Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in vietnam

The research also reviews nine provinces’ climate change action plans to under-stand the gaps between plans and implementation, with specific focus on the role of local authorities in th

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Development in Practice

ISSN: 0961-4524 (Print) 1364-9213 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdip20

Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in Vietnam

Ian Christoplos, Le Duc Ngoan, Le Thi Hoa Sen, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong &

Huy Nguyen

To cite this article: Ian Christoplos, Le Duc Ngoan, Le Thi Hoa Sen, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong

& Huy Nguyen (2017) Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in Vietnam, Development in Practice, 27:2, 132-142, DOI: 10.1080/09614524.2017.1285272

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2017.1285272

Published online: 28 Mar 2017

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Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in Vietnam

Ian Christoplos, Le Duc Ngoan, Le Thi Hoa Sen, Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong and Huy Nguyen

ABSTRACT

Great changes are underway in how climate and agricultural risks are

managed in Vietnam Uncertainties are emerging regarding the role of

the state in managing these risks and what this implies for assumptions

regarding hoped-for climate change transformations Local government

control is waning in relation to the expanding roles of the private sector

and the growing autonomy of farmers themselves This article presents

cases that illustrate the ways that farmers, private investors, and local

authorities are responding to climate risk within roles relating to the

other risks involving markets, food security, and pressures on common

property resources

De grands changements sont en cours sur les méthodes de gestion des

risques climatiques et agricoles au Vietnam Des incertitudes émergent

concernant le rôle de l’État dans la gestion de ces risques et ses

implications, relativement aux hypothèses sur les transformations

attendues vis-à-vis du changement climatique Le contrôle du

gouvernement local diminue à mesure de l’expansion du secteur privé

et de l’autonomie des agriculteurs eux-mêmes Cet article présente

quelques cas qui illustrent la manière dont les agriculteurs, les

investisseurs privés et les autorités locales répondent au risque

climatique, dans le cadre de rôles joués par rapport aux autres risques

menaçant les marchés, la sécurité alimentaire et les pressions sur les

ressources collectives

En Vietnam se encuentran en marcha grandes cambios vinculados a la

gestión de contingencias asociadas al clima y a la agricultura Existe

incertidumbre en torno al rol desempeñado por el Estado en el manejo

de las mismas y en cuanto a lo que ello implica para las suposiciones

relativas a las transformaciones que se espera ocurran a la luz del

cambio climático Por otra parte, el control ejercido por los gobiernos

locales está disminuyendo en comparación con la creciente importancia

que van adquiriendo el sector privado y la autonomía de los

campesinos El presente artículo da cuenta de varios casos que ilustran

cómo están respondiendo los productores, los inversores privados y las

autoridades locales ante el riesgo asociado al clima, a la vez que

afrontan otras contingencias ligadas a los mercados, a la seguridad

alimentaria y a la presión sobre los recursos de propiedad común

ARTICLE HISTORY

Received 4 January 2016 Accepted 26 May 2016

KEYWORDS

Environment (built and natural) – Agriculture, Climate change, Food security; Governance and public policy; East Asia

Introduction

This article looks at how institutional change within local government is buffeted by the interplay between climate change policies and events, and broader development policies and processes CONTACT Ian Christoplos ian@glemdev.com

VOL 27, NO 2, 132–142

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2017.1285272

The drivers of institutional adaptation and the limitations of local government in addressing climate change are analysed The findings are intended to inform research and climate change efforts so as to better recognise the actual (rather than pre-assumed) roles of local authorities in dealing with recur-rent climate hazards

The study findings are based on policy review and approximately 40 meetings and semi-struc-tured interviews with agriculture and environmental authorities at provincial, district, and commune levels in Vietnam between 2012 and 2015, as well as a limited number of interviews with private sector actors and farmers This was complemented by extensive review of government policies and directives from both national and provincial levels The study also draws on findings from

an additional research project on ratoon rice production that included semi-structured interviews with 80 rice farmers The research also reviews nine provinces’ climate change action plans to under-stand the gaps between plans and implementation, with specific focus on the role of local authorities

in the planning process The research was primarily focused on two provinces in Central Vietnam, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Binh, with an emphasis on the latter

The article begins by contextualising climate change efforts within the changing roles of local authorities that have accompanied a massive and still ongoing transformation of agrarian relations Despite a less directive role than in the past, agricultural authorities are still the main frontline service provider responsible for supporting rural populations in climate change adaption This section briefly explains the main policies and trends that determine their roles

The analysis then shifts to looking at efforts to roll out climate change policies from national to subnational levels, as embodied in climate change action plans These amorphous “shopping lists”

of projects have made little headway in relation to the intended transformations, but they nonethe-less dominate the official government response to climate change

This agenda is then contrasted with two examples of autonomous adaptation The first describes a new rice production method, initially developed by farmers, which has reduced climate risk but has also created tensions in local government in relation to production targets The second example is that of shrimp aquaculture, where large commercial investors are expanding new forms of pro-duction that reduce environmental risk, but provide limited benefits for smallholders

These cases illustrate how the role of local authorities is modest in aspects of rural livelihood systems where farmers are increasingly autonomous, and negligible in new capital intensive and highly technical production systems This raises questions about implicit assumptions of a statist-led climate transformation agenda Even in a state with a strong developmental drive such as Vietnam, these “under the radar” adaptation processes may turn out to have more far-reaching impacts than ambitious planning exercises that can be quickly derailed when plans rely on shrinking local government capacities and amorphous hopes for international support

Agrarian transformations and the role of local authorities

Vietnamese climate change adaptation policies and praxis in agriculture must be understood against the backdrop of the comprehensive rethink that has occurred over the past 40 years in overall agri-culture and rural development policies (Christoplos, Sen, and Ngoan2014) Growing concerns about climate change remain a sideshow in relation to the commitments to ensure food security that have framed how policymakers, local authorities, and farmers have historically made their decisions More recently, these decisions also relate to gradual changes in how the role of the market is perceived to demarcate farmers’ and authorities’ space for making decisions

After the end of the war in 1975, concerns for addressing a serious national and household food security situation led to agricultural policies that were overwhelmingly focused on ensuring national and provincial-level food security by setting targets for rice production, the traditional measure of food security These targets were enforced through directives and control over all aspects of the pro-duction system Liberalisation reforms, referred to as Doi Moi, started in 1986–87, which led to rice production growing rapidly These reforms began with some provinces practising “fence-breaking”

(testing the limits of official policies) in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as they cautiously departed from central edicts Since 1989 Vietnam has been a net rice exporter, and is now the second biggest rice exporter in the world

With rice self-sufficiency assured, since the late 1990s the government has begun to encourage diversification into other crops, a process that has accelerated since 2012 These policies dovetail with the more recently recognised need for climate change adaptation, as diversification is seen

as a way of spreading both market and climate risk Farmers and investors have themselves also begun shifting to other crops and as the rapidly urbanising population has generated demands for a greater variety of higher value agricultural products Public policies are increasingly oriented towards facilitating these shifts In 2015 the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) planned for at least 112,000 hectares of rice land to be re-zoned for other commodities which are deemed to be more suited to the soil, weather, climate, and market conditions There is

a national target for the conversion of 770,000 hectares of rice to other crops during 2014–20, intended to reach 30% of the cultivated land area (MARD2014)

A major example of how policies are changing in Vietnam is the decision to increase animal feed production to support the rapidly growing livestock industry Despite its success in expanding pro-duction of staple rice, primarily intended for human consumption, other grains used for livestock feed are in short supply In parallel, the cost of feed imports has increased annually Feed prices in Vietnam are consistently approximately 15–20% higher other countries in the region such as Indone-sia and Thailand (Long2014) In contrast to Vietnam’s success in expanding rice exports, currently feed imports total approximately twice the levels of rice exports In 2014, total rice exports were approximately 6 million tons, valued at US$3.02 million (MoIT 2014);1 whereas feed imports amounted to 11 million tons and cost US$4.87 million (Department of Livestock – MARD2015) There-fore, encouraging production of feed for livestock (and reduction of feed import costs) is seen as an important aspect of diversification This is attracting considerable foreign and domestic investment (Nguyen2015)

Diversification processes such as these have implications for the role of local government as each province must rethink its approach to both the market and how to preserve specific areas for rice production to ensure food security, while also taking climate change into account This is particularly important in high-quality irrigated paddy areas where local government makes decisions on irriga-tion timing that have major implicairriga-tions for what farmers can plant and when, thereby impinging

on farmers’ ability to choose how they respond to climate change Local authorities actively promote crops they perceive to be appropriate from a production, climate, or market perspective, generally through modest incentives and subsidies for so-called “models” (rather than through the directives and regulations applied in the past)

Climate change action plans … and action?

Over the past decade, parallel to these overall agrarian transformations and changes in agricultural policies, broader plans have been formulated to respond to climate risk Vietnam is widely regarding

as being highly vulnerable to both the gradual effects of climate change – sea level rise and trends towards a drier climate – and extreme climate events, such as typhoons and floods Diversification (both on-farm and in the national range of agricultural production) has been seen as a “win-win” proposition in this regard as, along with increasingly profitability, diversification is seen to be a way to spread risk within households and in the overall economy However, this is not the main aspect of climate change adaptation The primary focus is on (planning for) infrastructural invest-ments to “climate proof” development gains, a major vehicle for which are the provincial Action Plan Frameworks for Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change (referred to here as Climate Action Plans – CAPs) Climate Action Plans were introduced at the provincial government level in

2009 as part of the Government of Vietnam’s National Target Program to Respond to Climate Change (NTP-RCC) In 2010, the central government requested all cities and provinces to prepare

CAPs at provincial level The central government provided each province a grant of US$50,000– 70,000 for preparing CAPs These plans have been developed through varied processes, but in general it was initially expected that provincial authorities would analyse and synthesise district-level requests, together with scientific data and suggestions from sectoral departments and academic institutions, to produce what are essentially packages of projects A total of 63 provinces submitted CAPs to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) Our review indicates that almost all of CAPs were developed based overwhelmingly on inputs from consulting firms Some limitations of the CAPs development process include (Nam et al.2014a):

. Climate science inputs were insufficiently comprehensive, for example, failing to consider uncertainty

. Climate impacts were not clearly identified

. Vulnerability assessment did not clearly identify who was vulnerable or the nature of their vulnerabilities

. There were no consultations with vulnerable groups

. Funding sources for implementation measures were rarely identified (which subsequently severely constrained implementation)

. There were gaps in climate science interpretation (e.g no estimates of extreme events)

. There were no risk assessments

. Recommendations were not clearly prioritised

. The connection between recommendations and claims regarding risks and vulnerabilities was unclear

These limitations of the CAPs preparation progress led to weak links among action plans and local need, cost–benefit analyses, and feasibility of implementation

The CAPs are expected to be primarily financed from international aid and climate finance resources (in stark contrast to the agrarian transformations above, which are almost entirely financed

from domestic resources and foreign direct investment) There were some provinces and cities where

some parts of the CAP could be implemented with support from external donors, for example, in Ben Tre and Quang Nam provinces where CAPs were supported by Denmark, and in Can Tho and Da Nang where CAPs were supported by the Rockefeller Foundation Most of the other provinces have had very limited or no implementation at all The problem was that many of the consulting firms preparing these CAPs assigned priorities for implementation projects based on what has turned out to be unrealistic intentions in the SP-RCC to allocate funds at the national level to climate adaptation activities (Nam et al.2014a)

In sum, although now formally approved, most CAPs remain as just plans The Action Plan Frame-works for Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change are largely perceived to be a potential – but

as yet unrealised – window for accessing international funds for hoped-for investments in infrastructure

Presumably due to a “wait and see” attitude towards the uncertainties of international climate finance mechanisms, the CAPs have not been anchored in either the understanding of the impli-cations of moving towards implementation or their budgetary commitments Authorities interviewed readily acknowledge that they see the ambitious, broad, nebulous, and non-prioritised aims of national policies (which are expected to guide provincial planning) to be overwhelming and confus-ing There is a lack of understanding about how to initiate implementation and, above all, how to integrate the abstract aims of climate change adaptation within the broader array of economic devel-opment policies to be implemented locally, some of which may actually contradict the intentions for climate change adaptation A recent study encountered similar findings, concluding that:

“ … the first round of provincial Climate Action Plans in Vietnam are consistently weak in relationship to imple-menting recommendations This is a crucial problem because the purpose of the Climate Action Plan is not to

report to MoNRE [Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment], it is to clarify and support local government action The CAP is not an objective in itself; it is merely a tool to support the local government to implement econ-omic and social development effectively in the face of climate uncertainty But it is apparent from our compara-tive study that there is currently no significant connection between the CAP and local government development planning.” (Nam et al 2014b , 37)

Reporting on climate change-related expenditure is a mix of past projects, projects listed in the CAP, and new projects Authorities interviewed state that they are unsure of what elements from the orig-inal sets of projects are being implemented or how much funds have been received or disbursed Respondents from the provincial Departments of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) in Quang Binh and other provinces assumed that central government would eventually mobilise needed resources, although it was unclear how many activities would be supported or what pro-portion of funding would be allocated

A department head in Quang Tri Province (located just south of Quang Binh) stated that he thought the situation to be the same for almost all provinces throughout the country The Climate Change Action Plan of Quang Tri was developed in 2011 Thus far, less than 5% of activities have been implemented by DONRE and about 10% of activities are said to have been implemented Almost all reported activities had actually already commenced prior to the development of the CAP The reasons for the lack of implementation are unclear, but appear to be due to lack of funding or problems in the design of these infrastructural projects In 2015, the central government indicated its plans to support provinces with funding of up to approximately VND 450 million to improve the CAPs for the next period (2016–20) However, this informant said that he does not expect major changes in the quality of the plan or the ability to acquire funds for implementation Infrastructural investments dominate the lists of projects in the CAPs In Quang Binh these primar-ily consist of sea and river dykes, as well as some irrigation and drainage investments In an exception

to the overall focus on adaptation (and disaster risk reduction) infrastructure, the Quang Binh CAP includes a very large Korean-financed solar energy project There are also very minor provisions for small, community-based disaster reduction programming and mangrove plantations to protect coastal areas

A bias towards lists of infrastructural investment plans reflects what local authorities see as achiev-able given their existing capacities Infrastructure has traditionally been a key element in the legiti-macy of the Vietnamese state and administrative structures exist for managing such investments

By contrast, although provincial and district authorities interviewed see small community-based pro-jects as appropriate for adaptation and disaster risk reduction, they have doubts about opportunities

to scale them up due to the fact that they demand considerable time and effort from provincial and district authorities The number of staff in local agricultural departments is shrinking (and environ-mental authorities have virtually no capacity for community level efforts) as provinces increasingly see agriculture as being the responsibility of the private sector, which means that community and participatory methodologies are far beyond the capacities of the dwindling number of government staff

Local, “under the radar” autonomous adaptation efforts

The shortcomings of the CAPs do not mean that a climate change adaptation perspective is missing entirely from local government decision-making Our interviews show (and the examples below explore) how local authorities are actually concerned with climate risk, even if they fail to understand the links between the issues facing local farmers and the grand provincial plans and national policies District level agricultural officers are in many respects the main “frontline” service providers in relation

to climate change It is their task to design and often redesign technological advice so as to reflect growing awareness of climate and disaster risk They are trying to translate the directives they receive from above into plans that reflect farmers’ efforts to optimise their production in relation

to climate risk In the past, their brokerage function was relatively one-way, with an overwhelming

emphasis on pressuring farmers to conform to the demands of the state Interviews as part of this research have consistently shown a shift to a more reflective tone District level staff describe how the directives they receive need to be adapted (or in some instances, rejected) to reflect farmers’ con-cerns about risk and also to be implementable within these authorities’ limited and shrinking capacities to steer farmer decisions They recognise how their production targets suggest a measure of control that no longer exists, given that the decisions made by individual farmers will ulti-mately determine whether these targets are met

It should be stressed, however, that these local authorities do not perceive their support to farmers’ risk reduction activities as being about “climate change” They rather reflect their own relationship with farmers to ensure that they are able to adjust to prevailing conditions by adapting mandated programmes to local needs and farmer perceptions of risk They are simply doing their job The following two cases illustrate the ways that local authorities are finding a role (often limited) in helping farmers to manage climate risk Their actions are “under the radar” of the CAPs, but are none-theless significant and provide important lessons regarding the ways that actual climate change initiatives are likely to be stimulated and delineated by the overall policies for agricultural and rural development

Ratoon rice

Managing climate risk does not always sit well with provincial and national production targets, and in the past Quang Binh was a province which often failed to meet its targets and had to “import” rice from other provinces to meet demand Despite authorities’ concerns for provincial rice self-suffi-ciency, the farmers have faced climate-related livelihood challenges of their own in the form of uncer-tainty regarding when seasonal monsoons will start Farmers report that they have frequently lost their second crop of rice when rains have started early According to farmers interviewed in Le Thuy district, the probability of early annual floods is approximately 50% and the percentage of crop lost when early floods occur is typically approximately 90% Risks to rice production are com-pounded as the cost of inputs has increased over time and profitability is low and variable As a response to these risks, in 2003 in a few areas of Le Thuy district farmers began to experiment with what was for them an entirely new approach, leaving the rice plants from the first rice season to merely regenerate instead of making the risky investment in ploughing and planting for the second season, a method called ratoon rice The yields of ratoon rice were small and uncertain, but so were investments in money and labour, and therefore profitability was higher and risks were reduced Furthermore, farmers could instead migrate to look for alternative seasonal employment The popularity of this new method spread rapidly among farmers who recognised its benefits, which also included higher producer prices as consumers preferred the taste of the ratoon rice Areas using ratoon rice expanded quickly, even though it was discouraged or in some cases prohib-ited by provincial government (Sen, Ngoan, and Bond2014)

The appearance of this trend did not sit well with provincial authorities, who saw this as reducing their already insufficient production towards targets District agricultural staff were sent to investi-gate They listened to the farmers’ explanations of why they preferred this low risk approach, and were ultimately convinced that there was merit in ratoon rice When the district officials presented their conclusions to provincial authorities, which effectively questioned higher-level decisions, this led to tensions It is unusual in Vietnam that district authorities openly question edicts from above These tensions have diminished in the past few years as provincial authorities have recognised that new national policies for diversification no longer require maximising rice production District level authorities have also found ways to work together with other actors to actually help the farmers to both reduce risk and optimise production District extension staff in Le Thuy worked with researchers

at Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry to select varieties and production methods that are best suited to the ratoon method Over time local policies have been modified Instead of discouraging this method, in 2014 the province started zoning areas for ratoon rice and even providing subsidies for new

varieties that are best suited to the ratoon method They have even subsidised production services, such as irrigation, land preparation, and pest control, at the same level as conventional rice With this input, yields have again risen, in recent years meeting production targets In 2014 the average yield of ratoon rice was almost equal to that of conventional rice (approximately 5.2 tons/ha) By

2013, 100% of lowland rice areas in the district used ratoon rice (Le Thuy district DARD2014) This case illustrates what can be seen as acceptance of a new paradigm It is not just a story of farmer innovation in response to climate change, as it is also about how local authorities are reflecting and redefining their role in relation to climate vulnerable farmers The state has struggled to retain its responsibilities for land use and irrigation planning by adapting this role to include support for the formerly unsanctioned risk management strategies of farmers

The growing dominance of the private sector in managing risk in aquaculture

Aquaculture has in many respects constituted the vanguard of agricultural diversification in Vietnam Starting in the 1990s, in response to both expanding salinisation in coastal areas (associated with sea level rise) and recognition of potential markets for new products, the government began re-zoning marginal areas to allow for conversion from rice to aquaculture Production has grown rapidly, and

in 2004 aquaculture was Vietnam’s third largest source of export income (Rasmussen and Tran

2005) The total area of paddy land converted to aquaculture land is now approximately 350,000 hec-tares, mostly concentrated in the Mekong Delta (Hoi2012) Between 2001 and 2010 the average growth per year of Vietnamese aquaculture reached 16.2% in output and 4.2% in area (Directorate

of Fisheries2012) During the next three years, this growth was reduced, but still high at 5.57% per year in total output The national aquaculture production in 2013 was expected to reach 3.3 million tonnes (VASEP2016)

Aquacultural expansion has been encouraged by agricultural and environmental authorities, but their capacity to contribute to these systems and reduce the very considerable risks involved has proven limited This case describes these modest roles and highlights the ways that the private sector is coming to play a dominant role in aquacultural adaptation to risk

The rapid growth in aquaculture has carried with it new and very different risks, where climate and demographic pressures converge As production methods have come to focus on highly productive monocultures (in Central Vietnam this is mostly shrimp, but in other areas it is fish, notably pangasius

in the Mekong Delta) producers have experienced recurrent losses when unpredictable and extreme weather events have changed salinity levels in ponds, killing the shrimp, or have flooded ponds, enabling shrimp to escape In addition to these climate risks, the biggest problems relate to disease, outbreaks of which have caused massive losses In some areas, repeated disease outbreaks, particularly in shrimp production, have reversed the trends towards overall expansion In the Tam Giang Lagoon, south of Quang Binh, the production area fell from 4,000 hectares in 2004 to 2,700 hectares in 2008, apparently spurred by deteriorating water quality and consequent spread of disease (Truong, Lyne, and Woodford2014) This fall was mostly related to production enclosed by nets in the open lagoon where the water is effectively a common property resource and where it has therefore been difficult to encourage common action among thousands of producers to manage effluents and disease In response to increasingly recurrent losses, aquacultural production has begun to shift from monoculture shrimp production to lower risk and less intensive polyculture, including seaweed, shrimp, crabs, and fish

Parallel with the growing popularity of polyculture, there has also been a shift towards even more intensive production using new and very different technologies A variety of aquacultural production systems have emerged in Vietnam over the past two decades to respond to both economic oppor-tunities and environmental risks, each with different characteristics impinging on the role of the state

in intervening and helping producers to manage risk In Quang Binh there are two main aquacultural production methods The most longstanding method is to dig ponds in rainfed marginal areas near lagoons and rivers that have brackish water and therefore low rice yields Disease is the greatest risk

as it spreads easily between ponds In addition, early or unusually heavy rains often lower salinity levels (killing the shrimp) or flood the ponds allowing the shrimp to escape into rivers and lagoons

In sandy beach areas in the province newer capital-intensive technologies have been spreading rapidly over the past decade These involve lined ponds with considerable investment in aeration and filtration equipment and much higher densities of shrimp The production of shrimp in North Central Vietnam has approximately doubled over the past decade, whereas growth in the land area has been only approximately 20% (GSO 2014) It appears that this is related largely to the shift to these new intensive production methods and with it a change from tiger shrimp to white legged (also called vannemai) shrimp In these new ponds, water is pumped directly from the sea, which makes it easier to control salinity level and significantly reduces the risk of spread of disease from neighbouring ponds The common property issues of traditional methods are much less of a concern There is also far less risk of losses due to storms and floods, as the pumping systems can control salinity levels These methods are thus partially driven by a desire to “climate proof” investments The new methods do not eliminate risks of losses (as diseases may be introduced with larvae), and due to the much greater capital investment required increase indebtedness, but they are less affected by climate variability and uncertainty than more traditional production methods They lower risk for those who can afford to invest

The interest in making major capital investments in aquaculture in the sandy beach areas is driven

by weaker ability to control risks in the other systems Expansion and intensification in brackish areas has been accompanied by risks, as many experience frequent production crashes, resulting in farmer indebtedness and even bankruptcies throughout the supply chain In Quang Binh, according to the provincial authorities, aquaculture losses have been high due to natural hazards and diseases In

2013, the typhoon Wutip (referred to as typhoon No 10 in Vietnam) destroyed 289 hectares of aqua-cultural production and 29 fish cages with an estimated loss of VND 56.955 billion (Quang Binh People’s Committee2013) Interviews suggest that these losses were overwhelmingly concentrated

in the less intensive lagoon systems

The roles of local authorities in reducing aquaculture risks mainly involve efforts to monitor water quality, assess the health of larvae, and provision of very modest support for reinvestment after losses from either disease or extreme climate events Authorities in Quang Binh provide VND 5 million per hectare to aid recovery after major storms or disease outbreaks, but this is very small in comparison with initial investment costs that total VND 425 to 720 million per hectare in average initial invest-ment costs for semi-intensive and intensive shrimp farming systems (Vuong2015, 63) Apart from these efforts, the authorities engage in other efforts in conjunction with international aid initiatives Regarding water quality, responsibilities are split between agricultural and environmental auth-orities, with the former focusing on factors impacting on production and the latter investigating breach of pollution regulations, which includes checking that farmers are using correct filtration systems and controlling effluents The divisions of responsibilities vary in the different provinces and districts Particularly during periods when shrimp disease epidemics are expected, they make unannounced inspection visits With regard to larvae, tests of their quality are done at the level of input suppliers In addition, when epidemics appear, the authorities provide recommendations for changes in breeds, feeding, and production timing, but these are often too late to prevent massive losses Authorities acknowledge that their monitoring through spot checks and their capacity to ensure that farmers receive timely advice are extremely limited They see this as related to their own inadequate staff capacity to undertake their duties At a provincial level in Quang Binh there are only three staff with responsibility for aquaculture Districts have at most only one person working with this

Compared with most forms of crop production, the role of the state in providing extension advice

in aquaculture is extremely limited Provincial and district authorities acknowledge that the private sector has far stronger capacities to stay abreast of new technological developments and rapidly respond to new diseases and other challenges In the capital-intensive production on sandy beach areas, companies and individual producers contract their own private advisors Some national and

international companies selling larvae, feed, and other inputs are providing extension advice and even producing television programmes and provide a call-in helpline for farmers to ask about how

to manage diseases In the other areas input sales companies also train farmers in the use of their products Sales agents receive commissions on the input sales within their marketing areas and are therefore motivated to be proactive in providing advice as well

Furthermore, market forces are driving commercial interests in enhancing food safety The CP Group, a large multinational firm based in Thailand, has established large shrimp production farms using the lined pond methods described above, as well as marketing its own larvae, feed, and other products It also buys shrimp from mid-sized producers CP products are certified as safe, and therefore the company is strict about testing for acceptable levels of antibiotics in the shrimp they purchase, something local traders are not concerned about Increasingly, companies such as

CP are emphasising certification such as that from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council as an impor-tant element of both their corporate social responsibility and to ensure access to more profitable markets

A major challenge for farmers and their local input suppliers in relation to this risky line of business

is that of ensuring that capital is available for investment Input suppliers interviewed describe how many companies have found it necessary to extend credit to producers As a result, the smaller input suppliers have then themselves gone bankrupt when disease causes widespread losses in a given

season A study of similar problems in Tam Giang Lagoon concluded that “relationships built on

trust and incentive compliant contracts were overwhelmed by heightened environmental risk that was, in part, a consequence of pollution created by over-exploitation of open access lagoon water”

(Truong, Lyne, and Woodford201453) In Quang Binh some farmers are obtaining bank guarantees (using their house deeds as collateral) for their input purchases, but these are rare and interviewees were sceptical regarding the likelihood that they could contain the overwhelming levels of risk These new institutional arrangements serve to protect the investments of actors in the supply chain, but not farmers who risk long-term indebtedness and perhaps even loss of their land and homes

With the very capital-intensive lined pond production methods the mid-sized producers inter-viewed raised capital through pooling the collateral of the homes and farms of their extended families Therefore, if the farm fails, an entire clan can be financially devastated In light of the scale of capital required and the inherent risk of the new systems it appears that poorer smallholders are effectively excluded from using the new methods Furthermore, the capital-intensive nature of the system, with even the ponds being dug with machinery, has meant that the opportunities to benefit from these farms through wage labour are limited

Analysis and conclusions

A major new catchword in the global climate change discourse is “transformation” (O’Brien2012) The examples above suggest that what is happening in Vietnam can hardly be seen as a state-led project for a grand transformation into a new green society and economy Instead these processes resemble more of a historical and incremental trend, led primarily by non-climate policies for economic devel-opment, a shift towards a generally more modest role for the state, and growing dominance of dom-estic and foreign investment Climate change “action” plans tend to consist of a somewhat new variation on a long-established repertoire of the state in infrastructural investment – part of the imperative of a bureaucracy oriented towards protection from storms and floods (see Evers and Ben-edikter2009) But they are (aid) investment plans more than action plans Their content is a reflection

of overall policies rather than a roadmap for transforming them

By contrast, the real transformations that are underway in climate change adaptation are related

to transformations in the broader political economy driving development efforts These changes are forcing local agricultural authorities to reflect and choose more limited realms of intervention, due to three sets of factors: (1) the different and unwieldy multi-stakeholder challenges they face; (2) their limited power to influence farmer production decisions; and (3) their dwindling human resources