Rolling the dice with spice : the complexity and risks of ethnic minority livelihoods in Bát Xát district, Northern Vietnam
Author : Slack, Patrick
Under the direction of : Sarah Turner
McGill University
English text
Keywords : Geography, Vietnam, Agriculture, Ethnic minorities, Rice growing, North Vietnam, Hybrid crops.
Abstract
Throughout the northern Vietnamese borderlands, upland minorities relying on semi-subsistence agriculture reside on the geographic, cultural, and economic margins of the Vietnamese state. In the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, policies aim to ‘modernise’ and integrate such semi-subsistence ethnic minority farmers into both the market economy and ’preferred’ livelihood strategies. Such policies mean that upland farmers are increasingly engaging in trade and agricultural intensification rather than continuing to rely on subsistence crops of landrace varieties of rice, corn, and livestock, in addition to bartering. One specific program that influences ethnic minority livelihoods in these uplands has been encouraging farmers to rely on hybrid varieties of rice and corn, with seeds that must be bought yearly, along with agro-chemical inputs. Since the state began promoting these forms of agricultural intensification in the early 1990s, ethnic minority semi-subsistence farmers living near forests have turned to the propagation and cultivation of black cardamom (Lanxangia tsaoko, formerly classified as Amomum tsao-ko) as a preferred and lucrative income source. Black cardamom, specifically its dried fruit, is a non-timber forest product used in traditional medicine and is among the most expensive spices in the world. This thesis, rooted in four months of ethnographic fieldwork completed in 2018, examines ethnic minority livelihoods centered around black cardamom in a northern district of Lào Cai province, Vietnam. Drawing conceptual ideas from political ecology, sustainable livelihoods, and food security literatures, my thesis aim is : To investigate the livelihood strategies of ethnic minority households in Bát Xát district, Lào Cai province, northern Vietnam, with a focus on the impacts of extreme weather events and government interventions, and the subsequent coping and adaptation strategies of local households. To investigate this aim, I collected data through semi-structured interviews, conversational interviews, walk-along interviews, group interviews, focus groups, oral histories, and overt participant observation. In my first results chapter, I examine the key elements that comprised ethnic minority livelihood portfolios and food security before 2008, before a series of shocks affected local livelihoods. I highlight the traditionally composite livelihoods that local farmers had, with limited trade, before noting the increasingly important role that black cardamom has played in funding hybrid rice and corn cultivation, greatly improving food availability. In my second analysis chapter, I focus on the shocks increasingly impacting upland ethnic minority livelihoods since 2008, specifically those in the shape of government forest-use regulations and extreme weather events that are restricting or devastating black cardamom crops. I then analyse the livelihood adaptation and diversification strategies that farmers have employed in response to these shocks, including shifts into wage labour, silviculture, the cultivation of medicinal crops, staple crop intensification, trading, fisheries, and increased participation in the tourism industry. I find that ethnic minority livelihoods and traditional notions of food security have remained resilient despite shocks limiting black cardamom as a livelihood strategy. However, how long this resiliency will last remains unclear, as there is no end in sight for extreme weather events and unhelpful government interventions.
