measures are rarely practiced. <br />The authors propose a two-pronged policy approach that increases the short-term profitability of maize production, while improving the economic and ecological sustainability of land use in the long run. <br />Conclusions and rcommendations include: enhancing the access of poor farmers in the country to low-interest formal rural credit would enhance their profitability of maize production and therefore contribute to poverty alleviation appropriate policy measures would encompass public investments in the rural road network, maize storage facilities, and a price information system on the other hand, the agricultural extension service should emphasise the dissemination of information on adverse environmental long-term effects of maize production on sloping lands identically, it should also disseminate any identified promising agricultural activities to counteract these effects furthermore, it is desirable to foster a diversification of land use and income sources in the longer run to reduce the risks associated with the specialisation in maize to address this, the promotion of non-farm income sources through the establishment of small and medium rural enterprises is a crucial development strategy element <br />Consequently, research should be utilised to help put these strategies in place:&nbsp; more inter-disciplinary research is needed on land use options that are economically attractive while at the same time serving a soil conservation purpose research priority should be given to assessing the potential of upland areas to expand animal husbandry and soil conserving land use options that produce feed and are easily combined with maize production <br />