TY - JOUR

T1 - Determinants of Farmers’ Land Use Decision-Making

T2 - Comparative Evidence From Thailand and Vietnam

AU - Nguyen, Trung Thanh

AU - Nguyen, Loc Duc

AU - Lippe, Rattiya Suddeephong

AU - Grote, Ulrike

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the farmers of Ubon Ratchathani and Ha Tinh for their support and cooperation. The constructive comments from the Editor-in-Chief and three anonymous referees are highly appreciated. We acknowledge the financial support of the German Research Foundation (DFG ? FOR 756). We thank Jean-Lionel Payeur-Poirier for proof-reading. Publisher Copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd Copyright: Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2017/1/1

Y1 - 2017/1/1

N2 - Understanding farmers’ land use decision-making is of interest to policy makers and scientific communities. Furthermore, comparing farmers’ land use decision-making between countries offers a functioning instrument to enhance this understanding, since one country can benefit from the experiences of another. This study extends the sustainable livelihoods framework to examine and compare the factors affecting farmers’ land use decision-making regarding land use choices and crop diversification. A panel dataset of 514 farm households in Ha Tinh (Vietnam) and 422 farm households in Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand) collected in 2007 and 2013 is used for the analyses. The results reveal that (i) farmers’ land use decision-making is determined by various factors representing the livelihood platforms, weather shock experience and expectation, and physical-economic conditions of the living localities, and (ii) crop diversification is a weather shock-coping strategy of rural households. We suggest that (i) promoting farm land reconsolidation and privatization, (ii) enhancing access to credit sources and national electricity networks, and (iii) improving rural road conditions and attracting investments in rural non-agricultural sectors contribute to reducing farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability.

AB - Understanding farmers’ land use decision-making is of interest to policy makers and scientific communities. Furthermore, comparing farmers’ land use decision-making between countries offers a functioning instrument to enhance this understanding, since one country can benefit from the experiences of another. This study extends the sustainable livelihoods framework to examine and compare the factors affecting farmers’ land use decision-making regarding land use choices and crop diversification. A panel dataset of 514 farm households in Ha Tinh (Vietnam) and 422 farm households in Ubon Ratchathani (Thailand) collected in 2007 and 2013 is used for the analyses. The results reveal that (i) farmers’ land use decision-making is determined by various factors representing the livelihood platforms, weather shock experience and expectation, and physical-economic conditions of the living localities, and (ii) crop diversification is a weather shock-coping strategy of rural households. We suggest that (i) promoting farm land reconsolidation and privatization, (ii) enhancing access to credit sources and national electricity networks, and (iii) improving rural road conditions and attracting investments in rural non-agricultural sectors contribute to reducing farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability.

KW - fixed effects models

KW - panel data

KW - rural livelihoods

KW - seemingly (un)related regression (SURE)

KW - weather shocks

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84988734519&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.08.010

DO - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.08.010

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84988734519

VL - 89

SP - 199

EP - 213

JO - World Development

JF - World Development

SN - 0305-750X

ER -