The Red River Delta of Vietnam is an area of dense human settlement and intensive land use. In the past, the region’s villagers have been able to increase production sufficient to cope with increased population. Whether further increases in population can be supported by the land and whether current high levels of production can be sustained are questions which have yet to be answered. This paper attempts to answer these questions in the specific context of an agricultural village, Nguyen Xa, in the densely settled Red River Delta province of Thai Binh.

Nguyen Xa was selected because it represented the extreme case of population pressures on natural resources in Vietnam. This paper will draw upon fieldwork jointly conducted in 1991 and 1992 by researchers from the Southeast Asian Agroecosystem Network (SUAN), the Program on Environment at the East West Center, the Southeast Asian Agroecosystem Network (SUAN), Center for Natural Resources Management and Environmental Studies at Hanoi University, and Hanoi Agricultural University.

This paper will be comprised of three different sections: the first section will focus on presenting an introduction to the region and providing specific information relevant to the understanding of this paper; the second section will present the village of Nguyen Xa, and briefly discuss certain key issues that might contribute to our analysis of the region’s sustainability; the last section will explore the issues of rural development in the Red River Delta, and how Nguyen Xa’s specific situation might provide clues to the prospect of the region’s long-term development.