Vietnam
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam 
is located in South East Asia and has borders with China, Laos and Cambodia. It has an area of 331,212 Sq Km, is shaped like an "S" with an over all length of 3,260 km and has a population of 84,685,000 and a population density of 255 persons / sq km.
It is a country that has challenging climatic conditions with high temperatures, monsoon rains and strong winds that result in significant degradation of the environment through soil erosion and flash flooding and the need for high levels of expenditure to repair damage done on an annual basis.
Vietnam has a dynamic, increasingly globally integrated economy with 
strong recent track record of broad-based growth and poverty reduction. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7 % per year over the past decade contributed to a reduction of the poverty rate to an estimated 29 %. Since the Doi Moi reform in 1986, the agricultural output and productivity have risen significantly. Food production per capita increased by 50% between 1990 and 2000 and food security has been achieved at the aggregate country level, primarily due to the dramatic increase in rice production in the Mekong and the Red River Delta. Three quarters of the population (and an even higher proportion of the poor) live in rural areas and agriculture remains by far the biggest employer
Despite this strong economic performance, GNP per capita remains relatively low at 430 US Dollar and the wealth is unevenly distributed among different parts of the population. The remote uplands in the North West of Vietnam, which are inhabited by various ethnic minorities, have largely been left out of the economic progress.
It is a region characterized by great diversity in terms of landscape, climate, natural vegetation and cultivated
crops and it harbors a rich heritage of indigenous cultures. A common feature of the region is that most of the ethnic groups who live here depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The traditional farming system practiced for centuries is shifting cultivation but increasingly the agriculture production in the uplands is undergoing transformation from subsistence-oriented production to greater market integration and more permanent and semi-permanent forms of cultivation. These processes are driven by a combination of enforcement of government policies and regulations on land use, pro-market policy reforms and improved transportation and market access, enabling commercialization of production, population growth. Pressure on land has also increased due to competing land use interests, such as commercial logging, mining and construction.
Despite being part of one of the fastest growing economic regions in the world, negative trends are becoming increasingly evident in the uplands of Vietnam. Deforestation, forest degradation, and low agricultural yields have been reported from the Vietnamese uplands and farmers are faced with problems of inadequate food security, poverty, economic and social marginality, and environmental degradation.
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