Vietnamese Struggle to Secure Food
Forced to choose between feeding her five-year-old son and affording to send him to school, Bui Thi Thu needed a solution. Money had not always been so tight for the 32-year-old subsistence farmer and her husband, a wage worker, living in Hien Luong.
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In the past, the couple’s income had been more than enough to support them and they had even been able to save 1 million Vietnamese Dong a year. But with food prices more than doubling in recent months, the family has plunged into debt, now having expended their savings and turning to loans to survive.
In the last decade, Vietnam has experienced booming economic growth, leading to predictions that it would follow in the steps of “Asian Tigers” such as Singapore and Taiwan, who had achieved breakneck growth through their export-driven economic models. Yet, while Vietnam’s economic growth led to national wealth, increasing the size of the middle class, the nation’s poor have not fully benefited from the boom.
When a household’s expenditures are so low that even if it were entirely allocated to buying food, it would not be enough to attain 2,100 calories per person per day, a household is considered “food poor.” In Vietnam, food poverty affects nearly 9 percent of rural households and 29 percent of ethnic minority households.
Over the last year, the situation has worsened as record inflation rates made having enough food a luxury for some. As a whole, there are around 13.5 million people living in poverty in Vietnam, with between 5 million and 6 million people here classifying as food poor. In recent months, Vietnam’s export-driven economy has been hurt by the worldwide economic crisis, which could make life for Vietnam's poor people more difficult.
Nguyen Thi Tuyet, 43, lives in the Huong Pho, Duc Huong commune, Vu Quang district, Ha Tinh province of Vietnam. Tuyet, a widow and mother of three, earns a living by cultivating beans, peanuts, sweet corn and rice.
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ActionAid is using a multifaceted approach to address food rights in Vietnam. At the advocacy level, ActionAid is empowering poor people to fight for their rights while campaigning for national and international policies.
In 2005, two ActionAid partners -- the Consultative Institute for Socio-Economic Development of Rural Mountainous Areas and the Vietnam Action Network for Food Security -- joined a host of other Vietnamese NGOs and found the Civil Society Inclusion in Food Security and Poverty Elimination Network (CIFPEN). Seeking to collaborate for more affective contributions towards Vietnam’s development, CIFPEN is engaging in monitoring activities and has produced several studies on Vietnam food rights issues.
As ActionAid continues to be involved in long-term projects, as we also address the immediate needs of poor people. At the local level, ActionAid is working to ensure that poor people have access to diversified livelihood options and techniques. Such options could include off-farming activities that produce additional income or simply changes in farming tactics that lead to better results.
Le Van Hen, for example, found that when he planted the 36 bamboo seeds given to him by ActionAid, they produced a greater income than the vegetable garden he had used previously.
For Bui Thi Thu, this strategy of diversification means that sending her son to school may no longer be out of reach. She plans to raise pigs to generate additional income using the animal raising training she received from ActionAid.