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Vietnam’s seafood boom: Economic growth with impoverishment?

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Abstract

By 2050 most seafood will be sourced through aquaculture, with a range of production intensities being required to sustain livelihoods and to meet future needs from seafood. This makes Vietnam a particularly insightful case, since Vietnam is at the forefront of the trend toward greater aquaculture production. Our aim in this paper is to examine the social-ecological sustainability of small producer livelihoods contributing to Vietnam’s seafood boom. This paper uses original survey data to understand the range of fishery-based livelihoods that have contributed to Vietnam being a leading global exporter of seafood. We investigate the kinds of fishery-based livelihood activities that households are engaged in, consider the type and amount (kilograms) of species caught or farmed annually, and examine household perceptions’ of change in species quantity. We find that Vietnam’s seafood sector is facing real sustainability challenges: Nearly 30 % of small producers—fishers and fish farmers—within our sample rest at or below Vietnam’s rural poverty line. Ecological decline and disease in farmed fish is perceived to be a serious issue for all fishers. In this context, policy and management interventions need to better reflect social and ecological variability, adopt an integrated coastal systems perspective across fisheries and aquaculture, and consider the most impact-effective poverty interventions.

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Notes

  1. Vietnam has a medium human development index (HDI), with a ranking of 127 out of 187 (UNDP 2013).

  2. In aquaculture, the blue revolution refers to the overall increase in the availability of fish for human consumption vis-à-vis farmed fish (see Ponte et al. 2014).

  3. The Vietnam Living Standards Measurement Survey (VLSMS) is a comprehensive household survey carried out biennially between 2002 and 2010 by Vietnam’s General Statistical Office. We drew from the 2010 version of the VLSMS in designing our survey questionnaire. The VLSMS, as found in many other countries, is based on a design developed by the World Bank.

  4. The survey questionnaire, variable dictionary, and database are available from the authors.

  5. The identification of the three districts for our research was based on national-level statistical data, with four communes per district then being selected with a target response of 50 households per commune. These communes were identified in consultation with the provincial department of fisheries to ensure that the range of fishing and fish farming activities found within each district would be represented. Depending on the commune, up to eight villages were surveyed. The inclusion of households was based on neighborhood-stratified random sampling.

  6. The survey fieldwork was carried out by Vietnamese surveyors affiliated with the Hue University of Agriculture and Camau Agricultural Extension Centre. Data were inputted by the Hue University survey team with final editing undertaken at the University of Ottawa.

  7. 85 % of the survey respondents identified themselves as the household head.

  8. However, in some cases, primary activity could not be unambiguously identified on the basis of income because of missing data, incorrectly reported data, or equal incomes in more than one livelihood category. In these situations, incomes were imputed and additional information from the survey was considered in order to assign the primary activity.

  9. Some wage and self-employment work could fall within the fishing sector (hiring out one’s labor or to operating a fisheries-related business, such as fish processing or distribution), although many households in this ‘other’ category have a main income source outside the fisheries sector (e.g., government work, factory work, operating a local store). What this survey did not capture were individuals involved as laborers in the offshore fisheries sector. Interviews with boat owners suggested that labor shortages are mainly filled by migrant laborers from throughout Vietnam.

  10. In USD, average annual household income within our data set ranged from $3,142 and $31,175 per household per year, or $655 and $6,495 per capita per year. Nearshore fishers, extensive fish farmers and those in the other category all are well under Vietnam’s average annual household income ($18,946). Conversion rate average for 2012 is 1USD = 20,689.9 VND.

  11. Song Doc is a particularly prosperous fishing and fish-processing community located on Vietnam’s west coast, with offshore vessels targeting tuna, squid and mackerel. Because of the very high earnings of (offshore) fishing households primarily in this commune and the much lower earnings of (largely nearshore) fishing households in many other communes, income inequality is very high across our data set. Survey data and qualitative information collected in follow-up interviews reinforced the relative prosperity of offshore fishing households based on major investments in boats, engines and gear to enable offshore fishing.

  12. Interviews with boat owners revealed benefit-sharing arrangements between boat owners, a captain and crew. While the details of profit-sharing varied, all benefit-sharing arrangements were based on catch volume and operational costs.

  13. Note that 17 households in our sample had missing data for horsepower, meaning these numbers are slightly different from Table 2. In USD, households with an engine of 30 horsepower or less had an average income of $4737, households with an engine over 30 until 90 earned an average annual income of $11,890 and households with horsepower greater than 90 earned $37,168.

  14. Aquatic species were identified in the Vietnam Fisheries Transitions Survey by their common Vietnamese name and later translated into English. The Vietnamese fish checklist at fishbase.org was used to identify the most specific biological nomenclature possible for common fish names. Although some marine and brackish water fish species could only be specified to the level of class, subclass, order, or suborder, many were identifiable to the level of family, genus and species. It was easier to specify farmed fish species, since the number of farmed species is limited, in comparison to capture fisheries. We verified our final list with Vietnamese fisheries experts. We have included the family, genus and species, where identifiable, after the common English name the first time an aquatic species is mentioned in Sects. 3.2.2 and 3.3.2.

  15. Although a total of nine tuna species can be found in the offshore and shallower waters, skipjack tuna (P. pelamis) accounts for 93 % of all landings. Tuna resources have not been assessed, with little data existing regarding this fishery. Vietnam is the third largest tuna importer globally, with tuna and tuna products mainly exported to the US, EU and Japan (Vu and Nguyen 2012).

  16. This works out to be USD 3571 and 3480 per household, respectively.

  17. Vietnam’s rural poverty rate rests between VND 400,000 (USD 227) and VND 653,000 (USD 371) per year, depending on how it is calculated (Badiani et al. 2013). We use the higher annual poverty rate of 653,000 VND to illustrate the economic challenges facing many nearshore fishers, extensive fish farmers and those practicing a mix of activities found in the other category. Note that when using the poverty rate of VND 400,000, 10 % of households in our sample lie at or below the poverty line.

  18. Fish meal is often home made in Vietnam, relying on a mix of trash fish, rice bran, broken rice and extracted soybean plus a combination of vitamins, enzymes or binders.

  19. Sea level is expected to increase by 75 cm by 2200 (MNRE 2009).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dr. Peter Vandergeest and the Critical Asian Political Ecologies Seminar at York University for the invitation to present a draft of this paper and for valuable questions and feedback. Special thanks to Nga Thi Thanh Ho for coordinating, translating, and providing critical insights into field research. We also thank Dr. Tuyen Van Truong, Rebecca Taves, Di Chen, along with the villagers, local leaders, and provincial level staff that took to meet with us throughout the research process. Thanks to Sarah Simpkin at the University of Ottawa for her mapping support. The author’s gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Finally, we thank the constructive feedback from two anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft.

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  1. University of Ottawa, 120 University Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada

    Melissa Marschke & Gordon Betcherman

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  1. Melissa Marschke
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Correspondence to Melissa Marschke.

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Marschke, M., Betcherman, G. Vietnam’s seafood boom: Economic growth with impoverishment?. Environ Dev Sustain 18, 1129–1150 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-015-9692-4

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