From Rice to Shrimp: Ecological Change and Human Adaptation in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

In the last few decades, structural transformation in agriculture has been considered a key to rural economic development in Vietnam. In the Mekong Delta, the most important rice basket of Vietnam, farmers have diversified their economic activities and engaged in production which involves high risks, partly due to global market price fluctuations. This change in livelihood patterns has resulted in a significant change in the Delta’s ecology. This chapter analyzes socio-economic changes of human adaptation to a new living environment in two shrimp-farming communities in the Mekong Delta, one in the lower part (Ca Mau Province) and the other in the upper part of the Delta (Long An Province). It examines the changes in livelihood and local ecology when farmers shift from conventional rice cultivation to high-value shrimp-farming and thus, from fresh water to saline water ecology. The chapter concludes that the human environment is a social process in which people constantly shape their landscape and have to adapt to the “created” environment by changing their socioeconomic lives. In the shift from rice to shrimp, when people cannot adapt to ecological changes locally, labor migration is the best solution for their livelihood. This phenomenon can be seen as an indicator of agricultural unsustainability. My comparative study seeks to contribute to the understanding of socio-economic changes from an environmental perspective.