80 years of land management: Policy reforms for three agricultural areas

Editor's note: From the historic land reform in the early years of nation-building to the advances in modernizing management through law and digital technology, the land sector has accompanied Vietnam throughout its 80 years of national development. Vietnam Agriculture and Nature Newspaper published the series "80 Years of Land Management," retracing key policy milestones and reaffirming that land remains the foundation for agriculture, rural areas, and the nation's sustainable development.

Land reform – A historic turning point

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Bong, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Soil Science Association and former Deputy Director General of the General Department of Land Administration, emphasized that the success of the August Revolution in 1945 opened a new era of independence, freedom, and happiness for the people, while laying the groundwork for establishing the land policy and legal framework of the People's Democratic State. Since then, land policies concerning farmers, rural areas, and agriculture have consistently received the attention of the Party and the State, gradually perfecting and becoming a pillar of socio-economic development.

Immediately after the nation's founding, the First National Assembly enacted the 1946 Constitution, followed by the Direct Tax Law (1949) and the Land Reform Law (1953). The President signed a series of important decrees, including Decree No. 79/SL dated May 29, 1946; Decree No. 78/SL dated July 14, 1949, on ground rent reduction; and Decree No. 87/SL dated March 5, 1952, promulgating the Provisional Regulations on the Use of Public Land. The consistent policy was to confiscate land from colonialists and reactionary landlords for redistribution to poor peasants, while also providing guidance on rational land use.

Thanks to these policies, by 1953 the land ownership structure in the rural areas of Northern Vietnam had undergone significant change. The working peasantry, who accounted for 92.5% of the population, already held 70.7% of cultivated land. The proportion of landless peasant households dropped from 20.8% in 1945 to 14.4%. Landlord households decreased from 1,985 (3.3%) to 1,311 (1.8%), while rich peasant households fell from 1,278 (2.2%) to 854 (1.2%). This marked a historic turning point, helping to eliminate the remnants of feudalism and affirming the central role of farmers in the cause of resistance and nation-building.

In comparison with land reforms in Japan (1946) or Taiwan (1950), where the State purchased land from landlords and resold it to farmers with 10-year installments, land in Vietnam was allocated free of charge to farmers from public and confiscated land. This was a progressive measure, well-suited to the revolutionary context of the country.

During the 1955–1975 period, the land policy in Northern Vietnam focused on three major tasks: completing land reform, implementing socialist transformation, and advancing agricultural cooperation. Land legislation in this period institutionalized the Party's policy on land ownership and management, encouraged farmers to use land efficiently and rationally, and established mechanisms for distributing benefits within cooperatives and between cooperatives and the State through land taxes.

Doi Moi – Journey to affirm the role of farmers

By 1975, Northern Vietnam had 17,000 cooperatives with more than 3.38 million cooperative members, accounting for 97.45% of farmer households, of which 90.1% were advanced-level cooperatives. This concentrated land management model made essential contributions to stabilizing rural areas, developing agriculture, and ensuring a strong rear base for the resistance against America, the liberation of the South, and national reunification.

During the 1975–1985 period, alongside agricultural transformation in the South, the Party focused on reforming agricultural management. Directive 100-CT/TW (1981) on product contracting expanded land-use rights, granting cooperative members a more practical connection to production benefits. This marked an important milestone, laying the foundation for the Doi Moi (Renewal) of 1986, granting cooperative members broader, more practical land-use rights that were more closely aligned with workers’ interests, a landmark in agricultural land policy during this period.

The 1987 Land Law, one of the first laws enacted after Doi Moi, brought land management under a legal framework, creating a synchronous, unified, and complete system of land management and use regulations. It marked the maturity of state land administration under the principles of a rule-of-law state.

Subsequently, the 1993 Land Law affirmed that land is owned by the entire people and managed uniformly by the State. Households and individuals were allocated land for long-term stable use with rights to transfer, exchange, lease, inherit, and mortgage. This policy transformed land-use rights into a financial resource, boosted production, and helped Vietnam shift from a food-deficient country to the world’s leading rice exporters, with an annual volume of 4–5 million tons.

The 2003 Land Law further refined the four tools of land management: law, planning, finance, and administration. It expanded the legal rights of households and individuals to include transfer, exchange, lease, sublease, inheritance, mortgage, donation, guarantee, and capital contribution using land-use rights (a total of nine rights). Domestic economic organizations granted or leased land by the State, as well as foreign-invested enterprises leased land by the State, were also entitled to rights such as transfer, lease, sublease, mortgage, guarantee, and capital contribution.

As a result, land policies and laws gradually unlocked the potential of land resources. The value of land-use rights became a source of financial capital for production investment. The legal recognition of land transactions facilitated the formation and development of the real estate market, contributing to establishing a socialist-oriented market economy.

The 2013 Land Law institutionalized the spirit of the 11^th Party Congress, affirming the State's role as the representative owner of land while expanding rights for land users. It also introduced policies on residential and production land for ethnic minorities. Thanks to these reforms, agriculture, rural areas, and farmers' livelihoods have made significant progress.

By 2020, the total allocated land area was 26.84 million hectares, accounting for 81% of natural land area. Agricultural production land reached 11.74 million hectares, of which households and individuals used 10.57 million hectares (90%).

Agriculture maintained a growth rate of around 3.5%/year. Agricultural export turnover surged from USD 4.2 billion in 2000 to USD 40.5 billion in 2018 and USD 41.3 billion in 2020, generating a trade surplus of USD 9.5–10 billion. Vietnam has gradually become one of the world's major suppliers of agricultural products, with key commodities including rice, coffee, rubber, pepper, cashews, and seafood.

The Program on New Rural Development (2010–2020) exceeded its goals. By July 2021, 64.6% of communes nationwide met new rural standards; 194 district-level units (29%) in 51 provinces and cities met the criteria; and 12 provinces and cities had 100% of communes certified, of which four provinces were recognized for completing the program. The average per capita income in rural areas reached VND 41.7 million in 2020, which is 3.25 times higher than in 2010. The multidimensional poverty rate fell to 7.1%, down 4.7% compared to 2016.

The 2024 Land Law moves toward the modernization of agriculture

The 2024 Land Law, passed by the 15^th National Assembly on January 18, 2024, and effective from August 1, 2024, was meticulously drafted to institutionalize the principles of the 13^th Party Congress Resolution and Resolution 18-NQ/TW, introducing significant agricultural reforms.

Specifically, the law sets limits on the transfer of agricultural land: households and individuals may use up to 45 hectares of annual cropland, 150 hectares of perennial cropland in lowland areas, 450 hectares in midland and mountainous regions, and 450 hectares of protection and production forest land. These thresholds are sufficiently high to meet the demand for land in large-scale, commodity-oriented, effective agricultural production.

The law also establishes mechanisms for agricultural land concentration and consolidation. This regulation contributes to land adjustment under a socialist-oriented market mechanism, fostering consolidation and concentration toward efficient, large-scale, commodity-based agricultural production.

In addition, the law provides regulations on the management of certain land categories, including land used by agricultural and forestry companies, paddy land, land for concentrated livestock farming, and land designated for aquaculture and agro-fishery processing zones. These new provisions open major opportunities for developing modern agriculture and enhancing the added value and global competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products.

Challenges and new requirements

However, in addition to achievements, many challenges remain. Per capita land area is low: natural land averages 0.344 hectares/person, agricultural land 0.291 hectares/person, and land for agricultural production only 0.122 hectares/person. A total of 11.8 million hectares of land (35.74% of natural land area) is degraded, including 1.2 million hectares severely degraded.

Additionally, production land scale remains fragmented and much lower than in neighboring countries, averaging just 0.676 hectares/rural household and 1.25 hectares/agricultural households.  Agricultural enterprises are also limited, with only 10,065 units, accounting for just 1.3% of the total number of enterprises nationwide. Their business performance is low, with a profitability ratio of only 2.7%.

These issues require land policy to continue reforming in line with industrialization, modernization, and international integration.

According to Dr. Nguyen Dinh Bong, in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Party has issued Resolution 57-NQ/TW (2024) on breakthroughs in science, technology, innovation, and national digital transformation, along with Resolution 18-NQ/TW (2017) on streamlining the state apparatus. These provide an important basis for modernizing land management, especially in the agricultural sector.

In the future, land management and use must aim to enhance efficiency and added value; promote land consolidation and concentration; ensure sustainable protection against degradation; and create new momentum for developing high-tech, green, circular, and environmentally friendly agriculture.

Over the past 80 years, the Party and the State's land policies have been closely linked with the destiny of farmers, rural areas, and agriculture. Achievements have demonstrated that land is not only a special means of production but also a vital resource for the nation's sustainable development.

In the new stage, perfecting policies and laws on land, particularly upcoming amendments and supplements to the Land Law, will continue to pave the way for Vietnam's agriculture to grow more modern and deeply integrated, contributing to improving farmers' livelihoods, building prosperous and civilized rural areas, and accelerating the country's path toward industrialization and modernization.