A typical farmer family in Central Vietnam
Central Region in Vietnam is a coastal area with long beach and narrow width of mainland. Therefore, it has typical weather with many natural disasters such as flooding and drought, typhoon.
Farmers in this area are facing various difficulties because of lacking farming land, inequality soil and poor mitigation.
After finish cultivation, people in farming areas have no work to do, they move to big cities such as Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City to seek money. A lot of young people are migrating in Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Taipan, etc as labor migrants with hope about new opportunities for themselves and their family.
This family has 6 members, 2 grandparents are under 70 years old, 2 parents are under 45 years old, 1 primary child and 1 secondary child. They have 1,5 ha of agricultural land, around 15,000m2.
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| Calendar timeline on family income of a farmer family in Centra Vietnam |
Normally, income of a farming family in Central Vietnam is based on rice. They just can grow 2 times per year, differ from Northern and Southern of Vietnam, where rice can be cultivated 3 or even 4 times per year.
On October and May, this family harvest their rice, that why they have big amount. Other months in year, their income depends on poultry which are taking care by grandparents. They are old and decide to work something at home while a younger couple is responsible on farm with rice and vegetable.
Cultivation on farm often start on December and June, so the farmer family spend big amount at this time:
1, For machinery of tractor: 2 days/time x 50 USD /time x 2 times = 100 USD
2, For water from irrigation: 10 USD/ month x 12 months = 120 USD
3, For fertilizer: 200 USD/ time x 2 times= 400 USD
4, For pesticide: 50 USD/time x 2 times = 100 USD
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| Excel table of the family income in details |
1, For primary child: 20 USD/month x 12 months = 240 USD
2, For secondary child: 25 USD/ month x 12 months = 300 USD
Health services often are used by the primary child and 2 grandparents. This amount is not regular, it just is used when any member in family has problem.
Traditionally, Vietnamese families often save their money for Tet holiday, Lunar New Year Festival in Vietnam. At this time, they do nothing, just stay at home, visit relatives, neighbours and friends. They give small amount for children as lucky money. This amount is calculated in Entertainment Expenditure. For Entertainment Expenditure, we account mobile phone fee also. Estimately, in rural areas, just only young adult use this service for communication and relax. They spend around 11 USD/ month for both mobile phones.
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| Group Presentation |
This insight is important because the poor status of farmer families in Central Vietnam is in linkages with many issues such as the rice policy, education for children, or health care services. Personally, I am really interested in this because I have never understood clearly how many difficulties a typical farmer family has to face with their income problem. I have never explained exactly why poverty is maintained generations to generations in rural areas?
Importantly, based on this income calculation of typical farmer family in Central Vietnam, the government and other civil society (NGO, Farmer Union, Women Union, etc) can recognize where is the problem of farmer families, hence they can develop suitable strategies to deal with that. In all honest, as a project officer often take care development projects in rural and highland areas, I should know what kind of difficulties of my target groups for effective and meaning project proposals.
This insight expands my mind on rural areas' issues. It not only helps me apply the family budget planning to manage my household expenditure but also raises some ideas on support for this farmer group. I think that we should facilitate more livelihood programs in this areas. I hope that by effective alternatives livelihood modes, farmer families in Central Vietnam can built up their household income stability step by step.
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