Rice Production in Vietnam - History

History

Further information: Vietnamese Famine of 1945

Rice growing in Mekong Delta has an ancient history traced to the Khmer regime of the 18th century. It was taken over by the Vietnamese. However, the Cambodians still consider this area as "KamPuchea Krom or Lower Cambodia" not able to forget that they owned this area in the past. Cambodia even attacked Vietnam in 1978 to take control of the Mekong Delta. However, they were decisively defeated. This delta was the last part of the present day Vietnam that was annexed from Cambodia.

Its present status under the Vietnamese is, however, as a very large swathe of green carpet of rice paddy. This development is attributed to the French who colonized Vietnam in the middle of the 19th century with the basic objective of exporting rice grown in the delta to meet its large costs of colonisation. They developed a maze of canal system in the delta to grow three rice crops in a year.

During the World War II when the Japanese occupied Vietnam and exploited the rich delta by exporting rice to their country, it denied nearly several million Vietnamese of their basic staple. While Vietnam was occupied by Japan, the Allies, especially the United States, often bombed roads, making the transport of rice from the south to the north extremely hard. Both France and Japan forcibly hoarded food from farmers to feed their troops, while the French administration was broken and unable to supply and distribute the food. The inadequate food supply caused the famine in Vietnam; starting with 1943, peaking in March–May 1945 and continuing till the end of Pacific war there was unprecedented starvation. Two million Vietnamese people were reported to have died of starvation which was attributed to the Japanese rule which was further compounded by unprecedented floods. In March 1945, Japan took over and established the puppet Empire of Vietnam headed by Trần Trọng Kim. While this government tried to alleviate the suffering, they were unable to do so because Japan still stuck to its policy of hoarding food.

Rice Production (1000 tons) 1955-1974 Red=South Vietnam, Blue=North Vietnam

Rice production stalled in both parts of the divided Vietnam in the 1960s with Vietnam War inflicting great disruptions in acreage. South Vietnam in particular became an importer by 1965 but output did rise in the 1970s.

At the end of the Vietnamese war in 1975, the country faced acute hardships, as under the Communist regime, cooperative farming through communes was established. Communist Party members of the national party, who were at a low rung, were entrusted managerial responsibility for the development of the Mekong delta in South Vietnam. The government also supplied to the farmers seed, fertilizer and other essentials. As this helped the poor farmers, it was popularly called "the iron rice bowl" – this allegory was meant to convey that " no one would get rich by this system, there was a promise that every person would be cared for by the government...a system where no one would fall through the cracks" Thus, all rice growing fields of the delta became the state property; even a ration of 80 kilograms (180 lb) was forced on the people wanting to buy and carry rice from the delta, which was strictly monitored at police check posts. This condition was further aggravated by devastating floods and insect infestation of large fields.

Realising the folly of State Control, the Government of Vietnam, in 1986, allowed the farmers "to grow and sell their rice". Sure enough there was an incentive to the farmers to grow rice in the delta and Vietnam became one of the leading exporters of Rice. Since then many Legal Constructs have been enacted in Vietnam as a part of Wetland Development, of which the most significant is the Land Law (1994) that gave rights to the farmers, which resulted in an accelerated growth of the Mekong Delta and increase in income to the people. Consequently the delta is intensely populated. The inhabitants of the delta are mostly constituted by the ethnic Vietnamese with Chinese, Khmers and Chams forming the minority groups. The government gave a lease of 50 years to the farmers to own the land and farmers were also allowed to sub-tenet their land to others. This helped in transferring the lands from the cooperatives to the individual families, and this act of the government has "created a land market."

During 2008, the Vietnam Food Association, had set a target of record production of 36.5 million tonnes of rice. However, during 2010 rice industry is under serious threat due to a heat wave of above 35 °C (95 °F) for at least three consecutive months as of March, 2010 indicating a likely drop in rice production.

The Mekong Delta, also categorized as a wetland, has now attracted large investments from both government and private sectors to develop and maintain not only the canal system but also expand the ambit of agricultural development to include aquaculture in conjunction with wetland rice. The delta also "nourishes the cultivation of sugar cane, fruit and coconut."