GENDERED PRACTICES
Men and women tend to make different decisions when they are faced with a tough farming year. Women are more likely to intensify farming practices by using more machines or planting crops such as fruit trees. These practices reduce labor demands. Men, on the other hand, tend to perform more labor-intensive jobs on the farm, or simply abandon their own land to sell their labor for money. In other words, men use their bodies as their tool for making more money, while women might shift what they plant or how they plant it.
These differences between men and women have very real environmental outcomes. The triple rice crop in the delta requires fertilizer and water inputs far beyond the needs of a single season of rice. Over many years, soil quality decreases, which requires even more fertilizer inputs, creating a cycle of more and more inputs.
The Vietnamese government is now promoting “ecological” or “sustainable” intensification farming practices in the delta. However, the gendered adoption of these practices is not well understood.