Transitioning to rice-shrimp farming in Kien Giang, Vietnam Determining rural household resilience to changing climatic conditions.

Abstract

The Mekong Delta (MD) is known as Vietnam’s so-called ‘food-basket’ and produces a significant amount of the country’s agricultural products. However, it is also considered to be one of the areas in Southeast Asia that is most vulnerable to climate change impacts such as sea-level rise, saline intrusion, and changes in temperature and precipitation. As a response to changing climatic conditions, Vietnam’s national and provincial governments have put more emphasis on aquaculture-oriented farming practices, such as shrimp and rice-shrimp farming, as opposed to rice farming. This research explores this agricultural transition that Kien Giang, one of the coastal provinces in the MD, is currently experiencing, by focusing on three different farming models: mono-crop rice farming, rice-shrimp farming, and extensive shrimp farming. Driven by the following research question: “To what extent has the transition from rice farming towards various shrimp-farming methods in Kien Giang province, Vietnam made local farmers more resilient to changing climatic conditions?”, this thesis analyses the extent to which rural households in each of these farming models are affected by the impact of changing climatic conditions, and determines the level of household resilience. This research shows that the governmental decision to change Kien Giang’s agricultural sector to rice-shrimp farming has been successful: 1) agricultural productivity of rice-shrimp farmers is affected least by changing climatic conditions, 2) rice farmers have a higher level of resilience because even though the impacts of changing climate conditions had a higher effect on them, they were better able to fully recover, and finally 3) shrimp farmers are least resilient to changing climate conditions because they are affected most and are in general lacking ability to adequately cope with and adapt to a changing climate. This research contributes to the fields of resilience thinking, adaptive responses to climate change, and international development.