Assessment of rice farmers’ adaptive capacity to environmental change in An Giang province

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta is comprised of deposited alluvium from the Mekong River. Based on favorable conditions of soil, climate, and hydrology, farmers have developed this region as an area specializing in food crops. In particular, rice is a major crop, and its cultivation is the main livelihood of millions of farmers.

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ASSESSMENT OF RICE FARMERS’ ADAPTIVE CAPACITY TO ENVIRONMENTAL

CHANGE IN AN GIANG PROVINCE

Duong Truong Phuc1

1 University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU - HCM

Information:

Received: 29/09/2018

Accepted: 06/12/2018

Published: 11/2019

Keywords:

Adaptation, Rice Farmer,

Livelihood, Climate Change,

Vulnerability

ABSTRACT

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta is comprised of deposited alluvium from the Mekong River Based on favorable conditions of soil, climate, and hydrology, farmers have developed this region as an area specializing in food crops In particular, rice is a major crop, and its cultivation is the main livelihood of millions of farmers It has Vietnam’s highest level of exposure and dependence on natural and socio-economic factors.Simultaniously, the production environment has hosted specific changes due to the interaction between climate change (natural) and human activity (socio-economic), which creates risks that can make agricultural livelihoods vulnerable In this context, the adaptation of farmers' livelihoods has attracted widespread attention This article aims to assess the adaptive capacity of farmers through an adaptive capacity index using a case study in An Giang province

The results showed that farmers are unable to diversify their income as well

as to adapt to changes Consequently, they are vulnerable to external shocks On this basis, the article proposes some solutions to improve adaptive capacity, which is "enhancing livelihood asset" and multi-functional agricultural transformation

1 INTRODUCTION

Adaptation is essential to external

environmental change (Adger et al., 2009) The

term derives from natural science, especially

evolutionary biology, through Charles Darwin's

studies of natural evolution and selection (Smit

& Wandel, 2006) In the context of

environmental change, adaptation is the

behavioral modification of groups and

organizations to reduce vulnerability to climate

change (Pielke, 1998) or the adjustment of

socio-ecological responses to climate stimuli

and effects (Adger et al., 2009; Smit, Burton,

Klein, & Wandel, 2000; Smit & Pilifosova,

2003)

Agricultural production is the primary source of income for most rural communities

Consequently, adapting to the adverse effects of environmental change is necessary to stabilizing livelihoods and ensuring food security (Bryan, Deressa, Gbetibouo, &

Ringler, 2009) Agricultural adaptation to climate/environmental change is a complex and multi-dimensional process (Bryant et al., 2000), involving a wide range of stakeholders, including policymakers, extension agents,

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non-governmental organizations, researchers, and

local communities (Bryan et al., 2009)

There are many measures to adapt to climate

change in agriculture (Bradshaw, Dolan, &

Smit, 2004; Kurukulasuriya & Mendelsohn,

2008; Mertz, Mbow, Reenberg, & Diouf, 2009)

and various factors affecting the use of any

adaptation measures (Deressa, Hassan, Ringler,

Alemu, & Yesuf, 2009) Some research

suggests that individual characteristics affect

adaptation, while others suggest that production

experience, access to information, credit, and

agricultural extension services strengthen the

ability to apply adaptive measures (Maddison,

2007; Nhemachena & Hassan, 2007)

An Giang farmers choose rice as the main crop

for their agricultural livelihood from the time of

reclamation as a behavior due to a natural

environment with a favorable climate,

hydrology, and soil However, under the impact

of climate change and human activities, the

production environment has provided many

adverse changes for farmers Besides,

commodity-oriented farmers need to ensure

livelihood security and survival levels have led

to market risks

For environmentally sensitive livelihoods such

as rice cultivation, changes in flood and drought

levels create risks that could lead to vulnerable

livelihood The level of vulnerability depends in part on the adaptability of farmers through access to and ownership of livelihood assets that support livelihood strategies Therefore, the understanding and assessment of the status of household livelihood assets are necessary for the context of many changes in the production environment From there, some strategies for improving livelihoods have been proposed, with implications for farmers to reduce vulnerability and poverty

2 METHOD

The paper is based on i) Secondary data studies

on farmer’s livelihood and livelihood adaptation; ii) Primary data from a survey of

240 rice farmers in Tri Ton, An Giang on the status of livelihood assets and awareness of flood and drought Also, in order to quantify access to livelihood assets in support of adaptive strategies, the paper also provides an index to measure it adapt to (Hahn, Riederer, &

Foster, 2009) through several steps as follows:

Step 1: Overviewing of rice cultivation

livelihood research for the selection of indicators

Step 2: Classifying the selected indicators into

five types of livelihood assets

Step 3: Weighting for each criterion of an

indicator as follows:

Table 1 Weight for Criteria

Step 4: Providing a set of official Indicators:

Table 2 The Indicator of Measuring Livelihood Assets

Human Capital

(H) Education

Lowest through primary school 0.33

High school through highest 1.00

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Capital Indicator Criteria Weight

Health

Household size

Farming method

Apply science and technology 0.67

Agricultural training

Sometimes (<3 times/year) 0.67 Frequently (>=3 times/year) 1.00

Weather and pest information update

Market information update

Social Capital

(S)

Neighbors’ support

Relationship’s support

production support

Local government's life support

Sometimes (<3 times/year) 0.67 Frequently (>=3 times/year) 1.00 Agricultural extension

center’s support

Sometimes (<3 times/year) 0.67

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Frequently (>=3 times/year) 1.00

Financial Capital

(F)

Starting capital

Loan from friends, neighbors

Official loan (bank, credit fund )

Non-official loan (black-market, trade credit )

Income

More income than rice cultivation (<2

More income than rice cultivation (>=2

Physical Capital

(P)

Housing

Running water

Traffic vehicle

Means of production

Traffic road

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Rice variety

Natural Capital

(N)

Land area

Land quality

Water supply

Water quality

Bad (Pollution beyond standards) 0.33

Step 5: Setting the Calculated Formula

Table 3 The Calculated Formula

Adaptive Capacity Index ACI= (H+S+F+P+N)/5

Calculated results are divided into three levels

Table 4 Classifying the Calculated Result

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Farmer household adaptability assessment is the

process that corresponds to vulnerability

assessment and is considered a base-line

prerequisite for adaptation (Nelson, Adger, &

Brown, 2007) This process requires an understanding of the farmer's perceptions of environmental change, internal and external

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resources, the ability to combine these

resources, and some factors affecting the

adaptive capacity Such as assessing the

adaptability of rice farmers based on i)

perceptions of environmental change (flood and

drought); and sustainable access to livelihood

assets such as human capital, social capital,

financial capital, physical capital, and natural

capital

3.1 Farmers’ Perceptions of Environmental

Change

3.1.1 Floods

Floods are a natural phenomenon occurring

from July to November in An Giang province

Floods bring a large amount of sediment to improve the fertility of the soil and clean the fields They also create income for people through fishing and tourism services (Đào Công Tiến, 2001; Nguyễn Thế Bình, 2011) However, construction works such as closed dikes and hydro-electric dams have reduced their benefits, causing a significant impact on production The monitoring results from the MODIS satellite image show that the period 2009-2015 saw a severe decline in the flooded areas in An Giang province, especially in the research-targeted areas such as Tri Ton (Fig 1)

Figure 1 Distribution of Flooded Area in An Giang province During 2009-2015

Source: (Phạm Duy Tiễn, 2016)

In Tri Ton, the percentage of farmers who think

that the flood level has decreased significantly

compared to previous floods accounted for

87.31% while only 49.46% think flood level

decrease had an impact on rice cultivation

Thus, although farmers perceive that flooding decreases, they do not think that the change has affected production (Table 5)

Table 5 Perceptions of farmers about flood change

Impact

Source: Survey data in May 2017

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3.1.2 Droughts

Droughts can occur year-round in the Mekong

Delta, mainly meteorological droughts

However, climate change has increased the

area, intensity, and frequency of droughts The

monitoring results from the period 2010-2015 showed an expanded tendency in drought areas, especially semi-mountainous areas such as Tinh Bien-Tri Ton (Fig 2)

Figure 2 Distribution of Drought Areas in An Giang During 2010-2015

Source: (NRED, 2016)

Based on production experience, most of the

respondents said that drought had increased

over the previous period (87.46%) and had a

negative impact on production (62.11%) (Table

6)

Local farmers are relatively well aware of

environmental changes, agreeing that there has

been decreasing flood and increasing drought

activity Based on that perception, farmers form

the notion of possible risks affecting rice yields and postharvest consumption resulting in adaptive measures to mitigate losses such as the transfer of crop plants, the storage of production water, and a reduction of chemical fertilizer use However, in the study area, 58.33% of farmers agreed that the production environment had changed but had not yet taken adaptive measures (Table 7)

Table 6 Perceptions of Farmers About Drought Change

Impact Perception

Table 7 Farmers' Perceptions of the Implementation of Adaptation Measures

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Proceed (%) Not proceed (%) Total (%)

Therefore, although farmers may have access to

the information on environmental change

through the media and have agreed in theory,

very few farmers have taken adaptive measures

to mitigate their livelihood risks

3.2 Farmers’ Access to Livelihood Assets

3.2.1 Human Capital

The first livelihood asset which affects farmer

household livelihood outcome is human capital

This is a significant asset within a farmer's

internal resources; a resource which effectively

governs the use of the remaining assets to

achieve the desired livelihood outcomes (DFID, 1999) Evaluation of human capital is based on indicators such as education, health, household size, farming techniques, and access to information From the calculation results, the human capital in the study area was moderate (H = 0.52) Among them, the lowest was householder’s education (0.25), and the highest was householder’s health (0.64) In general, there were 59.17% of farmers with low human capital and 36.83% of them with moderate human capital (Table 8)

Table 8 The Status of Human Capital

3.2.2 Social Capital

The second livelihood asset, which affects

farmer household livelihood outcomes is social

capital This is considered a safety net and

compensates for the shortage of other types of

capital to ensure livelihoods (DFID, 1999) The

assessment of social capital is an examination

of the ability of external support to develop the

adaptive capacity for the farmer household

through aspects such as support among farmers,

their friends and neighbors, as well as government and social organizations Locally, the results showed that social capital was low (S = 0.45) In particular, the local government's support (policy) was lowest (0.37), and the agricultural extension center’s support was highest (0.68) In terms of distribution, 59.17%

of farmers had low social capital, 36.04% of them had moderate social capital (Table 9)

Table 9.The Status of Social Capital

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Moderate 36.04

3.2.3 Financial Capital

The third livelihood asset, which affects the

farmers’ household livelihood outcomes is

financial capital This is the most flexible asset

and can be converted to the remaining assets

(DFID, 1999), evaluating financial capital

through ownership and access to capital for

production and income diversification In the

study area, the results show that financial capital was low (F = 0.39), with the lowest being starting capital (0.30) and the highest being conventional loans (0.67) Also, 63.13%

of farmers had low financial capital, and 33.12% of them had moderate financial capital (Table 10)

Table 10 The Status of Financial Capital

3.2.4 Physical Capital

The fourth livelihood asset, which affects the

farmers’ household livelihood outcome is

physical capital This is an asset that enhances

farmers' access and connectivity and actively

supports livelihood strategies (DFID, 1999)

The assessment of physical capital can be made

through the consideration of housing, running

water, vehicles, production means, and roadways

From the results of the calculation, physical capital was moderate (P = 0.53), of which the lowest value was production means (0.14), and the highest value was housing ( 0.67) Also, in the local residents, 50.92% of farmers had moderate physical capital, and 43.88% of them had low physical capital (Table 11)

Table 11 The Status of Physical Capital

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3.2.5 Natural Capital

The final livelihood asset, which affects the

farmers’ household livelihood outcome is

natural capital This is an essential input source

for agricultural livelihood, not only in regards

to ownership but also exposure (DFID, 1999)

The assessment of natural capital can be made

through area and quality of cultivated land,

supply, and quality water sources for

production From the calculation results, the natural capital in the study area was low (N = 0.48), in which the lowest value was the land area (0.32) and the highest value was water quality (0.67) According to the results from Table 12, 54.58% of farmers had low natural capital, and 43.13% of them had moderate natural capital

Table 12 The Status of Natural Capital

Through the process of understanding and

assessing the status of livelihood assets of rice

farmers in the Tri Ton district, An Giang

province, most of the livelihood assets are

evaluated from low to moderate, lowest

financial capital (F = 0.41) and highest physical

capital (P = 0.53) (Fig 3) In future, as production risks increase, farmers will not improve their livelihood assets; their adaptive capacity will decline, and their livelihoods will

be compromised, leading to lower incomes and

a rising risk of poverty

Figure 3 The Status of Farmers’ Household Livelihood Assets

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