Abstract
In recent decades, the concept “precarious work” has gained great currency in the literature of the social sciences. Generally speaking, “precarious work” is defined as work that is uncertain, unstable, and insecure, wherein the preponderance of risks is borne by workers rather than by employers or government. Up until now, the concept has almost always been used with reference to wageworkers employed, whether formally or informally, in the manufacturing or service sectors. In this chapter, we broaden this valuable concept by extending it to the agricultural sector and by including various types of “insecure” agriculturalists – whether wage laborers, tenants, or owner operators – in its embrace. More specifically, we apply the concept to farmers and farming in the Mekong Delta. Rice farming in the Mekong Delta has never been easy, seldom been secure, and never been risk-free. Year-to-year fluctuations in weather conditions alone are enough to render farm life in the region so. Over the past two decades, though, uncertainty, instability, and insecurity have risen for many Delta farmers as a result of market reforms in Vietnam beginning in 1986, the vagaries of world commodity prices, changes in health care, disability, and pension schemes in the country, a variety of environmental changes associated with the modernization of rice agriculture and the increase of poorly monitored industry, and now, the threat of significant, if not drastic climate change, which has the potential to increase uncertainty, instability, and insecurity exponentially. We have used a variety of sources, including field investigations, to demonstrate the relevance of the “precarious work” concept to the Mekong Delta’s rice cultivators.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Much of the material in this section is derived from the following interviews with experts on rice production in the Mekong Delta: Interview, Vo Tong Xuan, February 3, 2009, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Interview, Senior Staff, Mekong Delta Development Research Institute (MDI), February 4, 2009, Can Tho, Vietnam; Interview with Nguyen Xuan Lai and Luu Hong Man, Cuulong Delta Rice Research Institute, February 5, 2009, Thoi Thanh, Vietnam.
- 3.
See the interviews cited in note 2. Also see “Scramble to Get Rid of Rice at Low Prices,” Thanh Nien, November 15, 2008, http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=43758.
- 4.
See interviews cited in note 2.
- 5.
One study of the Mekong Delta concludes that about 42,000 hectares of forestland were lost to rice and shrimp culture expansion between 2001 and 2005. See Nguyen (2008).
- 6.
At least one study, of rice production and climate change in China, has explained that rising CO2 levels would extend the rice-growing season, reduce low-temperature injury, and allow some northern expansion of rice-growing, although the authors also acknowledge that any gains might be reduced through increased plant diseases and pest injury and a concomitant increase in the use of pesticides, as well as a decrease in water resources available. See Yao et al. (2009).
- 7.
All three field visits and interviews, along with supplementary interviews of seed-sellers, a rice miller, a tool and implements maker, and several rice traders, were conducted over a 4-day period (February 3–6, 2009), in Long An, Dong Thap, and An Giang provinces.
- 8.
Although farmers who have adequate space in their homes to store rice usually gain a competitive market advantage by their ability to hold rice off the market until prices are best, prices are sometimes so volatile after a bumper crop or because the variety they have grown has low value that it erases this advantage. See, for example, Le An (2009).
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Coclanis, P.A., Stewart, M.A. (2011). Precarious Paddies: The Uncertain, Unstable, and Insecure Lives of Rice Farmers in the Mekong Delta. In: Stewart, M., Coclanis, P. (eds) Environmental Change and Agricultural Sustainability in the Mekong Delta. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0934-8_7
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