Building Sustainable Farmer Cooperatives in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam: Is Social Capital the Key?

Rankin MK¹*

1. The University of Queensland, Gatton, Queensland, Australia

The notion of farmer cooperatives as tool for rural organisation has a long history in Vietnam. Whilst the term “cooperative” during the Socialist era was used to denote a collective economy organisation controlled by the state, since the policy renovation of 1986 and introduction of the Cooperative Law in 1997, the definition has been altered to embrace the International Cooperative Alliance ‘Principles of Cooperation’ including volunteerism and democratic member control. In recent years the Government of Vietnam has encouraged the formation of “new-style cooperatives” as a key strategy for combating rural poverty as part of a broader rural development plan.

In 2001–2003 an AusAID CARD project was undertaken in collaboration with the University of Queensland, Curtin University and the Southern Fruit Research Institute. The project worked with mango farming communities in two provinces in Southern Vietnam, Tien Giang and Tra Vinh. These communities were assisted in the process of forming farmer cooperatives as a means of improving access to production technology and increasing market influence. After some three years’ operation, the four farmer groups/cooperatives are still functioning. The cooperatives have branched out into activities such as nursery production of mango seedlings, village farm-input supply shops, cooperative-owned mango retail shop, a microfinance program and commercial supply contracts for fruit processing and supermarket supply.

This paper will highlight the development of the farmer groups and discuss the ongoing requirement of building bottom-up social capital if these groups are to remain economically competitive and sustainable with declining government intervention and support in the future.

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