The Vietnamese government has expended considerable effort to improve productivity in the rice industry in the past three decades. However, the role of rice has diminished in recent years and rice farmers have benefited little from exports of high volume but low-quality rice. This study revisits the efficiency of rice farming in Vietnam. Findings indicate only a marginal improvement in rice production efficiency over the past ten years, despite the substantial resources invested.

In this PhD seminar, Huong Do will present a study which confirms that fragmentation is a significant obstacle to improving rice production efficiency. Taking into account the existence of increasing returns to scale coupled with small average farm size, the necessity of policies and actions to bring about land consolidation is clear. Results also indicate that higher levels of mechanisation and the production of premium rice varieties bring higher financial benefits to farmers.