Turning land to livelihood : what are the socio-economic and institutional determinations of local land use in Red River Delta region ?

This research analyzes the determinations of household land use strategy in the context of the rapid rural changes due to the industrialization and urbanization in Vietnam. The mechanism that turns land to livelihood from both productive and non-productive processes is investigated to understand the different land use strategies of smallholders in Red River Delta region. Based on the presence of migrating members, the total selected 191 households in Hai Duong province were divided into 3 different groups to do the surveys. The research results show that local land use strategies are various in which 79.06% of surveyed households maintain the allocated land for agricultural production while 65.97% of households leave land idly at least once a year. The factors from productive process such as small landholding, high production cost and overall downward income from agricultural production meantime the greater opportunities from non-farm jobs are the main socio-economical determinations of agricultural land abandonment or less effective use. The security questions of shifting livelihood between farming and non – farming sectors, the inter-household arrangements, the social supports and the institutional constraints are non-productive elements that make the exchange and other forms of commercializing agricultural land are less prominent. The complexity of household land use strategy and its determinations not only reflects the dynamism and flexibility of peasant’s livelihood adaptation but also explain why the land concentration does not proceed faster in Red River Delta region of Vietnam