Characteristics of market-oriented rice production of farmers in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

This study of rice production in Thoai Son district of An Giang province points out that the characteristics of rice farmers’ market-oriented production are constantly expanding areas of production; getting loans to invest on intensive production; applying advanced technology-mechanization; and participating or not participating in agricultural value chain.

Underlying these characteristics is the choice making of farmer households which are determined by their interests. In the present context of rice producing when rice farmers’ economic behaviors result from the interaction of their rational calculation and the market structure, farmers’ interests contradict with those of state models or designs for rice production development, it is true that farmers’ rationality at household levels can be seen as an obsable to the efforts of establishing a big and modern rice industry.