In Vietnam, the total area of ​​agricultural land is more than 27 million hectares. According to FAO statistics in 2018, Vietnam’s average agricultural land per farmer is 0.5 hectares, the humblest proportion in Southeast Asia (only higher than that of Singapore). According to a National Assembly report on monitoring the implementation of policies and laws on residential and agricultural land for ethnic minorities, there are still more than 300,000 ethnic minority households nationwide lacking residential land and arable land.

Vietnam is facing with a number of big challenges in agriculture land management. Apart from the shortage of farming land, the country has to cope with: (i) the slow transfer of land from less to more productive farmers; (ii) ineffective use of land (most of the land is for rice production); (iii) slow granting of land-use right certificates prevent farmers from mortgaging land for bank loans for production expansion among other managerial problems. Since agricultural production will increasingly depend on the efficiency of resource use, the development of value chains, and effective investment rather than intensive rice production as in the past, the remaining issues will restrict land accumulation, and as the result it would be difficult for Vietnam to scale up agricultural production, apply high-technology and the diversify farm produce. The State’s strategic orientation on land is subject to be reviewed and revised after ten years. The Government’s resolution No. 19-NQ/TW dated October 31, 2012 on the continuous amendment of policies and laws on land and the Land Law 2013 will turn to its 10-cycle next year. Therefore, this year is the suitable time for us to do a research on land law implementation and specifically agricultural land management. 

The English research summary can be found here.