Agricultural Growth and Poverty Pockets (AGROPOP)

Professor Henrik Hansen  is PI of the research project 'Agricultural Growth and Poverty Pockets'. The Danida funded project is in collaboration with Professor Niels Fold from the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management  and Dr. Vo Thanh Danh, Dean of the School of Economics and Business Administration, Can Tho University.

Background

Several countries in Asia have experienced rapid growth and diversification of agricultural production due to combined demand from both the domestic and the global markets. The growth and diversification processes take place in agricultural growth regions, where state policies (infrastructural expansion, institutional strengthening, etc.) and private commercial activities (creation and development of agriculturally-based value chains) have favourably interacted. Interestingly, however, such agricultural growth regions often embed geographically concentrated areas (‘pockets’) where poverty prevails. The main objective of the project is to understand this co-existence of high agricultural growth and poverty pockets. The project aims to develop robust technical methods to identify and assess poverty pockets and to produce policy guidelines for alleviating the local poverty.

The project is implemented in the Mekong River Delta (MRD) in Vietnam where production of rice has dominated for centuries but now is being supplemented by production of fruit sea-food and cocoa.  The MRD has experienced high agricultural growth for a prolonged period resulting in an impressive poverty reduction. Even so, poverty rates vary greatly across the provinces and even within the provinces. This makes the MRD an ideal place to study the co-existence of local growth miracles and poverty pockets.

Overall objective

The overall objective of the project is to provide a better understanding of the processes that create and shape geographically concentrated areas ('pockets') of poverty in regions marked by agricultural growth and diversification.

The objective will be approached by looking into the following set of interlinked, immediate objectives:

• To conceptualize poverty pockets in agricultural growth regions
• To theorize the relationship between the (local and global) drivers of agricultural growth regions and the development of poverty pockets
• To develop cross-disciplinary methods to identify and explain poverty pockets using both qualitative and quantitative approaches
• To assess the nature of poverty traps, i.e. potentially persistent poverty pockets

Empirically, the aim of this project is to examine the poverty dimension of the agricultural growth and diversification process that unfolds in the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam.

Participating Researchers

Henrik Hansen (Professor, Department of Economics)
Niels Fold (Professor, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management)
Vo Thanh Danh (Dean, SEBA, Can Tho University)
Mai Van Nam (Associate professor former Dean, SEBA, Can Tho University)
Troung Dong Loc (Associate professor, SEBA, Can Tho University)
Le Dang Trung (Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Food and Resource Economics)

Neda Trifkovic (PhD Candidate, Department of Food and Resource Economics)
Mads M. Hauge (PhD Candidate, Dept. of Geosciences and Nat. Resource Management)
Tran Ba Tri (PhD Candidate, SEBA, Chan Tho University)
Nguyen Huu Tam (PhD Candidate, SEBA, Chan Tho University)
La Nguyen Thuy Dung (PhD Candidate, SEBA, Chan Tho University)
Nguyen Quoc Nghi (PhD Candidate, SEBA, Chan Tho University)

Publications