GENDERED MIGRATION
Policy changes in the late 1980s pushed female farmers from the delta to the city. Women did not necessarily have the same access to local wage labor jobs or land tenure rights. As a way to cope and bring extra money in for their families back on the farm, women would migrate to the city to work wage labor jobs and send money home.
In this way, Vietnam shows an opposite trend to the “feminization of agriculture” seen across Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America. Instead of an increasingly female-managed farm, the Mekong River Delta shows an increasingly male-managed farm. In other words, men are burdened with managing the farm and the family.
Since men are in charge on many of the farms in the delta, I wondered how that influences rice cultivation. Specifically, I wanted to know if men are different decisions than women would, or if men are making different decisions because women are sending money home. For example, do men only grow rice? Do men use the same seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides that women would use? Since women are gone, are me growing more fruit trees?
DIVERSITY AND INTENSITY
Before I talk about the farming practices, there are two words that are very important to understand when it comes to sustainable agriculture: diversity and intensity.
Diversity means planting more types of crops on the same area of land. Diversity tends to be good for soil health, nutritional health of the people eating the crops, and it also helps support natural predators of common pests and crop diseases. In these ways, diversity is positive.
Intensity means producing more from the same area of land. Intensity can be a good approach to stopping the expansion of agriculture by reducing the amount of wild lands put into agricultural production, such as rainforests. Some people also argue that producing more from the same area of land is more efficient. But the downside to intensity is that, in order to make things efficient, a lot of times intensification means fewer crops or less diversity. It doesn’t have to, but it often does.