This article discusses two important concepts of food security and food sovereignty in the context of Vietnam’s post-reform economy. It examines Vietnam’s persistent choice of the food security framework, its resulting policies and their implications. The article argues that the choice of food security framework has served to justify the promotion of industrial agriculture and international trade. While this model has led to increased food productivity, it failed to guarantee access to and quality of food, the other two important pillars of the food security framework.

Most of the land reforms of recent decades have followed an approach of “formalization and capitalization” of individual land titles (de Soto 2000). However, within the privatization agenda, benefits of unimproved land (such as land rents and value capture) are reaped privately by well-organized actors, whereas the costs of valorization (e.g., infrastructure) or opportunity costs of land use changes are shifted onto poorly organized groups. Consequences of capitalization and formalization include rent seeking and land grabbing.

The agricultural Sector in Cambodia still contributes the dominant quantity to the GDP. It is the most important source of income and rural livelihood for around 80% of the Cambodian population. Cambodia’s rural population faces new challenges like high population growth, embracing market economy and international private investment, nationwide food security and decreasing agricultural production conditions as a result of rapidly changing socio-economic conditions since 1990.

Today, over 80 percent of the population of Cambodia lives in rural areas and about 73 percent depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. However, only about 20 percent of the land is arable. Cambodia became a member of FAO in 1950, and an FAO Representative office was opened in 1995.

The impacts of climate change on agriculture and food production in Southeast Asia will be largely mediated through water, but climate is only one driver of change. Water resources in the region will be shaped by a complex mixture of social, economic and environmental factors.

The current study attempts to examine whether large-scale agricultural investment of this type benefits the poor and how this investment can be implemented to increase benefits for the poor. It is arguable whether the poor need more land to grow crops to meet their food security requirements or need to benefit from large-scale agricultural investment in Cambodia. Although the poor households are capable of operating small plots of a few hectares each, they generally lack capital and the means to work large chunks of new land with forests or degrade forests.

This paper focuses on legal and economic instruments of the multi-donor-driven land reform in Cambodia with its overarching aim of achieving tenure security and reparation after the Khmer Rouge. Land tenure applies to state public/state private property and private property. The essential property form for public land management is state public property. This property must be interpreted in the future as the property of Cambodian people that serves all human beings in the country.

FIRST PARAGRAPH OF OVERVIEW: This paper is part of a study “Policy Analysis for the Development of Land Policy for Socio- Economic Development.” Land policy relates to the institutional arrangements through which the Government of Vietnam defines which individuals and groups have access to rights in land and the circumstances that apply to gaining and retaining that access.

Agricultural accumulation has been one of the main source determined the social differentiation in Vietnamese countryside. The complexities of agrarian changes under the post - socialist industrialization with high rate of agricultural land conversion in recent context reveal the new forms of capital accumulation and social differentiation. This research investigates how land conversion process to industrial zones and clusters affected to the way that different groups of peasant households accumulate their resources.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE SUMMARY: Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land grab differ from those in regions such as Africa. At a glance, Europe is not a high profile, major driver of land-grabbing in this region, but a closer examination reveals that it nonetheless is playing a significant role. This influence is both direct and indirect, through European corporate sector and public policies, as well as through multilateral agencies within which EU states are members.

In recent years the Lao government has provided many foreign investors with large-scale economic land concessions to develop plantations. These concessions have resulted in significant alterations of landscapes and ecological processes, greatly reduced local access to resources through enclosing common areas, and ultimately leading to massive changes in the livelihoods of large numbers of mainly indigenous peoples living near these concessions.

The research team set out to answer three research questions: 1) What are rubber investment’s key features with regard to the investment process, investor identity, location, activities and scale? 2) How was the “upland” landscape originally zoned and mapped as part of the LFA process, and later re-zoned and mapped by local authorities and foreign investors? 3) What are the impacts of rubber investment in upland areas on the land use and livelihoods of the villagers involved?