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Indigenous pig production and welfare of ultra-poor ethnic minority households in the Northern mountains of Vietnam

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Abstract

Eliminating ultra-poverty has received particular attention of policymakers and scholars. The ultra-poor in mountainous regions often live on subsistence farming and natural resource extraction. One of the sustainable ways to support them is to find alternative livelihood options that reduce natural resource extraction and increase household income. During the last decades, Vietnam has reduced its poverty significantly. However, the ultra-poor still exist especially among ethnic minority groups in the northern mountains, increasing pressures on already degraded forest resources. This paper assessed the contribution of indigenous pig production to the welfare of ultra-poor ethnic minority households using the propensity score matching method and identified the factors affecting indigenous pig production using generalized Poisson, negative binomial and binary logistic regression models. The analysis was based on the data of 495 rural households surveyed in 2019. Results showed that (1) indigenous pig production had significant and positive effects on household income of and multidimensional poverty reduction among ultra-poor ethnic minority households and (2) the factors positively affecting indigenous pig production are access to credits, number of motorbikes, government support under the poverty reduction programs, road type at the villages, and irrigation systems, while the effects of distance from home to the nearest agricultural input shops and access to the national electricity are negative. We suggest the government to continue improving irrigation systems, road conditions and access to national electricity grids in this mountainous region.

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Fig. 1

Source: Developed by the research team based on the household multidimensional poverty rate in 2018

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Vietnam Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs for the research project entitled “Major solutions for sustainable poverty reduction in ethnic minority and mountainous regions of Vietnam by 2030” (CTDT.43.18/16-20 under the CTDT/16-20 program).

Funding

The financial support for this study was funded by the Vietnam Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Rural Development, Vietnam National University of Agriculture, PO Box 131000, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Ngoc-Ninh Ho, Truong Lam Do & Dinh-Thao Tran

  2. Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, Leibniz University Hannover, Königsworther Platz 1, 30167, Hannover, Germany

    Trung Thanh Nguyen

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  1. Ngoc-Ninh Ho
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Correspondence to Ngoc-Ninh Ho.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 7, 8, 9, 10, 11;

Table 7 Basic socioeconomic characteristics of the study areas in 2018
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Table 8 Name and definition of the variables in the regression models
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Table 9 Pig production in the Northern mountains of Vietnam, in period of 2014–2018
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Table 10 Multicollinearity test
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Table 11 Quality test for propensity score matching
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; Fig. 3.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Propensity score distribution and common support for propensity score estimation by groups. Note: “Treated: on support” presents the households with pig production that have a suitable match, while “Treated: off support” presents the households with pig production that do not have a suitable match, and “Untreated” presents the households without pig production. Basic case is that the group of households with pig production is treatment and the group of households with no pig production is control. Case 1 is that the group of households with more than one pig is treatment and the other households group is control. Case 2 is that the group of households with more than two pigs is treatment and the other households group is control

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Ho, NN., Do, T.L., Tran, DT. et al. Indigenous pig production and welfare of ultra-poor ethnic minority households in the Northern mountains of Vietnam. Environ Dev Sustain 24, 156–179 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01348-6

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