By Stephen Robson
HANOI — The village of Co Nhue is north of the city. Some four kilometres long, it stretches along the highway to the airport.
I visited Co Nhue to meet with representatives from the Peasants Association in the village. Hoang Thu Chau, a 45-year-old woman, is president of the association. About 740 people are members, paying what is — even by Vietnamese standards — a nominal fee of 2000 dong per year.
Five women are members of the 11-person executive. Eight are members of the Communist Party. The executive is elected from a village congress, held every three years. The executive meets monthly, and there are quarterly meetings of the association.
In this village the association has arranged an old age pension of 100 kilos of rice per year. It also provides assistance for funeral costs.
The thatched roofs were being replaced by tiles, a sign of the relative prosperity in the region. Seventy per cent of households now have colour television sets, and half have motorbikes.
In this village about a quarter of the peasant households are considered rich, with incomes greater than 2 million dong per year. The poor, defined as those earning an less than 1 million dong, make up 5%.
Chau explained through a translator that about 600 square metres of farming land exist for every person. The rice yield is about 6.8 tonnes per hectare each year.
The village is not involved only in food production. A typical household would have two or three sewing machines to produce clothes.
Travelling back to Hanoi, we met Chu Vien, the president of the Peasants Association throughout the city.
He explained that each of the 131 farm villages in Hanoi has a peasant association.
The association estimates that about 16% of peasants households earn more than 2 million dong each year. A few years ago this figure would have been only 3-4%, Vien explained.
However, throughout Hanoi 10% of households still have incomes of less than 400,000 dong per year.
Before the economic renovation hardly any households had sewing machines, relying almost totally on food production. Now many machines are in existence.
Villagers can now do anything that is profitable. In the past, "we were ordered what to do", Vien explained.
Vien cited lack of capital and experience as two of the most important reasons for continued poverty.
Vien also thought that changes to the agricultural tax would be helpful. In the past this was calculated simply on yield. Now the tax was on land. This puts pressure on those with land lying fallow to bring it into production.
The amount of tax depends on soil fertility.
The low price for the food the peasants produce is still a problem. To explain the impact on everyday life, Vien said that the price of a can of beer is equivalent to 4-5 kilos of rice.
Many households still do not have electricity. The aim was to have this completely accessible by the end of 1993.
In the south, in Ho Chi Minh City, representatives from the Peasant Association explained that there are 114 agricultural communes. Improvements for the peasants have included the extension of electricity, the supply of water and roads.
Here, the main reason cited for the continuing poverty amongst peasants is lack of land.
One of the key aims of the Peasants Association here is to help those who do not produce enough food even to feed themselves. In some cases this means up to three months' supply.
In the Cu Chi area, famous for its network of tunnels used so effectively against the US forces during the war, farmers now plant three crops each year. This has brought a general improvement in living standards, with only 5% now being poor.