Looking for food : the difficult journey of the Hmong in Vietnam : (anthropological perspectives on food security)

Abstract

Finding food was the difficult journey for the Hmong in the past, and it remains so at present. Projective reports indicate that it will be difficult in the future also. Having lived in the northern highlands for several centuries, the Hmong’s primary food production activities are shifting cultivation, livestock breeding, and terrace field farming. Recently their forests have been seriously destroyed and under the provisions of the 1993 Land Law, their cultivable land has been limited. Moreover, their isolated communities, their low level of education, and their lack of information denied them access to scientific and technological advances and the market economy. These are the main reasons for the Hmong’s current state of poverty as well as low and unsustainable food security. To achieve food security in the future, they have to solve the following contradictions: land limitation verses increasing population, food production verses conserving forest and water resources; the need for production development verses low level of education, and the changing forms of livelihood verses traditional customs