Further research is needed to understand why the correlation exists between reduced tillage and machinery and fertilizer use.There are very distinct differences in technological adoption between plots on which men have decision-making power and plots that are female-managed only . On average, male influence increases adoption of SI practices by 15 percent. The exception is water-saving practices, where we still see the highest adoption rate of any practice on jointly-managed plots, but the second-highest rate on female-managed plots. Conversely, some female-managed plots preferentially adopt CI practices. For example, the female-managed plots lead adoption of the plough and increasing pesticide/herbicide use. However, to understand the statistical relationship between gender, among other household parameters, and CI or SI adoption, we used a regression analysis. A binary logistic regression was performed to ascertain the effects of the natural, financial, human, social, and physical capitals and capabilities on the likelihood that participants would adopt each SI or CI farming practice. Because so few farmers used mulch or intercropping, hydroponic racks the regression was not run on these SI practices. We also only included results from the machinery CI practice, as results were identical for the plough CI practice and the two are very similar.
Each regression illuminates distinct differences in capital influence for practice adoption . First, the binary logistic regression shows that gender is directly associated with sustainably intense and intense practice adoption. Male-management was associated with adoption of fertilizers and pesticides, while female plot management was associated with a decreased likelihood of adopting IPM or using organic fertilizer. Secondly, the regressions shows that capitals that men and women have differential access to influence practice adoption. For example, bad soil quality was associated with decreased likelihood of adopting reduced tillage, which was notably a bigger problem on female-managed plots.Correlations between more and less popular sustainably intense practices make sense, given the outcomes and inputs of each. However, because intensification practices are used with twice the frequency, there is room for the sustainable practices promoted in 1M5R to take on more popularity amongst MRD farmers. What is notable is that the more popular practices are highly correlated , as are the less popular practices . This correlation between practices represents a complimentary relationship. Thus, the study supports a possible avenue for further promoting use of these less-popular practices. For example, composting methods can be integrated into mulching practices by using rice straw as a mulch or tilling the rice straw into the soil instead of using plastic mulch to cover the soil surface.
Perhaps if composting and mulching practices are combined, farmers in the MRD would be more likely to utilize these approaches for fertility management. Similarly, if intercropping with legumes can be promoted as another form of organic fertilization, farmers may be able to adopt both practices while adding cash crops and diversification to their crop portfolio . Reduced tillage can keep soil structure intact and improve water holding capacity, which would reduce watering requirements . Reduced tillage often requires pesticides, which are expensive and come with environmental impacts of their own, to control for volunteer and weed species. Integrated pest management is a logical choice for farmers to reduce pesticide use and, thus, additional reduce financial resources. Water-saving practices are also positively correlated with using integrated pest management . This is a counter intuitive result, as the two practices are not necessarily a natural compliment. Water-saving practices are focused on water resources, while integrated pest management, again, is focused on reducing pesticide inputs. It should be noted that the PPD and MARD intensely promote water-saving practices and integrated pest management under the 1M5R program, which could explain the common use of both practices together .While men may be disproportionately adopting sustainable practices, the story is not simply that men are more sustainable farmers.
Socioeconomic characteristics illustrate results in line with what is expected across gender lines in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta. Overall women have less access to and control over capitals across the sample. Human capitals, as anticipated, are significantly lower in female headed households. The average age of female-headed households is 13 years older than men, indicating that women lead households must contend with the challenges of physical aging in addition to the challenges already facing women in smallholder agriculture . It is unclear why this age gap exists, but further research needs to be done to understand the drivers and implications of the age difference between male- and female-headed households.Educational inequality is perhaps the most stark and telling driver of the unequal adoption of sustainable practices between men and women. The average education span of female-headed households is only 3.8 years, while for men it is 6.7years. With twice as much education, men are better candidates for extension trainings, are more likely to adopt practices they are trained on, and are more able to utilize training effectively . To add to this educational issue, extension trainings are crucial for shifting farming practices in the delta. In male headed households, women often do not receive access to extension trainings because extension agents prefer to work with the household decision-makers, assume the information will be passed to other household members, or prefer to work with the land-owner rather than the plot manager . Unfortunately, only 21 percent of women receive extension training, while 50 percent of men receive it. In other words, female-headed households are not receiving equal access to and successful inclusion in extension trainings. This is the most policy-relevant finding of this study, indicating that intense targeting of women would yield a much higher adoption rate of sustainable practices among female-headed households, which account for approximately 26 percent of MRD households overall . Results also show that women are at a disadvantage in financial and land tenure positioning. Financially speaking, 24 percent of women are credit constrained, while only nine percent of men face obstacles borrowing money for farm and household needs. Countless studies support this trend, finding that rural savings, credit, and insurance programs do not adequately account for women’s social and legal status . This has a huge impact on farm practice choice, as it comes down to being able to purchase high quality inputs on credit for the upcoming season, without which women must make more conservative planting choices. To amplify the effects of credit constraints, women are found to be less risk tolerant when it comes to adopting new technologies and practices . Women are disadvantaged as far as stocks of natural capital at their disposal, microgreen grow rack including overall size of their plots as well as the health of their soils. Women-headed household farms are 0.5 hectare on average, while male-headed household farms are 0.69 ha . Similarly, female-managed plots are 0.56 ha, while male-managed plots are 0.66 ha . This 15 to 30 percent reduction in productive land makes a difference in overall ability to produce. Further, bio-physically the difference between the plot characteristics of male, female, and jointly-managed plots is that female-managed plots have a much higher frequency of “major problems” with soil health and plot productivity. This illustrates an avenue for further research, as the source and nature of these major problems is not clear from this particular survey. Major soil problems could include soil fertility and salinity issues, which are common in the MRD . Again, this having “major soil problems” was associated with decreased adoption of reduced tillage.The results of this study outline adoption of sustainable practices on a household and gender-disaggregated level, illustrating a tension between gender equity and sustainable farming practice adoption. Understanding adoption given existing environmental limitations and household resources builds a case that agriculture in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta is a male-dominated landscape.
This dominance can be seen as a positive trend for environmental outcomes, including reduced use of inputs as well as a more productive rice cropping system – the very definition of sustainable intensification. However, men choose sustainable practices because they have greater access to extension training, education, and credit resources. This dichotomy between men and women’s opportunity and access to 62 resources creates an opportunity for increased gender equity in future of Vietnamese farm policies. The currently promoted 1M5R is the primary avenue through which men are gaining access to information and training. Therefore, evidence from this study indicates that the PPD and MARD should target women for training and education so that adoption rates of sustainable practices on female-managed plots can catch up to male- and jointly-managed plots. To accomplish this, we suggest gender-separated trainings, gender-appropriate cropping practices, and building female extension agent capacity to further this effort. There is a need for similar studies from other southern provinces, especially those that show opposite or starkly different production regimes from Tien Giang. These future studies could build a robust case for understanding gendered impacts on sustainable practices across southern Vietnam, helping target effective extension trainings to improve sustainable practice adoption. Specifically, research must target understanding why men and women see significant differences in training, education, farm size, and seeing significant problems with soil fertility. Pilot tests of a female-focused training regime could further explore the theory of female farmer inclusion as an avenue toward higher adoption of 1M5R. By learning about the linked socio-ecological system, male and female farmers of the MRD can improve their livelihoods while maintaining environmental quality.The stark contrast between city and country in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta is increasingly unclear. As economies enter the global market, agrarian production concentrates in the hands of fewer and fewer farmers and rural-to-urban migration quickens, migration in rural families is the new normal. Mobile families further blur the social and economic boundaries of rural spaces, creating a rural base with an urban satellite member. This Portable Family can take on infinite arrangements, with weekly, monthly, seasonal, or permanent return rhythms; multiple family members joining the satellite location or just a single person braving the destination alone; and a variety of receiving spaces including other rural towns, city centers in the same region of the country, or a culturally distinct city afar. Importantly, the sex of that satellite member has dramatic impacts on how gender is produced and reproduced in this distinctly mobile Mekong Delta. Each space and place has substantive impacts on how men and women express their identity, creating a malleable concept of family dependent on the situation. We call this imaginary the Portable Family, which must be consciously constructed due to intermittent or permanent absence. The study of how migration influences gender roles is an emerging literature in Vietnam. Women are forced to migrate because of fewer local job opportunitiesand the predominantly patriarchal land tenure system, and yet remit a higher proportion of their income while simultaneously being criticized more by older men for migration work . However, women also assert more power in decision-making without openly confronting patriarchal norms , using more “passive” techniques . Women take on a transitory “betweeness,” with remittances as “acts of recognition” in constructed gender identities that secure their place in the family despite distance . Meanwhile, men must become childcare givers while living up to masculine social ideals . When men take on “social reproductive work,” it challenges traditional social roles, but is relieved by women returning home often . There are three gaps in the gender and migration literature in Vietnam. First, these studies have almost exclusively taken place in Northern Provinces of Vietnam, which I attempt to fill by conducting this research in Ho Chi Minh City. Second, they predominantly focus on women’s identity as the migrant, with few exceptions investigating men’s experiences. I address men, women, and to a lesser extent children’s roles in reifying or subverting tradition in the context of the modern family. Thirdly, most recent studies focus on abstract identities such as “husband” or “father,” rather than how competing identities interact in a given situation or space. I use space as the primary focus in which identities compete with each other, within a body, and within a family. Because space and identity are co-implicated, choosing to work and live in separate spaces has profound impacts on gender identity, gender relationships, and performative or lived family values. This study aims to trouble, rather than define and encode gender. I ask what identities are in contention? In which spaces are these identities in conflict? In this vein, I attempt to “trouble, rather than reinforce identity demarcations” . This chapter adopts a Feminist Political Ecology framework to create a grounded theory of gendered change in Vietnam.